Deforestation has led to substantial loss of natural forests worldwide, resulting in forest fragmentation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and carbon loss. In response to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, particularly the Global Forest Goals, China implemented a series of large-scale ecological restoration programs. In the context of coexisting forest restoration and forest loss, the effectiveness of long-term forest ecological restoration programs in optimizing forest fragmentation remains uncertain. Within the framework of long-term ecological restoration programs, we investigate the dynamics of forest fragmentation, analyze the spatial processes of forest expansion and loss, and assess the impact of forest fragmentation on core and edge forests in Panzhihua City using landscape metrics and Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis. At the statistical scale, the rise in AI and CONTAG indices, along with the decline in the SHDI index, signifies a reduction in forest fragmentation. Additionally, the findings of the Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) at the spatial scale corroborate this trend. These results demonstrate that long-term ecological restoration programs reduced forest fragmentation, primarily driven by forest expansion. We discovered that forest fragmentation decreased thanks to three ecological management practices: (1) expanding forest edges (sprawl); (2) converting farmland on the forest's edge to forestland (corridor or sprawl); and (3) closing perforations within forests (infill). Additionally, at the spatial pattern level, the reduction of forest fragmentation enhanced the core forest area (567.36 km2) and declined edge forest area (44.28 km2) in Panzhihua City from 1992 to 2020. Integrating the MSPA analysis with landscape indices enhances our understanding of landscape fragmentation in the region. Considering spatial complexity when analyzing the spatial processes of forest expansion and loss holds significant importance for formulating improvement strategies. Moreover, these findings emphasize the necessity of considering the spatial process of forest expansion while formulating effective forest restoration measures to mitigate fragmentation and minimize the negative impact of edge effects on forests.
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