Impacts of nonstate, market-driven governance on Chilean forests.

Global markets for agricultural products, timber, and minerals are critically important drivers of deforestation. The supply chains driving land use change may also provide opportunities to halt deforestation. Market campaigns, moratoria, and certification schemes have been promoted as powerful tools to achieve conservation goals. Despite their promise, there have been few opportunities to rigorously quantify the ability of these nonstate, market-driven (NSMD) governance regimes to deliver conservation outcomes. This study analyzes the impacts of three NSMD governance systems that sought to end the conversion of natural forests to plantations in Chile at the start of the 21st century. Using a multilevel, panel dataset of land use changes in Chile, we identify the impact of participation within each of the governance regimes by implementing a series of matched difference-in-differences analyses. Taking advantage of the mosaic of different NSMD regimes adopted in Chile, we explore the relative effectiveness of different policies. NSMD governance regimes reduced deforestation on participating properties by 2-23%. The NSMD governance regimes we studied included collaborative and confrontational strategies between environmental and industry stakeholders. We find that the more collaborative governance systems studied achieved better environmental performance than more confrontational approaches. Whereas many government conservation programs have targeted regions with little likelihood of conversion, we demonstrate that NSMD governance has the potential to alter behavior on high-deforestation properties.

From State-controlled to Polycentric Governance in Forest Landscape Restoration: The Case of the Ecological Forest Purchase Program in Yong'an Municipality of China.

Forest landscape restoration is emerging as an effective approach to restore degraded forests for the provision of ecosystem services and to minimize trade-offs between conservation and rural livelihoods. Policy and institutional innovations in China illustrate the governance transformation of forest landscape restoration from state-controlled to polycentric governance. Based on a case study of the Ecological Forest Purchase Program in Yong'an municipality, China's Fujian Province, this paper explores how such forest governance transformation has evolved and how it has shaped the outcomes of forest landscape restoration in terms of multi-dimensionality and actor configurations. Our analysis indicates that accommodating the participation of multiple actors and market-based instruments facilitate a smoother transition from state-centered to polycentric governance in forest landscape restoration. Governance transitions for forest landscape restoration must overcome a number of challenges including ensurance of a formal participation forum, fair participation, and a sustainable legislative and financial system to enhance long-term effectiveness.

Beliefs about the Potential Impacts of Exploiting Non-Timber Forest Products Predict Voluntary Participation in Monitoring.

Harvesting and trading non-timber forest products is advocated as a win-win strategy for conservation and development, yet it can produce negative ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Hence, monitoring exploitation outcomes is essential, and participatory monitoring has been suggested to be the most suitable approach. Among possible approaches, participatory monitoring is preferred because it is likely to increase people's awareness and beliefs regarding impacts or potential impacts, thus inducing behavioral changes, although the evidence in this regard is contradictory. We therefore evaluated whether people's beliefs about the potential ecological and socioeconomic impacts of non-timber forest product exploitation increased their likelihood of volunteering to monitor. We studied a community of forest inhabitants in the Brazilian Amazon who harvested and traded a commercially important non-timber forest product. Two methods of data gathering were employed: (i) a survey of 166 adults (51 households) to evaluate people's beliefs and their stated intention to engage in four different monitoring tasks and (ii) four pilot monitoring tasks to evaluate who actually participated. Based on mixed-effects regressions, the results indicated that beliefs regarding both types of impacts could predict participation in certain tasks, although gender, age and schooling were occasionally stronger predictors. On average, people had stronger beliefs about potential socioeconomic impacts than about potential ecological impacts, with the former also predicting participation in ecological data gathering. This finding reinforces the importance of monitoring both types of impacts to help achieve the win-win outcomes originally proposed by non-timber forest product trade initiatives.

Factors Limiting Formation of Community Forestry Enterprises in the Southern Mixteca Region of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Many studies have considered community-based forestry enterprises to be the best option for development of rural Mexican communities with forests. While some of Mexico's rural communities with forests receive significant economic and social benefits from having a community forestry enterprise, the majority have not formed such enterprises. The purpose of this article is to identify and describe factors limiting the formation of community forestry enterprise in rural communities with temperate forests in the Southern Mixteca region of Oaxaca, Mexico. The study involved fieldwork, surveys applied to Community Board members, and maps developed from satellite images in order to calculate the forested surface area. It was found that the majority of Southern Mixteca communities lack the natural and social conditions necessary for developing community forestry enterprise; in this region, commercial forestry is limited due to insufficient precipitation, scarcity of land or timber species, community members' wariness of commercial timber extraction projects, ineffective local governance, lack of capital, and certain cultural beliefs. Only three of the 25 communities surveyed have a community forestry enterprise; however, several communities have developed other ways of profiting from their forests, including pine resin extraction, payment for environmental services (PES), sale of spring water, and ecotourism. We conclude that community forestry enterprise are not the only option for rural communities to generate income from their forests; in recent years a variety of forest-related economic opportunities have arisen which are less demanding of communities' physical and social resources.

