Socioeconomic predictors of forest use values in the Peruvian Amazon: A potential tool for biodiversity conservation

Conservation is a crisis discipline requiring rapid action with limited funds. This study examines the potential of socioeconomic variables to predict forest use values. If natural resource use can be predicted from socioeconomic data, conservation planners could rapidly identify and focus conservation programs on the sectors of local populations that most intensively utilize local flora and fauna. Families in three communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon were surveyed over a 6-month period. Data were collected on use of flora and fauna from six locally determined use categories (food, medicine and poisons, wood, weavings, adornments, and “other”) in forest types of three age classes (fallow fields—very young forests, young secondary forests, and old secondary forests). Forest use values were the dependant variables calculated in $/ha/year. Socioeconomic variables included: age, education, family size, residence time, land worked, land owned, number of fishing nets, chickens, pigs, cows, and/or mules owned (all proxies for productive assets), and level of ecological knowledge (ability of informants to correctly identify forest species and answer basic questions about their biology). Ordinary least square multiple regressions were run independently for each forest type. Regressions were also run separately for the two most valuable use categories, food and wood. Low R² adjusted values (all < 0.3) reflect the difficulty in predicting human behavior due to confounding variables and complex interactions. Residence time and a household's community of residence were the most significant predictors of forest use values. Households in Vista Alegre, the community with the highest density of people and smallest landholdings per household, extracted the highest value of forest products per hectare. The longer a family stayed in any community the higher the value of forest goods they extracted. If families that lived in an area longest are the most intensive extractors of forest products, they should be a major focus for conservation programming. In addition, the higher value of products extracted from forests by some families may make them more open to strategies seeking to protect long-term viability of the resources they utilize. The importance of residence time also indicates that planners need to account for changes in the resource use patterns of stakeholders over time.     

Multi-attribute preference modelling and regional land-use planning

Forest management policy decisions are complex due to the multiple-use nature of goods and services from forests, difficulty in monetary valuation of ecological services and the involvement of a large number of stakeholders. Multi-attribute decision techniques can be used to synthesise stakeholder preferences related to regional forest planning because it can accommodate conflicting, multidimensional, incommensurable and incomparable objectives. The objective of this paper is to examine how the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) can be used to incorporate stakeholder preferences in determining optimal forest land-use choices. The Australian Regional Forest Agreement Programme is taken as an illustrative case for the analysis. The results show that the AHP can formalise public participation in decision making and increase the transparency and the credibility of the process.     

Economic cost of deforestation in semi-deciduous forests — A case of two forest districts in Ghana

The ecological, economic and socio-cultural roles of forests are under threat in Ghana due to the high rate of deforestation. Efforts are being made to combat this problem through rehabilitation measures. However, the costs of deforestation and restoration benefits are not adequately estimated. This paper fills in the gap in knowledge by providing an empirical estimation of the cost of deforestation in monetary terms. Primary data collected regarding timber, non-timber forest products and soils in semi-deciduous forests were analyzed using opportunity cost and replacement cost techniques. The results emphasize differences in the value of these forest goods and services lost annually. The largest losses were in stumpage fees, edible fruits, and avoided carbon emissions values. The results show that US$133,650,000 gross revenue, equivalent to 2.6% of the 2008 agricultural sector Gross Domestic Product, is lost annually. It can be concluded that restoring the degraded forest lands would bring benefits particularly to the local communities through increased stumpage revenues and harvest of non-timber forest products, as well as additional funds from carbon credits. It is recommended that stakeholders of forest resources are made aware of these costs in order to raise awareness of what they are losing through deforestation.     

不同生计策略类型对农户林种选择意愿的影响研究——基于福建省477户农户调查数据

研究以福建省为调研区域,数据来源于福建省集体林权制度改革监测调查。根据农户收入来源不同,将农户生计策略类型划分为纯林型、兼业型和非林型,通过构建多元无序Logit模型,实证分析不同生计策略类型对农户林种选择意愿的影响。结果表明:从纯林型向非林型转变时,呈现出家庭耕地面积、家庭林地块数、家庭林地面积、家庭林业生产经营支出、家庭林业收入逐渐减少的趋势和家庭非林生产经营支出、家庭非林收入逐渐增加的趋势。以农户种植竹林意愿为参照,与非林型相比,纯林型和兼业型对农户用材林和经济林选择意愿均具有显著正向作用,用材林选择意愿受户主年龄、是否签订林地承包合同的影响,经济林选择意愿受户主是否为村干部、是否有林权证、是否加入农民林业专业合作社、是否拿到过林业补贴、林业单位面积投入的影响。研究结论有助于农户根据不同生计策略选择不同林种,进而提升农户收入水平,缓解农户生计问题。     

