Adaptive management decision of agroforestry under timber price risk

In an effort to increase wood production and mitigate environmental problems, agro-forestry practices have emerged as a viable strategy in the Northern Plains of China, where one popular form of the agro-forestry system consists of fast-growing and high-yield plantation of poplar (populus) trees and the underwood planting of button mushroom (Agaricus bisporous). This paper examines adaptive management decision-making with stochastic dynamic programming under risk of timber price. Under the assumption of risk neutral preferences of the investors, the results suggest that the reservation price strategy remains optimal for the harvesting decision of agro-forests: when the timber price is higher than the reservation price, poplar trees should be harvested to end agro-forestry; otherwise, the trees should be retained. Numerical results are presented for sample agro-forest stands, which show that, with underwood planting, the reservation price for timber harvesting will be higher than that in pure forest.     

基于EVA模型的造纸业上市公司投资价值评估的应用探讨——以T公司为例

投资者在对造纸业上市公司进行投资时,事前都会先对其投资价值进行评估,其选用的评估方法也多种多样。其中,EVA模型价值评估法从投资者的角度出发,在估值时将公司的资本成本纳入考虑范围,能够比较客观地反映公司的业绩成果。选用这一方法;同时考虑到造纸业行业的特点,将企业对排污处理的环保投资成本也包含在内,探究EVA指标在造纸行业中的具体应用价值,提出了相关建议。     

Investment Attractiveness of Afforestation in Canada Inclusive of Carbon Sequestration Benefits

Afforestation is one of several possible mechanisms available to sequester carbon and help reduce greenhouse gas concentrations. We have developed a spatial Monte Carlo-based simulation model, Canadian Forest Service—Afforestation Feasibility Model (CFS-AFM) to help assess the financial attractiveness of afforestation as a means of carbon storage in Canada. The model tracks five carbon pools and simulates costs and benefits of plantation investments. In this paper we simulate three afforestation scenarios that could be used in Canada; plantations using hybrid poplar, hardwoods, and softwoods with average growth rates of 14 and 6–7 m³/ha/year, respectively. The attractiveness of afforestation is driven by regional cost and plantation productivity variation and carbon price expectations. The results indicate that afforestation would be an attractive investment in many areas of the country at carbon prices of $10 per metric ton of CO₂ or higher. However, with a zero carbon price, very little afforestation would be financially viable. Thus, with low carbon price expectations, other co-benefits may be required to make afforestation more attractive to Canadian investors.     

Potentialities for a regional public participation framework in Asia: An environmental assessment perspective

This study attempts to investigate the potential to develop a regional framework of public participation (PP) in environmental assessments (EA) within Asia. In so-doing, this paper examines the status quo of public participation in EA within Asia from a legislative point of view. The existing situation of EA in Asia is first examined, followed by an analysis on the status and challenges of PP within the region’s environmental assessments. Eight Asian countries subject for this research have all implemented EA at different degrees, yet challenges of enforcement remain. Possible solutions to these challenges are to first improve and standardize the legal framework and implementation mechanism in each individual country, as a first step leading to a transboundary framework in Asia. PP within EA is legally defined in some countries, but it is not widely practiced. Multi-stakeholder process is suggested as a potential tool that comprehensively covers the components necessary for PP promotion. There are information gaps between countries, which could be improved by creating a regional agency governing information exchange. Limited collaboration among countries, likewise, could be improved by bilateral or multilateral environmental agreements.     

Organizing anarchy: The food security–biodiversity–climate crisis and the genesis of rural land use planning in the developing world

Shortfalls in global food production, coupled with the growing visibility of climate change's disruptive effects, have underlined for many observers the importance of devoting rural lands to their ‘optimal’ use, where they can make maximal contributions to the global imperatives of feeding the human population and maintaining vital environmental services. In this context observers have endorsed rural land use planning as a way to insure that, at least in theory, lands get devoted to their best uses. In practice, land use planning in the developing world has resembled ‘organized anarchy’. Small landholders with insecure land tenure, overseas investors seeking large land deals, NGOs representing indigenous peoples, government officials, and staff from international environmental NGOs and multilateral organizations have come together in strategic action fields to struggle over and sometimes negotiate land use plans for contested landscapes. These plans represent a strategic, spatially explicit response to the climate change–biodiversity–food security crisis.     

