Characterizing Non-governmental Organizations And Local Government Collaborations In Urban Forest Management Across Canada.

Urban forests are being threatened by rapid urbanization, biodiversity crises, and climate variability. In response, governments are increasingly collaborating with the public for solutions to these mounting challenges. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are dominant players in these collaborations because of their ability to supplement governments' expertize and resources and bring social and ecological issues to the forefront of civic agendas. Despite their growing visibility in urban forest management, there is a lack of attention directed to the forms and range of NGO relationships. This study focuses on addressing this gap and examining collaborations between local governments and NGOs in urban forest programming by characterizing their components including mandates, relationship ties, accountability, resource exchange, and power dynamics. We collected data using semi-structured interviews with three groups: leaders of NGOs, municipal government officials in an urban forest or public works departments, and urban-forest experts who have observed their interactions. The participants represent 32 individuals in nine Canadian cities. Our results indicate that NGO-government collaborations have relational ties and accountability processes that are both formal and informal in nature. Formality in collaborations is often associated with the amount of funding, proximity to government, or size of the NGO. In addition, our findings suggest that NGOs present an opportunity for local governments to supplement their resources and capacity. While the strength and formality of collaborations may be a product of NGO size and budgets, public servants should not hesitate to engage smaller, grassroots NGOs to realize their public service mandates. Characterizing the components of these governance processes provides a benchmark for practitioners participating in similar public-civic interactions and arms them with the knowledge to navigate collaborative decision-making.

Effects of EU illegal logging policy on timber-supplying countries: A systematic review.

The EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Action Plan (FLEGT) adopted in 2003 includes bilateral trade agreements known as Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) signed between the EU and timber-supplying countries. The EU has invested more than 1.5 billion euros in VPAs; however, only one of the seven concerned countries has managed to complete all the necessary requirements to expire FLEGT licences. Since there is no research that comprehensively integrates the scientific evidence regarding the effects of this policy, this study systematically reviews all empirical scientific studies on the effects of VPAs. We found that almost all relevant studies are case reports that use qualitative data and focus on only one country at a time, mainly Ghana, Cameroon, or Indonesia. The evidence suggests that while VPAs have contributed to the establishment of governance structures, tools, and procedures they have not been able to solve social problems (i.e., inequality and injustice) and have potentially harmed the economies of EU timber suppliers. Evidence on the effects of VPAs on illegal logging and trade and the environment remains limited. Thus, future research should focus on more countries; use a greater range of methods, including comparative experimental designs; explore possible intended effects on under-researched categories; and systematically investigate unintended effects on other categories within and outside the forestry sector.

Governance Innovations for forest ecosystem service provision - Insights from an EU-wide survey.

This paper analyses the occurrence of governance innovations for forest ecosystem service (FES) provision in the forestry sector in Europe and the factors that influence innovation development. Based on a European-wide online survey, public and private forest owners and managers representing different property sizes indicate what type of governance innovation activities they engage in, and why. To investigate forestry innovations as systems, the analysis focuses on biophysical, social and technical factors influencing innovation development. The results of our exploratory quantitative analysis show that most innovation activities identified are largely oriented towards biomass production. Accordingly, most forest owners implement efficiency-driven optimisation strategies for forest management and technological improvement for provisioning service supply, to generate income. In contrast, the provision of regulating and cultural services is not yet a prominent part of forestry innovation activities.Reasons are rooted in a market-oriented economic rationale focusing on timber production, a lack of financial resources to compensate for other FES provisions or institutions to provide backup and security to forest owners and managers for engaging in innovation development. Given that the provision of a wide range of FES is a politically well-established objective for forest management in Europe, a strategy is needed that helps to align actors and sectors for supporting and co-financing related forest management approaches and business models. The current revision of the forest related policy framework on EU level under the EU Green deal poses a window of opportunity for better fostering novel governance approaches for more sustainable FES provision.

Can Forest Managers Plan for Resilient Landscapes? Lessons from the United States National Forest Plan Revision Process.