Converting Forests to Farms: The Economic Benefits of Clearing Forests in Agricultural Settlements in the Amazon

Agricultural expansion into tropical forests is believed to bring local economic benefits at the expense of global environmental costs. The resulting tension is reflected in Brazilian government policy. The national agrarian reform program has settled farm families in the Amazon region since the 1970s, with the expectation that they will clear forests in order to farm the land. On the other hand, recent Brazilian policy initiatives seek to reduce deforestation to mitigate climate change. We contribute to the policy debate that surrounds these dual goals for the Amazon by estimating the marginal effects of new agricultural land on the full income and assets of farm settlers over a 13-year period from 1996 to 2009. Using micro panel data from agrarian settlements where forest was being rapidly cleared, and controlling for factors that would otherwise confound the relationship, we estimate the effect of converting forest to agriculture on total household income to estimate the opportunity cost of conserving forest. Our measure of income reflects any re-allocation of resources by utility maximizing households and any productivity effects due to loss of forest ecosystem services. The estimated effect of new agricultural land on income is positive, but small relative to the income per hectare of previously cleared land. However, we show that income increases investment in physical assets, which raises households’ income generating capacity and future accumulation of assets. Thus, while there is only a small immediate income gain from clearing more forest, the long-term effects on wealth are still substantial. This demonstrates that given the right conditions, conversion of forest to agricultural land can be an impetus for asset accumulation by smallholders. It also highlights the importance of considering the indirect and long-term welfare benefits of new agricultural land when assessing the opportunity costs of forest conservation.     

CHINA'S FORESTS UNDER ECONOMIC REFORM: TIMBER SUPPLIES, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, AND RURAL RESOURCE ACCESS

China's national forest statistics describe increases in total forest cover during the 1980s but mask the diversity of responses to economic reform and some characteristics of the forests and, forest uses. The provincial-level statistics reported here confirm the regional studies and anecdotal reports about widespread fellings of forest in the non-state managed areas but demonstrate that high rates of harvest occurred in the state-managed forests, too. These disaggregated statistics reveal the importance of direct investment projects, as opposed to pure reform measures, to provide environmental services and to increase, forest cover overall. In addition, these statistics provide evidence of an increase in the use of forest land for cash forests and fuelwood forests, as opposed to timber forests, by rural forest managers trying to meet their local resource and income needs.     

Natural resource accounting for Indian states — Illustrating the case of forest resources

Our main objective is to set out and apply a SEEA-based methodology to reflect the true value of forest resources in India's national and state accounts. We establish that a “top-down” approach using available national databases is both feasible and desirable from a policy perspective. In this paper, we address four components of value creation in forests: timber production, carbon storage, fuelwood usage, and the harvesting of non-timber forest products. The results of our analysis suggest that prevailing measures of national income in India underestimate the contribution of forests to income. The income accounts of the Northeastern states in particular are significantly understated by these traditional (GDP/GSDP) measures. We are also able to identify some states which performed poorly in the context of our sustainability framework, reflecting natural capital losses due to degradation and deforestation. Our results highlight the need to integrate natural resource accounting into the national accounting framework in order to generate appropriate signals for sustainable forest management and for the conservation of forest resources which are widely used by the poor in India, as well as being significant stores of national wealth.     