Ecosystem-based adaptation in cities: An analysis of European urban climate adaptation plans

Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures have been increasingly promoted in the literature, as well as in policies and practices, for their environmental and socio-economic co-benefits. The recent scientific literature has shown a growing interest to assess climate adaptation plans at the urban level, in recognition of the important role played by urban areas in addressing climate change challenges. However, little information is available on the combination of these two issues, i.e., the actual inclusion of EbA measures in climate adaptation plans at the urban level. This paper addresses this gap by developing a framework to analyze the treatment of EbA in urban level climate planning, and apply it to a sample of climate adaptation plans in Europe. The framework consists of a classification of EbA measures, and a scoring system to evaluate how well they are reflected in different components of the plans. The results suggest that there is in general good awareness in plans of EbA measures, and of their potential role in addressing climate change challenges. However, their treatment in climate adaptation plans at the urban level often lacks sufficient baseline information, as well as convincing implementation actions. The paper concludes by offering recommendations to improve future practice, in terms of enhancing the baseline information to improve the proposal and design of EbA measures, improving the treatment of co-benefits associated to EbA measures, and strengthening coordination with other planning tools. Possible future development of this works include the integration of the proposed EbA classification, and the analysis of a larger sample of territorial plans.     

Large-scale agricultural investments under poor land governance in Zambia

This paper looks at how large-scale land acquisitions made by foreign investors in Zambia are implemented. It scrutinizes both the steps that an investor has to go through in order to attain land within the Zambian land governance system as well as the actors shaping the acquisition process.As the most important formal change introduced to the Zambian land governance system, the Lands Act 1995 paved the way for foreign investments in land. The new actor “investor” on the other hand has emerged as a result of rising prices for food and non-food commodities. The study finds that the enforcement of formal rules in the process of acquiring land is currently weak and largely determined by a number of actors: while investors, local authorities and government officials have strong leverage, local land users are excluded from the process. If the process of transformations of customary land into state land continues, land administration will be inevitably shifted toward statutory jurisdiction. As a result, local chiefs will lose their discretionary power thereby further marginalizing local land users. As it stands, welfare implications are chiefly down to the individual actors. However, it is only the government that can issue a guarantee that local land users will also benefit from land acquisition.     

Agents for diffusion of agricultural innovations for environmental outcomes

In New Zealand, local governments are tasked with both sustainably managing natural resources and supporting adoption of practices and technologies for environmental outcomes. Unfortunately, farmers in New Zealand lack trust in advice on environmental performance provided by local governments. Hence, local governments may seek to partner with others to disseminate information about environmentally friendly practices and technologies to farmers. Empirical evidence indicates that New Zealand farmers are more likely to adopt new practices after seeing them successfully demonstrated; therefore, local government would do well to partner with those who have tried the practices themselves and those with large farmer networks. In this paper, we use unique survey data to identify the characteristics of such “innovators” and “connectors”. We also identify the characteristics of individuals who trust environmental information provided by local governments. We find that sex, age, education level, financial robustness, farm size, and the number of distinct land uses are correlated with both innovativeness and connectedness. However, among these characteristics, only education and financial robustness predict trust in environmental information provided by local governments.     

Real estate sentiment as information for REIT bond pricing

For corporate bond investors, credit ratings have been found to be informationally insufficient due to their limited timeliness and accuracy. This paper investigates the information content of forward-looking commercial real estate investor sentiment for pricing decisions of US REIT bond investors. Using an unbalanced panel data-set for the post-crisis period (2010–2013) and Prais–Winsten regression correcting for contemporaneous and serial correlation, sentiment is found to have a negative effect on REIT bond yields irrespective of S&P index inclusion or credit rating. The effect of sentiment, however, is larger for REITs that are not included in S&P indices than for S&P REITs. Explanations for this finding include institutional investor and REIT characteristics.     

Negotiation issues in forming public–private partnerships for brownfield redevelopment: Applying a game theoretical experiment

The redevelopment of a brownfield can provide a range of societal, environmental but also economic benefits for a number of entities. In the Netherlands (and elsewhere), public–private partnerships are common practice for such projects, because of two main reasons. First, limitations to public funding have led governments to invite the private sector into various long-term arrangements for capital-intensive projects. Second, a comprehensive approach for the whole brownfield area may be more efficient and profitable, compared to piecemeal development via interventions by individual owners. This article investigates, with respect to brownfield redevelopment, the interaction behavior of two key parties in forming partnerships: the municipality and a private developer. It is assumed that, apart from their mutual interest to redevelop the brownfield area, they will have different interests as well. In order to indicate their specific interest and the negotiation outcome regarding the forming of a public private partnership, this paper makes use of an experimental game theory approach. Three specific negotiation issues were analyzed in our research: a building claim, future land use and reparcelling of the land. In addition, this paper suggests an eight-step procedure to conduct a game theoretical experiment. A survey was conducted in order to gather the required data for the experiment. The data have been used to estimate the payoffs variations between the two key parties in the mentioned negotiation games. Finally, by comparing sub game perfect Nash equilibrium generated game outcomes and direct expected outcomes of respondents, this paper experimentally proves that the game theoretical analysis provides a valid representation of a real world brownfield redevelopment negotiation within the Dutch institutional-economic context. The outcome of the experiment confirms the Dutch tradition of public private partnerships in urban development practice, with public and private bodies willing to share financial risks and returns in these projects.     

