Twenty-three years of forest cover change in protected areas under different governance strategies: A case study from Ethiopia’s southern highlands

Tropical deforestation has heightened the need for effective governance of protected areas aimed at conserving natural resources, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. The southern highlands of Ethiopia hold some of the largest expanses of contiguous tropical forest in Ethiopia. This area also is undergoing rapid land conversion. Multiple protected areas with different management strategies and objectives have been established, in part, to conserve forests and the ecosystem services they provide. We examined four types of protected areas; a national park, a state-run forest enterprise, two occupied privately leased hunting concessions, and two unoccupied hunting concessions, to evaluate their effectiveness at protecting forest cover. We used 1509 field plots with medium-resolution Landsat imagery from 1987 to 2015 to develop models of forest cover at approximately five-year time intervals. We found protected areas that were actively managed for timber production or hunting were more effective at conserving forest cover than the national park and the unoccupied hunting concessions. Over the study period, net forest cover change was −7.8% for the national park, 12.9% for the state-run forest enterprise, −0.2% and 13.3% for the occupied hunting concessions and −14.0% and −13.0% for the unoccupied hunting concessions. We also discuss how the change in forest cover relates to historic political events. In places like Ethiopia where the federal resources needed to conserve forests are limited, promoting a network that includes both federally and non-federally managed protected areas can result in more area and forests under protection.     

Local impacts of industrial tree plantations: An empirical analysis in Indonesia across plantation types

The values ascribed to industrial tree plantations are often controversial. Hence knowledge of their perceived impacts is important for improving their integration in rural landscapes. In 2016 we conducted household surveys with 606 respondents living in villages adjacent to acacia, teak and pine plantations across three islands in Indonesia (Java, Borneo, Sumatra). Results show that perceptions toward pine and teak plantations tend to differ from those toward acacia pulpwood plantations in several ways. Pine and teak plantations are perceived to have a higher number and variety of benefits and services, a higher number of positive impacts, a better environmental record, and to present more opportunities to local people for use of plantation land and products for improving rural livelihoods. In addition, we find that villagers around acacia pulpwood plantations tend to seek economic development and infrastructure to open up remote areas, yet their expectations were often only partially met. Recommendations from our analysis include: the role of the State in plantations must be clarified and potentially reinforced; the role of institutions as intermediaries is fundamental; and contributions by communities to design of management plans should be accommodated.     

Voluntary Carbon Reporting Prediction: A Machine Learning Approach

In this paper we address the impact of the introduction of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme on corporate carbon reporting, and subsequently identify factors that influence the level of voluntary carbon reporting. A review of the literature demonstrates a large number of potential factors have been previously deployed to explain voluntary reporting practices; however, the analytical and empirical methods widely used in the literature have limiting statistical assumptions and confine analysis to a small number of explanatory factors. To address this limitation in prior research we apply advanced machine learning methods, such as gradient boosting machines and random forests, to identify predictive variables through analytical means. We compare the performance of machine learning methods with traditional methods such as logistic regression. We find that machine learning methods significantly outperform logistic regression and provide fundamentally different interpretations of the role and influence of different predictive variables on voluntary carbon reporting. While most variables were not statistically significant in the logit results, a number of key proxies for financial performance, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility have out-of-sample predictive power of the level of voluntary carbon reporting in the machine learning analysis.     

Why Do We Buy Traditional Foods?

Consumer behavior toward traditional specialties varies according to the cultural context of consumption. It thus becomes crucial to develop marketing strategies that target segments with different levels of familiarity with food. Our article purposes to analyze the purchase drivers of traditional foods known to consumers because of their reiterated consumption. The importance of the product’s attributes, the purchasing motivations, and the information channels are studied by applying the CUB model, which utilizes a probabilistic structure that simulates the individual’s psychological mechanism in adopting a choice of preference. The case study is that of extra-virgin olive oil in Italy, where this product is a fundamental element of the culinary tradition. The results show that in the ambit of traditional specialties, in contexts of elevated familiarity, the traditional information channels of marketing are less effective and call for strategies based on a more direct connection between consumer and producer.     

