Sizing reserves within a landscape: the roles of villagers' reactions and the ecological-socioeconomic setting

Traditionally, siting and sizing decisions for parks and reserves reflected ecological characteristics but typically failed to consider ecological costs created from displaced resource collection, welfare costs on nearby rural people, and enforcement costs. Using a spatial game-theoretic model that incorporates the interaction of socioeconomic and ecological settings, we show how incorporating more recent mandates that include rural welfare and surrounding landscapes can result in very different optimal sizing decisions. The model informs our discussion of recent forest management in Tanzania, reserve sizing and siting decisions, estimating reserve effectiveness, and determining patterns of avoided forest degradation in Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programs.

The trees and the bees: using enforcement and income projects to protect forests and rural livelihoods through spatial joint production

Forest managers in developing countries enforce extraction restrictions to limit forest degradation. In response, villagers may displace some of their extraction to other forests, which generates “leakage” of degradation. Managers also implement poverty alleviation projects to compensate for lost resource access or to induce conservation. We develop a model of spatial joint production of bees and fuelwood that is based on forest-compatible projects such as beekeeping in Thailand, Tanzania, and Mexico. We demonstrate that managers can better determine the amount and pattern of degradation by choosing the location of both enforcement and the forest-based activity.

The impact of buffer zone size and management on illegal extraction, park protection and enforcement

Many protected areas or parks in developing countries have buffer zones at their boundaries to achieve the dual goals of protecting park resources and providing resource benefits to neighbouring people. Despite the prevalence of these zoning policies, few behavioural models of people’s buffer zone use inform the sizing and management of those zones. This paper uses a spatially explicit resource extraction model to examine the impact of buffer zone size and management on extraction by local people, both legal and illegal, and the impact of that extraction on forest quality in the park’s core and buffer zone. The results demonstrate trade-offs between the level of enforcement, the size of a buffer zone, and the amount of illegal extraction in the park; and describe implications for “enrichment” of buffer zones and evaluating patterns of forest degradation.

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.

Locking-in carbon, locking-out livelihoods? ASM and REDD in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the potential mutual conflict between interventions aimed at formalising artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) on the one hand, and policies implemented in response to the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) initiative on the other. Deforestation caused by ASM undermines sound forest management, and potentially threatens the implementation of REDD. Conversely, the adoption of REDD could further marginalise and criminalise the ASM sector, reducing its contribution to poverty alleviation. Reviewing a series of commonalities between ASM and forest management highlights many difficulties facing policy-makers. Potentially, contradictory outcomes of evolving governance arrangements means novel cross-sectoral institutions will be required in order to realise the full potential of REDD and ASM to address poverty reduction in a complementary fashion. The analysis reiterates the centrality of livelihoods to REDD and the need for policies to take into account local contexts.

Recovery of soil microbiological properties in a degraded area planted with Corymbia citriodora and Leucaena leucocephala

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Sistema de informação geográfica - Basins 3.0 na modelagem hidrológica da bacia experimental do Rio Pardo, SP

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Energia na Agricultura) - FCA

Florestas e comunidade: cotidiano de famílias em Jericó, Garrafão do Norte, Pará

Na Amazônia oriental, famílias de agricultores constroem seu cotidiano de vida a partir das florestas que completam a paisagem, apropriando-se dos recursos materiais e não materiais oriundos dessa vegetação. A pressão humana sobre a natureza, com o passar dos anos, gera um drama social. As famílias vêem declinarem as florestas à sua volta e sentem ameaçada sua permanência na terra. Buscou-se discutir as diversas faces dessa relação famílias-florestas, embasado na detalhada observação do cotidiano de vida na Comunidade Jericó, em Garrafão do Norte, Pará, Brasil, utilizando como recursos: entrevistas, conversas informais e registros fotográficos, tendo sempre no conhecimento empírico local sobre a natureza uma base sólida para as análises. Existe preocupação por parte das famílias com a degradação das florestas, entretanto, há uma constante necessidade de utilizá-las na garantia das produções agropecuárias e das outras atividades cotidianas. E nesse contexto a floresta funciona como um espelho do homem, diante do qual ele busca se entender no mundo.

