Evaluating the costs of primary forest conservation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, implications for policy and practice.

Accurate cost information is needed to assess the trade-offs in land management choices for policy and markets to effectively scale forest conservation impact. Choice of valuation method can affect value estimates of the costs associated with forest conservation for heterogenous rural households in poorly functioning markets. We present empirical evidence on the divergence in measures between a market price and contingent valuation estimate for costs of local forest access restrictions from household surveys deploying quantitative valuation methods, conducted in two forest communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Household demographic characteristics and attitudes of the household on forest use significantly influence required levels of compensation to participate in forest protection. Quantitative knowledge of such costs can help in the design of efficient and effective policies to protect primary forests aimed at reducing the drivers of deforestation.

Community evaluation of forest and REDD+ governance quality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has over 100 million Ha of forest and has significant potential to benefit from these forests, including through REDD+ if they are managed effectively. Effective governance of forest landscapes is essential for environmental management and equitable harnessing of ecosystem service benefits for communities. Poor governance, political instability, and capacity limitations in the DRC are widely highlighted. However, there have been few, if any, attempts to evaluate forest governance in the DRC, especially at the community level. This paper reports a community-level evaluation of forest governance in the DRC, using a survey method. The results suggest that REDD+ projects have the ability to improve forest governance as perceived by the community. The research shows that building the right capacity, consulting and accessing the needs of the community and building long-term projects and partnerships a key success factors. These findings and the novel approach to supporting communities to evaluate their governance are applicable to similar community-level forest governance contexts.

Low N2O and variable CH4 fluxes from tropical forest soils of the Congo Basin.

Globally, tropical forests are assumed to be an important source of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) and sink for methane (CH4). Yet, although the Congo Basin comprises the second largest tropical forest and is considered the most pristine large basin left on Earth, in situ N2O and CH4 flux measurements are scarce. Here, we provide multi-year data derived from on-ground soil flux (n = 1558) and riverine dissolved gas concentration (n = 332) measurements spanning montane, swamp, and lowland forests. Each forest type core monitoring site was sampled at least for one hydrological year between 2016 - 2020 at a frequency of 7-14 days. We estimate a terrestrial CH4 uptake (in kg CH4-C ha-1 yr-1) for montane (-4.28) and lowland forests (-3.52) and a massive CH4 release from swamp forests (non-inundated 2.68; inundated 341). All investigated forest types were a N2O source (except for inundated swamp forest) with 0.93, 1.56, 3.5, and -0.19 kg N2O-N ha-1 yr-1 for montane, lowland, non-inundated swamp, and inundated swamp forests, respectively.

Looking for medium-term conservation and development impacts of community management agreements in Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains National Park.

We evaluate the impact of collaborative management agreements (CMAs) designed to protect forests and raise incomes for smallholders living adjacent to Rwenzori Mountains National Park (RMNP), Uganda. We use a quasi-experimental study design to estimate changes in several income measures, as well as land cover using three waves (2003, 2007, and 2012) of household survey and remote sensing data. Overall, we find no significant impact of CMAs on any of our income measures. However, when disaggregating households by income quartile, we find that access to forest resources in RMNP may have had an income stabilizing effect for poor households. Forest income grew significantly faster among the poorest quartile of treatment relative to control households, partially because poor households recorded very low income from forests at baseline. The effect of CMAs on forest cover is minimal, although we find that conversion of woody savanna and savanna to cropland is more pronounced in villages with CMAs. These findings suggest that in the medium-term, CMAs have failed to deliver conservation or development benefits related to enhancing livelihoods or conserving forests near RMNP. Practitioners should consider different CMA models or other strategies for improving welfare and forest health outcomes in communities neighboring protected areas.