Ecological and social outcomes of a new protected area in Tanzania.

Balancing ecological and social outcomes of conservation actions is recognized in global conservation policy but is challenging in practice. Compensation to land owners or users for foregone assets has been proposed by economists as an efficient way to mitigate negative social impacts of human displacement from protected areas. Joint empirical assessments of the conservation and social impacts of protected area establishment involving compensation payments are scarce. We synthesized social and biological studies related to the establishment of the Derema forest corridor in Tanzania's biodiverse East Usambara Mountains. This lengthy conservation process involved the appropriation of approximately 960 ha of native canopy agroforest and steep slopes for the corridor and monetary compensation to more than 1100 claimants in the surrounding villages. The overarching goals from the outset were to conserve ecological processes while doing no harm to the local communities. We evaluated whether these goals were achieved by analyzing 3 indicators of success: enhancement of forest connectivity, improvement of forest condition, and mitigation of negative impacts on local people's livelihoods. Indicators of forest connectivity and conditions were enhanced through reductions of forest loss and exotic species and increases in native species and canopy closure. Despite great efforts by national and international organizations, the intervention failed to mitigate livelihood losses especially among the poorest people. The Derema case illustrates the challenges of designing and implementing compensation schemes for conservation-related displacement of people.

Understanding and integrating local perceptions of trees and forests into incentives for sustainable landscape management.

We examine five forested landscapes in Africa (Cameroon, Madagascar, and Tanzania) and Asia (Indonesia and Laos) at different stages of landscape change. In all five areas, forest cover (outside of protected areas) continues to decrease despite local people's recognition of the importance of forest products and services. After forest conversion, agroforestry systems and fallows provide multiple functions and valued products, and retain significant biodiversity. But there are indications that such land use is transitory, with gradual simplification and loss of complex agroforests and fallows as land use becomes increasingly individualistic and profit driven. In Indonesia and Tanzania, farmers favor monocultures (rubber and oil palm, and sugarcane, respectively) for their high financial returns, with these systems replacing existing complex agroforests. In the study sites in Madagascar and Laos, investments in agroforests and new crops remain rare, despite government attempts to eradicate swidden systems and their multifunctional fallows. We discuss approaches to assessing local values related to landscape cover and associated goods and services. We highlight discrepancies between individual and collective responses in characterizing land use tendencies, and discuss the effects of accessibility on land management. We conclude that a combination of social, economic, and spatially explicit assessment methods is necessary to inform land use planning. Furthermore, any efforts to modify current trends will require clear incentives, such as through carbon finance. We speculate on the nature of such incentive schemes and the possibility of rewarding the provision of ecosystem services at a landscape scale and in a socially equitable manner.