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.
Certifying forests: How REDD+ can learn from experience
BOGOR, Indonesia (6 July, 2011)_REDD+ proponents can learn from the multistakeholder approach of experienced certification body, the Forest Stewardship Council, helping to avoid treacherous forest management politics and better engaging civil society and the private sector in sustainable forest p
World Bank: Registering UN forestry projects is too complex
The World Bank has warned that the complicated processes that afforestation and reforestation projects have to adhere to in order to qualify for the UN's planned forest-based carbon trading system could stifle growth for the embryonic sector.
Mondi Hosts Green Event at WWT Wetland Centre in Barnes
Vienna, Austria, Jul 5, 2011 – Mondi Uncoated Fine Paper UK is holding the Green Event at the WWT Wetland Centre in Barnes, London, UK, on the 29th September 2011.
Implementing REDD+: lessons from analysis of forest governance
The anticipated benefits and co-benefits of REDD+ generated considerable enthusiasm and momentum prior to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, and the lack of agreement of a global mechanism for REDD+ at that Conference generated corresponding disappointment.
THE United Nations says it will closely monitor all the funds it will give Zambia for climate change projects.
And the UN has given Zambia US$4.5 million for the implementation of the UN-REDD plus project.
In an interview, United Nations Development Plan (UNDP) environment finance advisor for Africa Josep Gari said corruption was undermining the country’s development.
Gari said the UN would set up an anti-corruption initiative to ensure that the funds were put to good use.
New nano material developed from wood and straw pulp is stronger than steel
It’s super strong, it’s green and it’s providing new opportunities for business in Alberta. It’s called nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and Alberta is about to become a leader in its production and study.
