Abstract

The collective participation of local communities in the management and utilization of forest resources is now widely accepted as a possible solution to the failure of centralized, top-down approaches to forest conservation.Under such initiatives, communities in Kenya have organized themselves into Community Forest Associations

This paper examines whether offering landless forest-adjacent communities options to grow appropriate food crops inside forest reserves during early stages of reforestation programmes increases incomes of low-income households and conserve forests. We consider the forest cover and household welfare impacts of a unique incentive scheme in Kenya known as the Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS). PELIS seeks to deepen community participation in forestry, and improve the livelihoods of adjacent communities.

Wildlife is widely becoming an important vehicle for rural development in most third-world countries across the globe. With wildlife, as with other conservation and development policies, policymakers are usually not informed about the needs and wants of poor rural households and roll out programmes that are not tailor made to suit their desires, which often results in policy failure. We use a survey-based choice experiment in this paper to investigate household preferences for various attributes of a wildlife management scheme. The survey was administered in

Energy prices (for fuel and electricity) and energy price volatility impact wine prices. In the long run, we find a clear link between fuel and wine prices, implying that the two markets positively influence each other to the extent that a change in fuel prices influences wine prices. In the short run, we find that past volatility from wine prices as well as shocks from other markets, i.e., fuel and electricity, influence the current wine prices.

Namibia is the driest country in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the most vulnerable countries to adverse effects of climate change. Reliable climate information and early warning are important tools of managing risks in climate-sensitive economic sectors like agriculture. Despite recent improvements in climate information forecasting, access and use remain low in Africa.

To encourage sustainable use of forests, in 2003 China allowed rural villages to choose among a range of options to manage forests, including individual user rights with joint management. We studied how this individual user rights-based joint management affected forests and households.

Both property rights and voluntary decisions encourage cooperation. This resulted in better forest conservation in these villages in China, with about 10% more forest cover. This is also important because forests store carbon.