THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FOREST RIGHTS ACT IN INDIA: CRITICAL ISSUES

The Forest Rights Act 2006 was designed to provide secure property rights to the forest dwellers of India. This paper analyses the effect of the legislation and finds that it has proved largely ineffective at meeting its objectives. There is evidence to suggest that the implementation of the Act has been undermined by bureaucratic interests.     

浅谈天然林资源保护工程实施过程中有关问题的探讨

实施天然林资源保护工程在造福人类的同时也给林业部门带来一些问题,对此提出几点有针对性的建议及对策。     

林权改革背景下江西林业产权流转问题及对策研究

文章通过对林权改革背景下江西林业产权流转情况的调查分析,指出了江西林业产权流转存在的林农法律意识不强,流转行为不够规范;林权市场有效供给不足;林权流转相关配套政策相对滞后等问题。文章认为,应通过加快山区工业化、城镇化进程,建立农村社会保障体系,制定交易制度和健全森林资源评估机构等措施解决江西林业产权流转问题。     

Efficiency in forest management: A multiobjective harvest scheduling model

This paper presents a new forest harvest scheduling model taking into account four conflicting objectives. The economic factor of timber production is considered and also aspects related to environmental protection. We also incorporate adjacency constraints to limit the maximum contiguous area where clear-cutting can be applied. The model proposed is applied to a timber production plantation in Cuba located in the region of Pinar del Río. One factor to be taken into account in Cuban plantations is that the forest has a highly unbalanced age distribution. Therefore, in addition to the classical objectives of forest planning, we have the objective of rebalancing age distribution by the end of the planning horizon. Explicitly, the four objectives considered in the model are: (a) obtaining a balance-aged forest; (b) minimizing the area with trees older than the rotation age; (c) maximizing the NPV of the forest over the planning horizon; and (d) maximizing total carbon sequestration over the whole planning horizon. The solution to the proposed model provides a set of efficient management plans that are of assistance in analysing the tradeoffs between the economic and ecological objectives. The model is also applied to randomly generated simulated forests to compare its performance in other contexts. As the problem is a multiobjective binary nonlinear model, a metaheuristic procedure is used in order to solve it.     

Public support effect on natural disaster management: A case study of ice storms in forests in Slovenia

In the last decade Slovenia has experienced more frequent natural disasters in forests. The most severe and widespread one that affected Slovenian forests, which cover more than a half of Slovenian territory, was a large-scale ice storm in early February 2014. This study aims to investigate the effect of the public support on the recovery of forest farms affected by the 2014 ice storm. Analyses focus particularly on the ability of Slovenian forest farms’ income recovery in a short-time period. The economic resilience of forest farms in the absence of forest disaster payments due to the absence of legal certainty for disaster aid in 2014 and 2015 provides an interesting framework for identifying the income effect of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments. The Farm Accountancy Data Network has been used with applied statistical and regression methods to estimate the public support effect on selected woodland area size samples. Results suggest a positive effect of CAP payments on farm income recovery. The magnitude of the effect is high and significant for the less favoured area and disaster payments that were given for farm production loss in the 2013 drought. Although the magnitude of the effect is weak, investment payments show a significant positive effect on farm income recovery for all studied forest farm samples.     

冠顶式步道景观环境感知评价研究 ——以福州“福道”为例

冠顶式步道是新兴的城市步道类型，因其独特的架空结构，给使用者带来与众不同的观景游憩体验。因此从人体感知的角度切入，依托韦伯-费希纳定律的函数框架及理论内涵，对中国首条冠顶式步道——福州“福道”及其所属环境对民众的心理所产生的刺激和感知强度进行量化，获取目前民众对于该步道的各种感知反馈，分析其景观环境现状。通过研究发现，公众对于步道设计建造品质的感知、游憩健身体验、观景体验以及整体景观营造的感知突出且良好，最后针对架空行走过程中存在的一系列问题，提出相应的优化建议。     

Consumers’ preferences,attitudes and willingness to pay for bio-textile in wood fibers

The bio-textile products made from certified wood fibers are an important product innovation able to diversify the wood product portfolio of enterprises and to increase environmental sustainability. In this paper, we estimate Italian consumers' willingness to pay for three bio-textile products made from certified wood (socks, T-shirt and shirt). Data were collected face-to-face to a sample of 696 consumers through Contingent Valuation. The results from the Cameron and Huppert model show a significant premium price, ranging from 64% to 128% depending on the products, and that respondents with a higher environmental concern are more willing to pay for bio-textile products. Nevertheless, the price turned out to be a key determinant, evidencing how it can constitute a barrier to a more sustainable consumer behaviour. These results are important for the European wood-based industries’ businesses, currently based on stagnant market of traditional wood products, since they indicate there is room for a profitable diversification in bio-textile products. An increased market of bio-textile products can contribute to reduce the fossil fuel dependency of the European Union economy.     

Evaluation of the forestry administrative system that regulates the activity of extracting wood from the Northern Ecuadorian amazon

This study sought to understand how the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment systematic structure works through their so-called Forest Administration System (FAS). This system has generated different perceptions among those that are involved in this system the repercussions of the informalities of the population that subsists off the exploitation of their forests which have changed the market chain from a framework of legality to illegality and the institutional barriers and the costs that have to be met. This are only part of the difficulties faced by the FAS. In Ecuador, the Ministry of the Environment has tried to facilitate processes since 2013, when they allowed for a greater participation of the owners of hardwood farms and thus legalized the cutting and subsequent sale of the hardwood to generate more income for their family, in order to avoid the use of intermediaries and informal exploitation (illegal). It was found that the application of the FAS has achieved big changes, but there are still some faults to correct.     

基于DEA方法的农户林地经营效率分析

在通过问卷调查获取福建省南平、三明、龙岩三地市农户杉木林地经营相关数据的基础上,用产出导向的DEA分析法对农户杉木林经营效率进行测算与评价分析的结果显示:福建集体林区农户林地经营效率水平差异较大,林地经营效率整体水平不高。同时,对农户杉木林经营效率之间的相互关系及其投入要素对效率的影响进行Pearson相关性分析和探讨。     

森林生态系统服务功能价值评估方法及其研究

生态服务功能价值的提出,为人类保护自然生态环境提供了理论基础,同时也为如何保护生态环境提供了方法。生态服务功能价值提出的意义在于可量化保护自然生态的价值,以及进一步说明坚持走可持续发展的经济发展道路的必要性。