Ecosystem services, agriculture, and rural poverty in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon: Interrelationships and policy prescriptions

Policymakers seeking to modify financial incentives to increase the flows of ecosystem services in and around tropical moist forests must consider where to focus their attention and what collection of incentives can effectively achieve policy objectives. In most cases, policymakers focus on extensively forested areas where the flows of ecosystem services between agriculture and the environment is generally characterized by massive flows of carbon and soil nutrients from forests to agriculture. In these forest margin areas the stock of primary forest is eventually exhausted and the cheap ingredients provided by nature to agriculture become increasingly scarce. At this point, policy interest generally wanes, and agriculture and the environment begin slow declines in ecosystem service exchange, often with negative consequences for rural poverty. How does one promote increased flows of ecosystem services from agricultural lands without increasing poverty when forests and soils have been depleted? Can the standard instruments, e.g., payments for ecosystem services, be effective in such situations, and if so, do the costs to society of securing these services increase? Here we focus on the flows of ecosystem services at the end of the cycle of converting primary forest to agriculture. Primary data from the Bragantina area in the southeastern Brazilian Amazon, an area cleared of primary forest decades ago, are used to characterize smallholder production systems, to describe the flows of ecosystem services into and from these systems, and to develop a bioeconomic model of smallholder agriculture capable of predicting the effects of several types of policy action on ecosystem services provided by and to agriculture, and on-farm household incomes and food self-reliance. Of particular interest is the Proambiente Pilot Program in Brazil, which uses smallholder payment schemes to induce farmers to manage land and forest resources in ways that generate more ecosystem services. Baseline results suggest that smallholder agriculture leads to a gradual loss of ecosystem services (mainly above-ground and root carbon) provided by secondary forest fallows, and that reduction in fallow age leads to reductions in plant diversity. Intensifying agricultural activities accelerates this process, but considerably increases smallholder incomes. Paying farmers for ecosystem services linked to the retention of secondary forests and the Proambiente program both increase area in forest fallow, but the latter substantially reduces farm income because of input use restrictions. In general, programs aiming to promote the production of ecosystem services should not limit farmers' choices of ways to provide them. Employment and food self-reliance issues associated with policy options for increasing on-farm stocks of carbon and plant biodiversity are also explored.     

Forest policy for sustainable commodity wood production: an examination drawing on the Australian experience

This paper presents a policy framework aimed at sustainability in Australia's wood-based industry. It commences with a historical overview to illuminate how culture and environment combined to fast-track Australia's plantation establishment. This maturing estate is now generating new choices about meeting wood needs and the future for native forests. The essence of the forest problem lies in the nature of commodity production where cost reduction, essential for the firm's survival, comes at the expense of native forest ecological integrity. The framework explicitly includes Australia's plantation wood resource that, by definition, is excluded from the ‘multiple use’ approach to managing native forests for wood production. Three systems are identified—native forests as self-regenerating ecosystems, wood production systems to meet human material needs and rural socio-economic systems—and a dual strategy developed to enhance their persistence capacity. This strategy combines shifting commodity wood production from native forests to plantations and adding value by domestic processing. The strategy works in a complementary way across the three systems, meaning that trade-off is avoided at this level. Native forest ecosystems cease to be threatened by the intensification pressures inherent in commodity production and relatively labour-intensive wood products manufacturers enhance their competitiveness by processing agriculturally grown wood. A highly integrated regional industry can enhance the economic viability of wood growing that helps buffer agricultural land against the price-cost squeeze of commodity production. The policy framework may not be economically efficient if, after removing government subsidies and props to the older and less competitive native forest based sector, further measures are required to stimulate investment in plantation processing. Under these conditions, a specific wood industry policy can be argued on environment grounds. Trade-off is between market interventionist industry policy and general economic efficiency—fundamentally different to the native forest conservation versus industry trade-off commonly understood.     

At a crossroads: consequential trends in recognition of community-based forest tenure from 2002-2017

ABSTRACT

Insecure, contested, and unjust forest tenure arrangements undermine forest investment and protection, fuel conflict, and jeopardize Indigenous Peoples’, local communities’, and indigenous and community women’s rights, livelihoods, and development prospects. While legally recognized community forests tend to have lower rates of deforestation, store more carbon and benefit more people than forests managed by either public or private entities, evidence shows over two-thirds of forests remain controlled by governments – a significant portion of which is contested by indigenous and local communities who traditionally own, manage, and depend on these forests. It is therefore all the more critical that governments support and advance communities’ forest tenure rights. Using longitudinal tenure data and analysis of global forest ownership trends developed by the Rights and Resources Initiative, this article details the distribution of statutory forest rights across 58 countries covering nearly 92% of global forests over the fifteen-year period from 2002–2017.     

