Satisfaction of communities living close to forests with forest management authorities is essential for ensuring continued support for conservation efforts. However, more often than not, community satisfaction is not systematically elicited, analyzed, and incorporated in conservation decisions.

Fertilizer use (including dung) in Ethiopia is low, particularly in the northern highlands, where dung is a significant source of household fuel.

Forest data from the recent period of rapid growth in China show interesting macroeconomic and population impacts on the forest.

Current conservation debates place high emphasis on the need to integrate the views and needs of local communities in conservation processes. Understanding local community perceptions of forest management and the factors that influence these perceptions is important for designing management policies that are sensitive to their needs. However, more often than not local communities’ perceptions do not receive as much attention as they deserve.

This paper reviews the state of economic understanding about fuelwood in developing countries. It synthesizes the main results from numerous empirical studies with the intent of identifying implications for policy and pointing out where important questions remain unanswered.

This brief is a summary of the main outcomes of a forest policy workshop on “Policies to increase forest cover in Ethiopia” held on 18-19 September 2007 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A promising concept that has received considerable attention, Payment-for-ecosystems- services has the potential to become a conventional environmental management tool.

Proceedings of a policy workshop on Policies to increase forest cover in Ethiopia held on 18-19 September 2007 at Global Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Community forestry projects in Ethiopia have been implemented using the top–down approach, which may have contributed to the failure of most of these projects. The so-called community plantations practically belonged to the government and the labour contribution of the local communities in the establishment of the plantations was mainly in exchange for wages.

Managed forest ecosystems like shade coffee supply valuable ecological services. Yet little is known about the drivers and characteristics of clearing in such systems.