千岛湖区生态公益林建设和保护实践思考

介绍了浙江省淳安县新安江开发总公司经营的千岛湖区生态公益林组织保障和管理体系建设情况;总结了护林员队伍组建、管护宣传、林分改造、森林消防与防火、控制采伐、打击破坏活动、加强病虫害监测、用好补偿资金等九大举措;分析了生态公益林在促进资源增长、改善林分结构、保护种质资源、提高固碳减排能力、涵养水源、保护水质、促进千岛湖旅游健康发展、保障新安江电站工业正常发电等多种经济、社会和生态综合效能;指出了生态公益林实践中经营与补偿、监测等方面存在的问题,提出了相应的对策。     

Water scarcity and food trade in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries

This study investigates food trade patterns in relation to water resources availability in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMED). Examinations show that most of these countries have a high dependence on the import of water intensive crops – cereal, vegetable oil and sugar, in the domestic food supply. The region as a whole is marginally a net exporter of fruits and vegetables, while variations are substantial across countries. Multi-variable regression analyses show that intensification of water scarcity is an important factor in explaining the increase in food import in the SEMED countries during the past two decades. It also finds that while GDP per capita has a strong influence on the level of food import in a country, its impact on changes in the import during the same period is rather modest. No significant relationship is found between the trade of fruits and vegetables and water resources availability. The projection on food import with respect to the decline in per capita water resources availability results in an increase of 40%, 39% and 14%, respectively, for cereal, vegetable oil and sugar by 2020 in the region, holding other factors constant. The European Union (EU) is the major food trade partner of the SEMED countries, except for cereal. About 70% of the fruit export and 55% of the vegetable export of the region currently go to the EU market. Expanding the export of fruits and vegetables is conducive to improving the value of water use in the SEMED countries. However, the expansion is constrained partly by the barriers in the destination markets, notably the EU.     

Winners and losers in the Arab uprisings: a Mediterranean tourism perspective

This paper analyses the effects of the recent Arab uprisings on tourism destinations located along the Mediterranean coastline. It uses time-series analysis to model international tourist arrivals. First, autoregressive integrated moving average models are estimated for the period 1980–2009 and predicted for 2010–2014 to establish suitable country controls. Second, Bayesian structural time-series models – designed primarily to determine causal impacts in on-line marketing campaigns – are used to establish the effects of the events in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Spain and Greece. The main conclusion is that the models clearly capture the negative impact of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and their positive impacts on Morocco and Turkey. However, the effects on Spain and Greece are less clear and depend crucially on the set of controls used in the analysis.     

From the Holocene to the Anthropocene: A historical framework for land cover change in southwestern South America in the past 15,000 years

The main forest transitions that took place in south-central Chile from the end of the last glaciation to the present are reviewed here with the aim of identifying the main climatic and socio-economic drivers of land cover change. The first great transition, driven primarily by global warming, is the postglacial expansion of forests, with human populations from about 15,000 cal. yr. BP, restricted to coastlines and river basins and localized impact of forest fire. Charcoal evidence of fire increased in south-central Chile and in global records from about 12,000 to 6000 cal. yr. BP, which could be attributed at least partly to people. The subsequent expansion of agriculture led to much clearing of forests and the spread of weeds and other indicators of open habitats. The Spanish colonial period in America may have been followed by a transient expansion of forest cover into abandoned land, as indigenous population declined rapidly due to disease and slaughter. The 18th and 19th centuries brought about extensive loss of forests due to the massive impact of lumber extraction for mining operations both in central Chile and in western North America. Two centuries of intensive deforestation, coupled to grazing by cattle and extremely variable rainfall had long-lasting effects on forest cover in south-central Chile, which persist until today. The transition from a preindustrial to an industrial society brought about the “golden age” of timber harvest, assisted by mobile sawmills and railway transportation since the late 1800s. These advances led to the exhaustion of native commercial timber by the late 20th century in south-central Chile. In North America, harvestable stands were exhausted in New England and the Midwest around 1920. Settlement of the independent territories in the late 1800s and early 1900s implied vast burning and clearing of land and mounting soil erosion. Industrial forestry, based on government-subsidized massive plantations of short-rotation exotic trees, developed in the late 20th century, in connection with postindustrial displacement of exploitative activities from developed to third-world nations. In the last two decades, economic globalization and free trade promoted the expansion of new crops and further decline of woodlands, despite modest increases in forest cover. These patterns are repeated in many Latin American countries. To prevent further depletion of native forest resources and to provide an insurance against climate change, in the 21st century developing nations should aim at: (1) relocating subsidies from fiber farms to restoring diverse forest cover, (2) promoting ecosystem management of diverse forest and crops within landscapes, and (3) fostering diverse cultural relationships between people and their land.     

集体林权制度改革中的林权流转及规范问题研究

阐述了集体林权流转的理论依据和经济学意义。分析了中国集体林权流转的主要内容、基本模式以及集体林权主体改革完成后林权流转过程中存在的主要问题和原因。在此基础上,提出了规范集体林权流转行为的政策建议。     

集体林权制度改革与林地流转初步研究

在总结集体林权制度改革取得的诸多成效基础上,通过对产权不明晰、经营主体落实不到位、机制不活、流转不顺等问题进行分析后认为,只有深化配套改革建立新型的产权制度、规范流转方式,兼顾"盘活"和"变现"两大重点,建立有效的林地流转机制,才能加快林地流转步伐,从而从根本上推动我国林业经济的快速健康发展。