信息不对称、分成契约与超限额采伐--中国国有森林资源变化的理论分析和实证考察

本文回顾了改革开放以来国有林业企业管理体制的演变 ,通过多任务委托代理模型探讨了这一演变过程中利润分成和采伐限额两个不相容的政府政策激励对国有林业企业经营者激励的影响 ,特别是信息不对称条件下其对木材采伐的影响 ,从而解释了国有林业企业普遍存在的超限额采伐的经济原因。通过全国 2 8个省 5次全国森林资源普查的面板数据 ,通过使用国有林业企业的平均面积作为政府与国有林业企业委托—代理关系中信息不对称的代理变量 ,从实证上验证了信息不对称将会导致超限额采伐和国有林资源增长率下降的假说     

Barriers to Massachusetts forest landowner participation in carbon markets

U.S. forests, including family-owned forests, are important carbon sinks and sources for carbon sequestration. Family forest owners constitute a significant portion of the overall forestland in the U.S., but little is known about their preferences for participating in carbon sequestration programs. The goal of this research is to understand what motivates Massachusetts family forest owners to participate in carbon markets. The study estimates the probability these landowners would engage in carbon sequestration programs using data from a survey of 930 Massachusetts family forest owners. Results from a random effects ordered probit indicate that under a carbon scenario similar to the current voluntary scheme, very few of these landowners would be interested in participating. Supply analysis indicates these landowners are more influenced to participate by factors other than price. Regression analysis results suggest that survey respondents are concerned about early withdrawal penalties, additionality requirements, and contract length. Forest owner harvesting plans, opinions about forest usage, and beliefs about climate change all play a significant role in the decision to participate. The study suggests that policy makers should consider the reasons behind these low participation rates, because private forest owners could play a pivotal role in the carbon sequestration potential of forests.     

Harvest Decisions and Spatial Landscape Attributes: The Case of Galician Communal Forests

In recent years, forest management has moved towards a landscape approach reflecting a mix of social, environmental and economic values. In this paper, we evaluate the effect on harvesting decisions of the spatial attributes of communal forests in Galicia. We first model the forest landscape management problem within a bioeconomic framework, which allows the identification of optimal clear-cutting strategies. This framework makes it possible to model a Faustmann-type rotation at the landscape level. The empirical analysis uses data from communal forests in Galicia, Spain. Under communal ownership, members of a rural community have rights to forest resources, but not rights to the forest itself. The management of communal forests integrates multiple forest uses within the decision making process. Given the communal nature of forest rights, and given these multiple uses, we show that landscape patterns—fragmentation, diversity and clumpiness—determine rotation periods.     

REDD+and community-controlled forests in low-income countries: Any hope for a linkage?

Deforestation and forest degradation are estimated to account for between 12% and 20% of annual greenhouse gas emissions and in the 1990s (largely in the developing world) released about 5.8 Gt per year, which was bigger than all forms of transport combined. The idea behind REDD + is that payments for sequestering carbon can tip the economic balance away from loss of forests and in the process yield climate benefits. Recent analysis has suggested that developing country carbon sequestration can effectively compete with other climate investments as part of a cost effective climate policy.This paper focuses on opportunities and complications associated with bringing community-controlled forests into REDD +. About 25% of developing country forests are community controlled and therefore it is difficult to envision a successful REDD + without coming to terms with community controlled forests. It is widely agreed that REDD + offers opportunities to bring value to developing country forests, but there are also concerns driven by worries related to insecure and poorly defined community forest tenure, informed by often long histories of government unwillingness to meaningfully devolve to communities. Further, communities are complicated systems and it is therefore also of concern that REDD + could destabilize existing well-functioning community forestry systems.     

Economic Assessment of Forest Ecosystem Services Losses: Cost of Policy Inaction

This paper presents a bottom-up methodological framework for estimating some of the key ecosystem services provided by forests biomes worldwide. We consider the provision of wood and non-wood forest products, recreation and passive use services, and carbon sequestration. The valuation framework derives per hectare estimates by applying meta-analysis, value-transfer and scaling-up procedures in order to control for the existing heterogeneities across world regions and forest biomes. The first part of the study estimates stock values per hectare for each forest ecosystem service in the baseline year 2000 and in the year 2050. Results differ per geographical region and biome. Carbon stocks represent, on average, the highest value per hectare, followed by provisioning services, passive use and recreational values respectively. The second part provides an estimation of the welfare loss (or gain) associated with policy inaction in the period 2000–2050 leading to a change in the forest area. Welfare results are mixed and require a careful interpretation, ranging from a worldwide annual benefit of + 0.03% of 2050 GDP to an annual loss of −0.13%. The highest damage is expected in Brazil due to the increasing deforestation taking place in tropical natural forests, which is causing a considerable loss of carbon stocks.     