Land cover and landscape changes in Shaanxi Province during China's Grain for Green Program (2000-2010).

This study examines landscape changes in the context of China's national Grain for Green (GFG) policy, one of the world's largest "payment for environmental/ecosystem services" (PES) programs. We explored landscape structures and dynamics between 2000 and 2010 in Shaanxi Province, the Chinese province with the greatest amount of cropland conversion and reforestation in recent decades. We used Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)-derived data and landscape metrics for six land cover classes to determine (1) the major land cover changes during enforcement of the policy, (2) the spatial and temporal variations in these changes, and (3) the effects of land cover changes on landscape structure and dynamics. The results suggested that provincial-level land cover changes modestly reflected the goals of the GFG. Over the 10-year study period, the forest and grassland coverages expanded from 95,737.9 to 97,017.4 km(2) and from 37,235.9 to 40,613.1 km(2), respectively, while the cropland coverage decreased from 59,222.8 to 54,007.6 km(2). The conversion direction differed regionally: the targeted croplands in Shanbei, namely, types III and IV, were mainly transformed into grassland while those in Shannan were mainly transformed into forestland. Reforestation was associated with increased inter-landscape aggregation and connection. Despite this large-scale reforestation trend, we found notable and significant differences in the land cover changes at the subprovincial level.

Policies for reduced deforestation and their impact on agricultural production.

Policies to effectively reduce deforestation are discussed within a land rent (von Thünen) framework. The first set of policies attempts to reduce the rent of extensive agriculture, either by neglecting extension, marketing, and infrastructure, generating alternative income opportunities, stimulating intensive agricultural production or by reforming land tenure. The second set aims to increase either extractive or protective forest rent and--more importantly--create institutions (community forest management) or markets (payment for environmental services) that enable land users to capture a larger share of the protective forest rent. The third set aims to limit forest conversion directly by establishing protected areas. Many of these policy options present local win-lose scenarios between forest conservation and agricultural production. Local yield increases tend to stimulate agricultural encroachment, contrary to the logic of the global food equation that suggests yield increases take pressure off forests. At national and global scales, however, policy makers are presented with a more pleasant scenario. Agricultural production in developing countries has increased by 3.3-3.4% annually over the last 2 decades, whereas gross deforestation has increased agricultural area by only 0.3%, suggesting a minor role of forest conversion in overall agricultural production. A spatial delinking of remaining forests and intensive production areas should also help reconcile conservation and production goals in the future.

Livelihood sustainability and community based co-management of forest resources in China: changes and improvement.

Community-based co-management (CBCM) has been applied in some communities near natural reserves in China. This paper uses Gansu Baishuijiang National Natural Reserve in China as a case study for livelihood improvements under CBCM projects. We demonstrate change from 2006 to 2010 in five classes of livelihood capital (social, human, natural, physical and financial capitals), illustrating the effectiveness of CBCM projects. Specifically, there are increases in mean family income and improvements in forest conservation. However, some problems in the design and implementation of CBCM projects remain, including the complicated social and political relationship between government and community, social exclusion and uneven application of benefits within communities, and the lack of integration of indigenous cultures and traditional beliefs. Attention for special groups in community and improving the design of CBCM Projects. Study shows that under the cooperation of government, CBCM projects and local community residents, the harmonious development of sustainable livelihood improvement and forest resources conservation will be an important trend in the future.

An estimation of the effects of China's Priority Forestry Programs on farmers' income.

In the late 1990s, the Chinese government initiated some new programs and consolidated other existing ones of ecological restoration and resource development in its forest sector, and renamed them as "Priority Forestry Programs," or PFPs. They include the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP), the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), the Desertification Combating Program around Beijing and Tianjin (DCBT), the Shelterbelt Development Program (SBDP), and the Wildlife Conservation and Nature Reserve Development Program (WCNR). In addition to improving the environmental and resource conditions, a frequently reiterated goal of these PFPs is to increase rural households' income, therefore discussing why looking at rural household income impacts might be an important part of forest program evaluation. Thus, an interesting and important question is: How has implementing the PFPs affected the farmers' income and poverty status? This article addresses this question using a fixed-effects model and a panel dataset that covers 1968 households in four provinces for ten consecutive years (1995-2004). The empirical evidence indicates that their effects are mixed. The SLCP, the SBDP, and the NFPP have made positive impact and, by far, the SLCP has the largest effect. But the WCNR and the DCBT still have not had a pronounced overall effect due to their short time span of execution, even though they may have exerted certain influence at the margin. Notably, the impact of the WCNR, if any, is negative.

Forests, food, and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuels.

