To understand variables that link the welfare, livelihood and the watershed is crucial when instituting the integrated watershed management. This requires having indicators to show changes of the condition of the welfare, livelihoods and watershed resources. However, the combination of livelihoods and welfare of the local communities who depend largely on watershed resources for income, food, energy and shelter have not been adequately considered elsewhere.

This study seeks to value ecosystem services in the Kgalagadi area in South Africa by applying the choice experiment technique. The values placed on dryland ecosystem services by indigenous communities are estimated using a conditional logit model, a random parameter logit model and a random parameter logit model with interactions.

The results show that local communities would prefer increased grazing, firewood collection, hunting opportunities, and harvesting of medicinal plants.
 

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, is a mechanism for providing financial rewards to countries that reduce carbon emissions caused by the loss and degradation of their forests. In concept, REDD resembles other Payment for Environmental Services (PES) programs. However, REDD emphasizes a reduction in deforestation and degradation rates from expected levels, also known as avoided deforestation and degradation.

Many protected areas or parks in developing countries have buffer zones at their boundaries to achieve the dual goals of protecting park resources and providing resource benefits to neighbouring people.

The chapter is a case study of tenure security and ecosystem service provisioning in Kenya. It provides support to a strong positive link between tenure security and investment in soil and water conservation. Evidence from 18 villages in rural Kenya suggests that household income tends to increase as a result of land conservation investments. This is particularly the case when land is registered in the name of the household head rather than another member of the extended family.

This study was carried out to find out the impact of PES on the welfare of the communities in the Uluguru Mountains. The objective is to assess PES project which aims at conserving the environment (forest) and reducing poverty level.

The assessment of the project is done by looking at the difference between the treatment group (those who participate in PES) and control group (households who do not participate).

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of land rights and tenure types on farmers' investment behavior in Chinese collective forests, using household survey data from Fujian Province.

Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the authors conducted a household survey in Fujian province of 520 randomly selected forest farmers. The authors used a random-effects Tobit model to estimate the impact of land rights and other components on, for example, tenure security and harvest quota, and the impact of tenure types on farmers' investment incentives.

This paper assesses how tenure reform in China's collective forest sector affects Chinese farmer households’ perception of tenure security and propensity to invest in their forestland. A large database consisting of information from 3,180 households in eight provinces from south to north is used to explore factors correlated with more strongly perceived tenure security and determinants of forest-related investment.