Spatial Heterogeneity of Willingness to Pay for Forest Management

The paper investigates the spatial heterogeneity of public’s preferences for the implementation of a new country-wide forest management and protection program in Poland. Spatial econometric methods and high resolution geographical information system data related to forest characteristics are used to explain the variation in individual-specific willingness to pay (WTP) values, derived from a discrete choice experiment study. We find that respondents’ WTP is higher the closer they live to their nearest forest, and the scarcer forests are in the area where they live. Interestingly, the higher the ecological value of forests in respondents’ area, the more people prefer extending areas of national forest protection. We also investigate spatial patterns in individual-specific WTP scores and in latent class membership probabilities, finding that preferences are indeed spatially clustered. We argue that this clustering should be taken into account in forest management and policy-making.     

Explaining the performance of state–community joint forest management in India

This paper seeks to identify and analyze the factors that explain differential outcomes of joint forest management (JFM) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Factors affecting the performances of JFM communities are analyzed using an ordered logit model. The results indicate that JFM communities are more likely to perform well when they are smaller in size and when forest resources in the JFM community are scarce. Presence of social capital and high value forests are also likely to promote good forest growth. Effective protection of forests is likely to contribute to the growth of forests. JFM communities that were initiated by NGOs are more likely to manage forests effectively than the one initiated by the Forest Department.     

Accounting for India's forest wealth

In this paper, we account for forest wealth in India. Changes in the timber and carbon wealth embodied in these forests are related to important green national accounting aggregates such as genuine saving and the change in wealth per capita. Important accounting issues include the timing of carbon releases that occur when forests are disturbed, as well as the valuation of these releases. Our empirical findings suggest that while India's forest wealth is substantial, net changes in this wealth are arguably not so large at least in relation to GNP. However, when viewed in the context of the wealth-diluting effects of population growth this implies a far larger additional savings effort is required to cover the (net) loss in forest values than otherwise appears to be the case. Finally, we examine ways in which the accounting approach that we adopt can be reconciled with approaches which stress conserving forest wealth.     

When are Forest Visits Valued the Most? An Analysis of the Seasonal Demand for Forest Recreation in Poland

While the demand for forest recreation has been a topic covered in many studies, little attention has been paid so far to seasonal demand. In a forest context, the seasonal analysis is particularly interesting because of inter-temporal change in forest attributes throughout the year which can influence trip-taking behavior. In this paper, the model of seasonal forest visitation is developed to provide a richer understanding of the role played by seasonal fluctuation on a distribution of forest social benefits. The analysis is based on an on-site survey conducted in four forests in Poland. Results show that the most valuable forest trips are those taken in fall and that seasonal trips are separable.     

Local financial benefits of rain forests: comparative evidence from Amerindian societies in Bolivia and Honduras

Researchers generally express the local value of tropical rain forests in dollars/ha/year. The approach is problematic because it produces low values to local users, underestimating the importance of the forest expressed as a share of household consumption or earnings. Here we contribute to valuation studies of rain forests by estimating the financial importance of the forest measured in three ways: (1) the contribution of forests to annual household consumption and (2) earnings; and (3) the value of a hectare of rain forest to villagers measured through the biological goods consumed and sold. We collected panel data on consumption and earnings from 81 households in four villages of two Amerindian societies in two nations (Tsimane’, Bolivia; Tawahka, Honduras). Analyses suggest: (1) forests account for a large share of household consumption (median 38.5%; range 14.65–53.11%); (2) forests contribute more to household consumption than to household earnings (median 22.69%; range 16.56–44.81%); (3) the relative contribution of forests to household consumption and earnings falls among villages closer to towns; and (4) the range of values/year of rain forest/ha is US$7.10–9.70 using 1999 dollars or US$18.46–46.56 using purchasing power parity indexes, below previous estimates. Results show much variation in forest values; valuation methods and stakeholder perspectives affect the variation. Given the variation, a useful strategy to promote forest conservation would transfer income to villagers to compensate them for non-local forest values.