The global political economy of biofuels emerging since 2007 appears set to intensify inequalities among the countries and rural peoples of the global South. Looking through a global political economy lens, this paper analyses the consequences of proliferating biofuel alliances among multinational corporations, governments, and domestic producers. Since many major biofuel feedstocks - such as sugar, oil palm, and soy - are already entrenched in industrial agricultural and forestry production systems, the authors extrapolate from patterns of production for these crops to bolster their argument that state capacities, the timing of market entry, existing institutions, and historical state-society land tenure relations will particularly affect the potential consequences of further biofuel development. Although the impacts of biofuels vary by region and feedstock, and although some agrarian communities in some countries of the global South are poised to benefit, the analysis suggests that already-vulnerable people and communities will bear a disproportionate share of the costs of biofuel development, particularly for biofuels from crops already embedded in industrial production systems. A core reason, this paper argues, is that the emerging biofuel alliances are reinforcing processes and structures that increase pressures on the ecological integrity of tropical forests and further wrest control of resources from subsistence farmers, indigenous peoples, and people with insecure land rights. Even the development of so-called 'sustainable' biofuels looks set to displace livelihoods and reinforce and extend previous waves of hardship for such marginalised peoples.

Rural Household Preferences for Active Participation in "Payment for Ecosystem Service" Programs: A Case in the Miyun Reservoir Catchment, China.

Many payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs, such as the Slope Land Conversion Program (SLCP), are passive and require full participation by impacted households. In contrast, this study considers the alternative of "active and incomplete" participation in PES programs, in which participants are not obliged to contract their own land, and have the right to select into the program or not. This type of program has been popular over the last decade in China; however, there have been few studies on the characteristics of willingness to participate and implementation. As such, this paper uses the Choice Experiment (CE) method to explore ways for inducing effective program participation, by analyzing the effects of different regime attributes. The case study used to analyze participation utility was the Jing-Ji Afforestation Program for Ecological and Water Protection (JAPEWP), a typical active-participation forestry PES program, and a key source of water near Beijing in the Miyun Reservoir Catchment (MRC). Analyzing rural household survey data indicated that the program faces a variety of challenges, including long-term maintenance, implementation performance, cost-effectiveness, and monitoring approaches. There are also challenges with one-size-fits-all payment strategies, due to ineffective program participation or imperfect implementation regimes. In response, this study proposes several policies, including providing secure and complete land tenure to the participants, creating more local off-farm employment opportunities, designing performance-based monitoring systems that are integrated with financial incentives, applying differentiated payment strategies, providing capacity building to support forestation activities, and establishing a comprehensive implementation regime that would address these challenges. These policy conclusions provide valuable lessons for other active-participation PES programs as well.

Forest environmental investments and implications for climate change mitigation.

Forest environmental conditions are affected by climate change, but investments in forest environmental quality can be used as part of the climate change mitigation strategy. A key question involving the potential use of forests to store more carbon as part of climate change mitigation is the impact of forest investments on the timing and quantity of forest volumes that affect carbon storage. Using an economic optimization model, we project levels of U.S. forest volumes as indicators of carbon storage for a wide range of private forest investment scenarios. Results show that economic opportunities exist to further intensify timber management on some hectares and reduce the average timber rotation length such that the national volume of standing timber stocks could be reduced relative to projections reflecting historical trends. The national amount of timber volume is projected to increase over the next 50 yr, but then is projected to decline if private owners follow an economic optimization path, such as with more forest type conversions and shorter timber rotations. With perfect foresight, future forest investments can affect current timber harvest levels, with intertemporal linkages based on adjustments through markets. Forest investments that boost regenerated timber yields per hectare would act to enhance ecosystem services (e.g., forest carbon storage) if they are related to the rate of growth and extent of growing stock inventory.

Carbon accounting rules and guidelines for the United States forest sector.

The United States Climate Change Initiative includes improvements to the U.S. Department of Energy's Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The program includes specific accounting rules and guidelines for reporting and registering forestry activities that reduce atmospheric CO2 by increasing carbon sequestration or reducing emissions. In the forestry sector, there is potential for the economic value of emissions credits to provide increased income for landowners, to support rural development, to facilitate the practice of sustainable forest management, and to support restoration of ecosystems. Forestry activities with potential for achieving substantial reductions include, but are not limited to: afforestation, mine land reclamation, forest restoration, agroforestry, forest management, short-rotation biomass energy plantations, forest protection, wood production, and urban forestry. To be eligible for registration, the reported reductions must use methods and meet standards contained in the guidelines. Forestry presents some unique challenges and opportunities because of the diversity of activities, the variety of practices that can affect greenhouse gases, year-to-year variability in emissions and sequestration, the effects of activities on different forest carbon pools, and accounting for the effects of natural disturbance.