The United States Forest Service, a federal agency entrusted with managing 78 M hectares of national forestlands under a broad multiple-use mandate, has seen recent shifts in policy direction emphasizing ecological restoration, consideration of climate change impacts, and a focus on managing for resilient landscapes. The process of revising the comprehensive plans guiding national forest management presents opportunities to reorient objectives, activities, and commitments toward these goals. Here we analyze case studies of three national forests that have completed the forest plan revision process since 2014: the Francis Marion National Forest in coastal South Carolina, the Kaibab National Forest in northern Arizona, and the Rio Grande National Forest in southern Colorado. We analyze plan revision participants' perspectives on the opportunities and barriers to reorienting national forest management toward resilient landscapes and the broader political, social, and institutional factors that influence these dynamics. Key opportunities included better promoting resilient landscape objectives by revising fire management guidelines, incorporating scientific data and modeling from multiple agency and non-agency partners, and building opportunities for adaptive management via long-term trust networks. Major barriers included inconsistent higher-level support for resilience objectives, an emphasis on meeting narrow quantitative performance targets, and under-investments in monitoring.

How forest data catalysed change in four successful case studies.

This paper presents four case studies in which forest data catalysed shifts in public policy and corporate activities. Brazil greatly reduced deforestation during the period between 2005 and 2014; Cameroon introduced a structured forest concessions regime; Viet Nam achieved their forest transition; and corporate operations around the world invested in supply chain management to alleviate deforestation concerns. We break the problem-solving required for these achievements into four steps: problem recognition, proposal and choice of solution, putting the solution into effect, and monitoring results. At each of these steps, we consider the relevant forest data. Data helped place issues on policymaker agendas, supported reaching sound decisions and enabled quantitative targets. Policy instruments for implementing change were built around available data and forest monitoring helped evaluate progress. The details of these successes can be an inspiration to those interested in improving collection of data on forests that can effectively support decision-making and better policies. There have been impressive recent improvements to many developing countries' national forest monitoring capabilities. The successful examples of data application presented and evaluated here provide insight into how these new data can be effectively leveraged.

Comparing forest governance models against invasive biological threats.

In order to take account of the negative effects of invasive species and pathogens on networked forest areas, we study the dynamics of stochastic closed-loop input-output systems faced with the risk of external random perturbations. The extension of previous works on robustness is carried out by introducing a negative feedback mechanism, such that the output from an element contained in the system behaves as a negative input toward elements to which it is connected. Through the study of an overall network divided into compartments barely connected to one another, we first consider the pathway pertaining to monofunctional zoning. By looking at a single aggregated structure, we then move our focus to the pathway proper to multifunctionality. Our results show that, at significant time scales, the monofunctional-zoning mode of forest governance, generally applied in Australasia, performs robustly against invasive biological threats at all levels of outbreak probability. The multifunctional mode of forest governance, further practiced in Western Europe, is mainly sturdy when the probability of invasion verges into certainty. Should this not be the case, robustness is ensured would disturbers and perturbations be uncorrelated. Accordingly, the monofunctional pathway can afford adopting control strategies for outbreak avoidance, which is only acceptable in case the expected invasion can be halted. For the sake of maintaining low likelihood of invasion, the multifunctional pathway is compelled to applying preventive strategies.

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.

Top-down, Bottom-up and Sideways: The Multilayered Complexities of Multi-level Actors Shaping Forest Governance and REDD+ Arrangements in Madre de Dios, Peru.

This study examines the role multilevel governance plays in the adoption of sustainable landscape management initiatives in emerging arrangements aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). It sheds light on the challenges these multiple layers of actors and interests encounter around such alternatives in a subnational jurisdiction. Through transcript analysis of 93 interviews with institutional actors in the region of Madre de Dios, Peru, particularly with regard to five sites of land-use change, we identified the multiple actors who are included and excluded in the decision-making process and uncovered their complex interactions in forest and landscape governance and REDD+ arrangements. Madre de Dios is a useful case for studying complex land-use dynamics, as it is home to multiple natural resources, a large mix of actors and interests, and a regional government that has recently experienced the reverberations of decentralization. Findings indicate that multiple actors shaped REDD+ to some extent, but REDD+ and its advocates were unable to shape land-use dynamics or landscape governance, at least in the short term. In the absence of strong and effective regional regulation for sustainable land use alternatives and the high value of gold on the international market, illegal gold mining proved to be a more profitable land-use choice. Although REDD+ created a new space for multilevel actor interaction and communication and new alliances to emerge, the study questions the prevailing REDD+ discourse suggesting that better coordination and cooperation will lead to integrated landscape solutions. For REDD+ to be able to play a role in integrated landscape governance, greater attention needs to be paid to grassroots actors, power and authority over territory and underlying interests and incentives for land-use change.