The EU societal awareness of landscape indicator: A review of its meaning,utility and performance across different scales

There is increasing recognition that agricultural landscapes meet multiple societal needs and demands beyond provision of economic and environmental goods and services. Accordingly, there have been significant calls for the inclusion of societal, amenity and cultural values in agri-environmental landscape indicators to assist policy makers in monitoring the wider impacts of land-based policies. However, capturing the amenity and cultural values that rural agrarian areas provide, by use of such indicators, presents significant challenges. The EU social awareness of landscape indicator represents a new class of generalized social indicator using a top–down methodology to capture the social dimensions of landscape without reference to the specific structural and cultural characteristics of individual landscapes. This paper reviews this indicator in the context of existing agri-environmental indicators and their differing design concepts. Using a stakeholder consultation approach in five case study regions, the potential and limitations of the indicator are evaluated, with a particular focus on its perceived meaning, utility and performance in the context of different user groups and at different geographical scales. This analysis supplements previous EU-wide assessments, through regional scale assessment of the limitations and potentialities of the indicator and the need for further data collection. The evaluation finds that the perceived meaning of the indicator does not vary with scale, but in common with all mapped indicators, the usefulness of the indicator, to different user groups, does change with scale of presentation. This indicator is viewed as most useful when presented at the scale of governance at which end users operate. The relevance of the different sub-components of the indicator are also found to vary across regions.     

中国林业NGO对外交流面临的机遇和挑战

随着NGO在林业国际事务中的作用日渐显现,以及我国林业事业对外交流的需求不断增强,中国林业NGO对外交流迎来了良好的机遇期,同时也面临着诸多问题和挑战。通过对林业NGO对外交流现状以及存在问题的介绍与分析,提出了今后我国林业NGO对外交流的具体建议。     

Why have land use change models for the Amazon failed to capture the amount of deforestation over the last decade?

Land cover change in the Neotropics represents one of the major drivers of global environmental change. Several models have been proposed to explore future trajectories of land use and cover change, particularly in the Amazon. Despite the remarkable development of these tools, model results are still surrounded by uncertainties. None of the model projections available in the literature plausibly captured the overall trajectory of land use and cover change that has been observed in the Amazon over the last decade. In this context, this study aims to review and analyze the general structure of the land use models that have most recently been used to explore land use change in the Amazon, seeking to investigate methodological factors that could explain the divergence between the observed and projected rates, paying special attention to the land demand calculations. Based on this review, the primary limitations inherent to this type of model and the extent to which these limitations can affect the consistency of the projections will also be analyzed. Finally, we discuss potential drivers that could have influenced the recent dynamic of the land use system in the Amazon and produced the unforeseen land cover change trajectory observed in this period. In a complementary way, the primary challenges of the new generation of land use models for the Amazon are synthesized.     

An economic assessment of options for operating within plantation forestry water entitlements and tightening cap and trade policy

The Green Triangle (GT) region of southern Australia is one of only two jurisdictions globally to licence plantation forestry's groundwater use. In response to declines in groundwater resources caused by historical plantation expansion, reductions in forest water allocations (~50%) are likely for some parts of the region, presenting novel challenges for forest managers in maintaining revenues and timber flows. This article presents a mathematical programming model evaluation of water trade opportunities for plantation forest owners to adapt to reduced water entitlements and explores how tightening groundwater policy could affect forestry returns and land use mix for the region. Results suggest that even absent opportunity to sell water, relatively limited 11% reduction in return could be expected for a large (−50%) water entitlement and (−48%) land-use change out of forestry. Results suggest that opportunities for forestry companies to sell water entitlements may allow them to maintain or even increase combined returns from forestry and water sales. Whilst the results highlight the adaptive capacity of the plantation forestry sector to operate within reduced water entitlement, a significant sectoral and regional economy adjustment would be likely. The discussion focusses on the potential to realise optimisation model-identified adaptation opportunities accounting for real-world thin markets, transaction costs and market friction.     

India’s land grab deals in Ethiopia: Food security or global politics?

The so called “land grabbing” has gained increased attention since the outburst of the global financial and food crisis triggering a new trend of acquiring land for outsourcing production of food, feed and agrofuels. India as one of the newly emerging economies is investing heavily in farmland as it faces enormous challenges to sustain its rising population and growing energy demands. This paper analyses Indian land acquisitions in Ethiopia, looking into India’s motivations to acquire farmland and what incentives does Ethiopia have to lease out land to large investors. The paper draws on trade data between India and Ethiopia, expert interviews, studies and reports on the use and productivity of grabbed land. In view of the land grabbing and food security debate, the paper critically evaluates whether acquiring farmland in Ethiopia can indeed contribute to food and energy security in India.     