Fóruns virtuais de REDD: análise da função comunicativa na construção de políticas orientadas por organizações da sociedade civil

Frente a evidências científicas que apontam o desflorestamento da Amazônia como fator preponderante na liberação de gases do efeito estufa à atmosfera e na consequente intensificação das mudanças climáticas globais, organizações não-governamentais e ambientalistas criaram fóruns temáticos sobre a Redução de Emissões por Desmatamento e Degradação florestal (REDD). Sob a premissa de intercambiar informações e promover a articulação e o debate público, essas iniciativas reúnem diferentes atores sociais, sob a coordenação de organizações da própria sociedade civil, tendo a internet como principal lugar de referência. Considerando a perspectiva democrática aberta pela noção habermasiana de esfera pública e com base em critérios fundamentais à publicidade social, relacionados às funções de dar visibilidade e promover o debate público, a análise de quatro espaços virtuais permitiu uma reflexão sobre a forma contemporânea de atuação das organizações não-governamentais ambientalistas e as potencialidades de atuação política trazidas por novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), ainda não apropriadas de forma plena ou efetiva por esse e outros setores da sociedade. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam que, na prática, tais fóruns atendem satisfatoriamente a nenhuma das funções: não esclarecem os usuários quanto ao assunto e tão pouco são capazes de fomentar discussões que resultem em desdobramentos em prol da coletividade. Isso resulta na perda da qualidade democrática a que se propõem e ainda reforça o efeito do “silenciamento” sobre as populações locais, que veem os seus anseios e necessidades representados por essas ONGs sem que essas entidades sejam real e necessariamente representativas de seus interesses.

REDD+ no Estado do Pará: a política ambiental climática paraense no contexto nacional e internacional

A inserção do mecanismo de Redução de Emissões por Desmatamento e Degradação Florestal (REDD) no contexto do ordenamento jurídico-normativo e institucional do Estado do Pará, é a temática abordada pelo presente trabalho. A metodologia aplicada na presente pesquisa se baseou em duas técnicas de coletade dados, quais sejam o levantamento documental e a aplicação de questionário estruturado junto aos órgãos estaduais responsáveis pela articulação e implementação desse mecanismo no território paraense. De recente surgimento no cenário das discussões internacionais sobre meio ambiente e mudanças climáticas globais, levadas a efeito no âmbito da Convenção-Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre Mudança do Clima, o REDD se apresenta como proposta de desmatamento evitado para os países em desenvolvimento, cuja preservação do patrimônio florestal, em vista dos potenciais benefícios para a mitigação do aquecimento global, deveria ser compensado por meio da remuneração de indivíduos, comunidades, projetos e países, conforme a proposta originalmente lançada no ano de 2005, durante a COP 11, realizada em Montreal, no Canadá. Nesse contexto, o Estado do Pará, que encerrou o ano de 2012 como líder nos números de desmatamento entre os Estados da Amazônia Legal, ainda em 2009 previu a inserção do mecanismo de REDD no quadro jurídico regulatório e institucional paraense como parte das ações do (Decreto Estadual nº 1.697/2009). Decorrida a primeira fase de execução do Plano, qual seja o interstício de agosto de 2009 a agosto de 2012, verificou-se que osprocessos decisórios para implementação do mecanismo não avançaram, em que pese a existência de projetos dessa natureza em curso no território paraense, e o avanço dos demais Estados amazônicos quanto à temática, cujos arcabouços normativos já dispõem de políticas públicas atinentes ao REDD e REDD+ e importantes medidas adicionais correlatas, a exemplo da regulação sobre pagamento de serviços ambientais e políticas estaduais sobre mudanças climáticas.

Mainstreaming a Decade's Experiences in Watershed Management to Meet the Challenges of Environmental Change in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas

Like other mountain areas in the world, the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Ongoing climate change processes are projected to have a high impact on the HKH region, and accelerated warming has been reported in the Himalayas. These climate change impacts will be superimposed on a variety of other environmental and social stresses, adding to the complexity of the issues. The sustainable use of natural resources is crucial to the long-term stability of the fragile mountain ecosystems in the HKH and to sustain the socio-ecological resilience that forms the basis of sustainable livelihoods in the region. In order to be prepared for these challenges, it is important to take stock of previous research. The ‘People and Resource Dynamics Project’ (PARDYP), implemented by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), provides a variety of participatory options for sustainable land management in the HKH region. The PARDYD project was a research for development project that operated in five middle mountain watersheds across the HKH – two in Nepal and one each in China, India, and Pakistan. The project ran from 1996 to 2006 and focused on addressing the marginalisation of mountain farmers, the use and availability of water, issues relating to land and forest degradation and declining soil fertility, the speed of regeneration of degraded land, and the ability of the natural environment to support the growing needs of the region’s increasing population. A key learning from the project was that the opinion of land users is crucial to the acceptance (and, therefore, successful application) of new technologies and approaches. A major challenge at the end of every project is to promote knowledge sharing and encourage the cross-fertilization of ideas (e.g., in the case of PARDYP, with other middle mountain inhabitants and practitioners in the region) and to share lessons learned with a wider audience. This paper will highlight how the PARDYP findings, including ways of addressing soil fertility and water scarcity, have been mainstreamed in the HKH region through capacity building (international, regional, and national training courses), networking, and the provision of backstopping services. In addition, in view of the challenges in watershed management in the HKH connected to environmental change, the lessons learned from the PARDYP are now being used by ICMOD to define and package climate change proof technology options to address climate change adaptation.