Forest protected areas governance in Zimbabwe: Shift needed away from a long history of local community exclusion.

In this literature review based paper we explored the concept of exclusion of local communities from accessing resources in forest protected areas (FPAs) in Zimbabwe. We discussed the colonial and post-colonial forms, causes and mechanisms of exclusion and their social, economic and ecological outcomes. We examined the range of powers embodied in and exercised through various mechanisms, processes and social relations and their impact on local communities' access to FPA resources and associated benefits along the historical trajectory of forest governance in Zimbabwe. Results showed that the forms and extent of exclusion changed over time in tandem with the shifting political and economic landscape. During the colonial period, it was total exclusion whereby people were evicted from forest land as well as being denied access to basic resources for their livelihoods. Local communities' access to low value FPA resources improved during the post-colonial period but access to high value resources like commercial timber as well as sharing income benefits derived from FPA commercial activities remained a pipe dream. Regulation, legitimation, force and markets constituted the mixture of the power elements that FPA governing authorities used to exclude local communities. These powers remained intact despite attempts at collaborative governance in the 1990s. However, from the year 2000, local communities expressed their dissatisfaction with the centralised exclusionary governance system by invading the FPAs rendering them ungovernable. There is therefore a need for policy reform within the FPA sector to improve the current dire situation.

'Glocalizing' land-use and forest governance in the tropics: examining research partnerships and international forest policies affecting Brazil, DRC and Indonesia.

Background: International and market forces are key drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, with transnational and market-based solutions in land-use and forest governance often missing economic, distributive, and environmental targets. Methods: This paper tackles both the framing and effectiveness of transnational initiatives affecting forest lands and peoples in the Global South, and the quality of relationships between institutions in the Global North and the Global South. Through more equitable research partnerships, this paper draws lessons from case studies in Indonesia (legality verification system in different forest property regimes), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (lifting of a moratorium on new logging concession), and Brazil (FSC in the Amazon region and the Amazon Fund). Results: International partnerships have privileged market-based instruments and commodity exchange between Global South and Global North countries, and the benefits of such mechanisms are unevenly distributed. Complementary and alternative policy instruments are discussed for each geography. Conclusions: Glocalizing land-use and forest governance implies in advancing equitable research partnerships between institutions in the Global South and Global North, and strengthening a community of practice for critical enquiry and engagement in partnerships for sustainable development. Land-use, climate and forest governance mechanisms must redress power dynamics, and partnership models, and commit to improving well-being and sustainable livelihood outcomes.

Detecting formal and informal interests in forest governance.

To reveal the interests of actors in forest governance, this paper proposes a power-based interest identification (PII) approach. Based on the assumption of intentional action, the benefits that actors derive from policy impacts are the result of interest-driven actions. This paper further proposes a theoretical definition of interests that includes formal goals at the social and ecological levels, as well as informal political, economic, and strategic interests. Researchers need to identify powerful actors by identifying power mechanisms and resources, and can then observe actors' formal goals through interviews and documents. For informal interests, the actor observes the informal gains of powerful actors in policy impacts, which are then coded according to political, economic, and strategic interests. Combining these steps, actors can infer the formal and informal interests of powerful actors.•Researchers can verify actors' formal objectives by interview and documents.•Among policy impacts, researchers can observe influences at the social and ecological levels, as well as changes in actors' control, economic gains, and dissemination of ideas.•Researchers can infer informal interests of powerful actors from observation of policy impacts.

Forests under the Southern Cross: The forest environmental frontier in Australia and New Zealand.