Situating community forestry enterprises within New Institutional Economic theory: What are the implications for their organization?

Community forestry enterprises (CFEs) have gained considerable traction with rural development and forestry practitioners as models for community development, poverty alleviation, and conservation. This paper uses New Institutional Economic theory to identify the key organizational features and potential inherent weaknesses of CFEs. NIE theory focuses on arguments of economic efficiency, specifically transaction cost reductions that serve as incentives for collective action by groups of owners. Examples are given to show how the organization of CFEs reduced transaction costs stemming from interactions with industrial loggers and service providers. However, the creation of these community enterprises goes beyond simple transaction cost reductions and economic justifications. Additional unquantifiable benefits, such as self-determination, control over resources that communities have historically used, application of acquired skills, political representation, and application of acquired skills to name a few, are also secured through community ownership. These benefits however do not come without a cost. As enterprises where ownership rights are incomplete or ill-defined and which do not operate with the incentives of investor-owned firms, CFEs have little to no initial capital pool and experience considerable investment limitations due to limited wealth, horizon problems, and unsolved issues with moral hazard vis-à-vis banks. CFEs also face important management and collective decision-making challenges. In spite of their institutional weaknesses, it is apparent that many societies have decided that the benefits of community ownership far outweigh their ownership costs. State intervention and policy have played an important role in building the necessary supportive framework for the development of these enterprises. NIE as a dominant model for understanding alternative entrepreneurial forms was useful for identifying some important aspects of CFEs that, in a profit-driven economy, can constitute weaknesses that place them at a disadvantage with investor-owned firms. This analysis informs where policy should be targeted if CFEs are to be supported and fostered.     

Challenges and Options for the UK Agri‐Environment: Presidential Address

After fifteen years of agri‐environment policy it is now appropriate to take stock of these policies. This is important because these policies are scheduled to expand in the coming decade, their benefits are likely to continue growing and the demand for benefits is also likely to expand. This paper therefore reviews the current agri‐environmental situation, isolating some of the current challenges to the schemes implemented in the UK, and compares main options for their amelioration. Finally it focuses particularly on the “end of contract problem” arising from the weak sustainability of the policy benefits from short‐term voluntary contracts.     

Exploring sentiment-driven trading behaviour of different types of investors in the London office market

We investigates the sentiment-driven trading behaviour of the four types of investors in the London office market, i.e. UK institutional investors, UK private investors, UK listed real estate companies/Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)s and overseas investors. In addition, we examine the relationship between investor sentiment and property performance. Related indices are calculated to examine the existence of herding behaviour of different investors. We find that UK private investors follow a contrarian strategy to UK institutional investors and listed real estate companies/REITs and enter/exit the market at different points of time. UK institutional investors tend to follow the sentiment of UK listed real estate companies/REITs and overseas investors with lags. There is no evidence that overseas investors rely upon the sentiment of UK specialised property investors in their decision-making. We find the sentiment of different investors is influenced differently by market fundamentals. Yield and rental growth rate have significant impact on trading activity of overseas investors, but not on other investors. The stock market return and securitised real estate return have significant impact on the trading activity of UK institutional investor and overseas investor, but have no significant influence on the trading behaviour of UK private investor and listed real estate company/REIT.     

Factors Affecting Farmers’ Participation in Agri‐environmental Measures: A Northern Italian Perspective

Agri‐environmental measures play an important role in Italian rural areas, as shown by the financial commitment to the Rural Development programmes. However, in contrast with other European Union (EU) countries, policy‐makers still have limited experience on how farmers approach environmental incentive schemes. This paper casts new light on this issue from a northern Italian perspective. The rationale of the farmers’ decision‐making process is explored using two multinomial models. The first explains the probability of non‐participation or participation in one of three specific agri‐environmental measures. The model outcomes show that labour‐intensive farming types and high dependency of household income on farming activity constrain farmers’ participation, whereas previous experience, easy‐to‐implement environmentally friendly farm practices and adequate compensation of extra costs encourage participation. The second model explores the effect of farmers’ attitudes and beliefs on their predispositions towards participation in any of the schemes. The results highlight that, besides income factors, the farm's future in the business, and the relationship with neighbouring farmers and their opinions on environmentally friendly practices all have significant effects on adoption of agri‐environmental measures. The paper concludes by suggesting that farmers’ attitudes and beliefs, as well as the local behavioural influences, have to be taken into account when designing and communicating agri‐environmental measures.