This paper examines the impact of agriculture-related shocks on consumption patterns of rural farming households using 3 years of data from South Africa. We make two key observations.

In many lower-income countries, the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) involves significant opportunity costs for artisanal fishers, reflected in changes in how they allocate their labor in response to the MPA. The resource economics literature rarely addresses such labor allocation decisions of artisanal fishers and how, in turn, these contribute to the impact of MPAs on fish stocks, yield, and income.

Both Tanzania’s and Costa Rica’s beaches provide important nesting sites for endangered sea turtles. Poaching of eggs by local people for food or for sale presents a major threat to these species, as do other predators. This harvesting of eggs in MPAs, and throughout Costa Rica, remains illegal, but enforcement on long beaches proves difficult. Both countries have active organizations that attempt to reduce this poaching, sometimes involving moving nests.

This paper identifies conditions under which the Clean Development Mechanism and other carbon finance projects effectively generate genuine, “additional” carbon credits—relying on a systematic empirical investigation of afforestation/reforestation and bioenergy carbon finance projects across Tanzania, Uganda, and Moldova. At low global carbon prices, additionality was related to the interests of project developers and their resulting capacities and motivations for project implementation.

The EfD Report 2014/15  gives you an excellent overview of the EfD centres´ achievements during 2014 and ongoing work during 2015. Ranging from interesting policy stories on how economic research is put to use around the world to collaborative research programs, a wide range of publications, and our academic capacity building program. 

In Sub-Saharan Africa, climate change is set to hit the agricultural sector the most severely and cause suffering, particularly for smallholder farmers. To cushion themselves against potential welfare losses, smallholder farmers need to recognize the changes already taking place in their climate and undertake appropriate investments in adaptation. This study investigates whether these smallholder farmers in Tanzania recognize climate change and, consequently, adapt to it in their agricultural activities.

We examine the welfare implications of the Tanzanian fisheries boom resulting from Lake Victoria Nile perch exports during 1993–2008. In the literature, there are two opposing views on the effect of fish trade: some argue that fish trade can act as an engine of growth, while others contend that trade in fish negatively affects food security, local economies and incomes of the poor.