Insiders, Outsiders, and the Role of Local Enforcement in Forest Management: An Example from Tanzania

Submitted by admin on 11 June 2012

Typically both local villagers (“insiders”) and non-locals (“outsiders”) extract products from protected forests even though the activities are illegal. Our paper suggests that, depending on the relative ecological damage caused by each group, budget-constrained forest managers may be able to reduce total forest degradation by legalizing “insider” extraction in return for local villagers involvement in enforcement activities.

Forestry

Private Trees as Household Assets and Determinants of Tree-Growing Behavior in Rural Ethiopia

Submitted by admin on 30 December 2011

This study looked into tree-growing behavior of rural households in Ethiopia. With data collected at household and parcel levels from the four major regions of Ethiopia, we analyzed the decision to grow trees and the number of trees grown, using such econometric strategies as a zero-inflated negative binomial model, Heckman’s two-step procedure, and panel data techniques.

Agriculture, Forestry, Policy Design

Impacts of Policy Measures on the Development of State-Owned Forests in Northeastern China: Theoretical Results and Empirical Evidence

Submitted by admin on 22 December 2011

State-owned forest enterprises (SOFEs) in northeast China and Inner Mongolia play important roles both in timber production and in the maintenance of ecological security. However, since the late 1970s, forest resource and economic crises have seriously restricted these functions.

Forestry, Policy Design

Forest Tenure Reform in China: A Choice Experiment on Farmers’ Property Rights Preferences

Submitted by admin on 21 October 2011

Decentralization experiments are currently underway in the Chinese forestry sector. However, researchers and policy makers tend to ignore a key question: what do forest farmers really want from reform?

Forestry

Can Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment of REDD+ Improve Forest Governance?

Submitted by admin on 28 July 2011

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility has recently proposed the application of strategic environmental social assessment (SESA) for incorporating environmental and social considerations in the preparation of REDD+ initiatives. This paper discusses the potential contribution of SESA to REDD+ initiatives drawing on experiences from earlier attempts to large scale forestry sector reforms and a recent World Bank pilot program on strategic environmental assessment.

Forestry, Policy Design

A spatial–temporal analysis of the impact of access restrictions on forest landscapes and household welfare in Tanzania

Submitted by admin on 7 March 2011

This paper explores the impact of the re-introduction of access restrictions to forests in Tanzania, through participatory forest management (PFM), that have excluded villagers from forests to which they have traditionally, albeit illegally, had access to collect non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Motivated by our fieldwork, and using a spatial–temporal model, we focus on the paths of forest degradation and regeneration and villagers' utility before and after an access restriction is introduced.

Forestry

Including Carbon Emissions from Deforestation in the Carbon Footprint of Beef

Submitted by admin on 10 February 2011

Effects of land use changes are starting to be included in estimates of life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, so-called carbon footprints (CFs), from food production. Their omission can lead to serious underestimates, particularly for meat. Here we estimate emissions from the conversion of forest to pasture in the Legal Amazon Region (LAR) of Brazil and present a model to distribute the emissions from deforestation over products and time subsequent to the land use change.

Agriculture, Climate Change, Forestry

China’s Forest Land Tenure Reform: Impacts and Implications for Choice, Conservation and Climate Change

Submitted by admin on 31 January 2011

Climate change has brought issues of deforestation and forest land governance to the forefront. It is now widely accepted that deforestation and must be addressed in order to effectively reduce sociated weak local land use governance is a key driver behind deforestation and degradation and associated forest degradation are responsible for about 17% of total global carbon emissions—with over 70% of these emissions coming from forest burning and clearing in the five forest-rich countries of Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Forestry