Australia and New Zealand share many historical and contemporary commonalities. These define five contemporary forest environmental frontiers-for First Nations peoples, between agriculture and forestry, in forest management, in urban and peri-urban environments, and in relation to climate change. In both countries, the First Nations frontier is expanding in scale and significance with those peoples' rights to land and forests. Frontiers with agriculture and in forest management are longstanding but dynamic and as yet little realised in relation to the need for forest and landscape restoration. Both countries are highly urbanised, elevating the significance of the urban and peri-urban frontier, particularly in the context of climate change. In both countries, forests will be profoundly impacted by climate change and are central to mitigation and adaptation strategies. Experience within and intersections between the frontiers offer encouraging prospects for synergies and for learning between the two countries and more widely.

Problem-method fit in forest policy analysis: Empirical pre-orientation for selecting tested or innovative social-qualitative methods.

An array of research methods has been employed for social-qualitative inquiries. However, the selection of specific research methods has rarely been given adequate attention. We mapped out the variety of research methods used in social-qualitative inquiries used in the study of forest policy. Our "problem-method fit" map is based on the usage quantity of a method employed in specific forest policy research themes and contextual analyses. Our map provides a suitable basis for rapid appraisal before deciding appropriate research methods for future studies. While the map provides only an indication of the appropriate methods, it may be supplemented and adapted case-by-case according to the specific needs of the research theme. •We mapped the commonly used research methods in forest policy analysis•The map is "problem-method fit" for specific policy themes and contextual analyses•It can be used as for rapid appraisal when choosing appropriate research methods.

Power, policy and the Prunus africana bark trade, 1972-2015.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: After almost 50 years of international trade in wild harvested medicinal bark from Africa and Madagascar, the example of Prunus africana holds several lessons for both policy and practice in the fields of forestry, conservation and rural development. Due to recent CITES restrictions on P. africana exports from Burundi, Kenya and Madagascar, coupled with the lifting of the 2007 European Union (EU) ban in 2011, Cameroon's share of the global P. africana bark trade has risen from an average of 38% between 1995 and 2004, to 72.6% (658.6 metric tons) in 2012. Cameroon is therefore at the center of this international policy arena. METHODS AND MATERIALS: This paper draws upon several approaches, combining knowledge in working with P. africana over a 30-year period with a thorough literature review and updated trade data with "ground-truthing" in the field in 2013 and 2014. This enabled the construction of a good perspective on trade volumes (1991-2012), bark prices (and value-chain data) and the gaps between research reports and practice. Two approaches provided excellent lenses for a deeper understanding of policy failure and the "knowing-doing gap" in the P. africana case. A similar approach to Médard's (1992) analyses of power, politics and African development was taken and secondly, studies of commodity chains that assess the power relations that coalesce around different commodities (Ribot, 1998; Ribot and Peluso, 2003). RESULTS: Despite the need to conserve genetically and chemically diverse P. africana, wild populations are vulnerable, even in several "protected areas" in Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the forest reserves of Madagascar. Secondly, hopes of decentralized governance of this forest product are misplaced due to elite capture, market monopolies and subsidized management regimes. At the current European price, for P. africana bark (US$6 per kg) for example, the 2012 bark quota (658.675t) from Cameroon alone was worth over US$3.9 million, with the majority of this accruing to a single company. In contrast to lucrative bark exports, the livelihood benefits and financial returns to local harvesters from wild harvest are extremely low. For example, in 2012, the 48 active harvesters working within Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP) received less than 1US$ per day from bark harvests, due to a net bark price of 0.33 US$ per kg (or 43% of the farm gate price for wild harvested bark). In addition, the costs of inventory, monitoring and managing sustainable wild harvests are far greater than the benefits to harvesters. CONCLUSION: Without the current substantial international donor subsidies, sustainable harvest cannot be sustained. What is required to supply the current and future market is to develop separate, traceable P. africana bark supply chains based on cultivated stocks. On-farm production would benefit thousands of small-scale farmers cultivating P. africana, including local women, for whom wild harvesting is too onerous. This change requires CITES and EU support and would catalyze P. africana cultivation in across several montane African countries and Madagascar, increasing farm-gate prices to harvesters compared to economic returns from wild harvest.