A landscape mosaics approach for characterizing swidden systems from a REDD+ perspective

Swidden agriculture is often deemed responsible for deforestation and forest degradation in tropical regions, yet swidden landscapes are commonly not visible on land cover/use maps, making it difficult to prove this assertion. For a future REDD+ scheme, the correct identification of deforestation and forest degradation and linking these processes to land use is crucial. However, it is a key challenge to distinguish degradation and deforestation from temporal vegetation dynamics inherent to swiddening. In this article we present an approach for spatial delineation of swidden systems based on landscape mosaics. Furthermore we introduce a classification for change processes based on the change matrix of these landscape mosaics. Our approach is illustrated by a case study in Viengkham district in northern Laos. Over a 30-year time period the swidden landscapes have increased in extent and they have degraded, shifting from long crop–fallow cycles to short cycles. From 2007 to 2009 degradation within the swidden system accounted for half of all the landscape mosaics change processes. Pioneering shifting cultivation did not prevail. The landscape mosaics approach could be used in a swidden compatible monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system of a future REDD+ framework.

Spatial assessment of carbon stocks of living vegetation at the national level in Lao PDR

The international mechanism for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) supposedly offers new opportunities for combining climate mitigation, conservation of the environment, and socio-economic development for development countries. In Laos REDD is abundantly promoted by the government and development agencies as a potential option for rural development. Yet, basic information for carbon management is missing: to date no knowledge is available at the national level on the quantities of carbon stored in the Lao landscapes. In this study we present an approach for spatial assessment of vegetation-based carbon stocks. We used Google Earth, Landsat and MODIS satellite imagery and refined the official national land cover data to assess carbon stocks. Our study showed that more than half (52%) of carbon stock of Laos is stored in natural forests, but that 70% of this stock is located outside of national protected areas. On the basis of two carbon-centered land use scenarios we calculated that between 30 and 40 million tons of carbon could be accumulated in shifting cultivation areas; this is less than 3% of the existing total stock. Our study suggests that the main focus of REDD in Laos should be on the conservation of existing carbon stocks, giving highest priority to the prevention of deforestation outside of national protected areas.

Carbon pools and poverty peaks in Lao PDR

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+) is heavily promoted in Laos. REDD+ is often perceived as an opportunity to jointly address climate change and poverty and, therefore, could come timely for Laos to combine its prominent national target of poverty eradication with global climate mitigation efforts. Countrywide planning of the right approaches to REDD+ combined with poverty alleviation requires knowledge of the spatial combination of poverty and carbon stocks at the national level. This study combined spatial information on carbon stored in vegetation and on poverty and created carbon-poverty typologies for the whole country at the village level. We found that 11% of the villages of Laos have high to very high average village-level carbon stock densities and a predominantly poor population. These villages cover 20% of the territory and are characterized by low population density. Shifting cultivation areas in the northwestern parts of the country have a higher carbon mitigation potential than areas in the central and eastern highlands due to a more favorable climate. Finally, we found that in Laos the majority (58%) of poor people live in areas with low carbon stock densities without major potential to store carbon. Accordingly, REDD+ cannot be considered a core instrument for poverty alleviation. The carbon-poverty typologies presented here provide answers to basic questions related to planning and managing of REDD+. They could serve as a starting point for the design of systems to monitor both socioeconomic and environmental development at the national level.

Engaging Local Communities in Low Emissions Land-Use Planning: a Case Study from Laos

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD+) is a performance-based payment mechanism currently being debated in international and national environmental policy and planning forums. As the mechanism is based on conditionality, payments must reflect land stewards’ level of compliance with carbon-efficient management practices. However, lack of clarity in land governance and carbon rights could undermine REDD+ implementation. Strategies are needed to avoid perverse incentives resulting from the commoditization of forest carbon stocks and, importantly, to identify and secure the rights of legitimate recipients of future REDD+ payments. We propose a landscape-level approach to address potential conflicts related to carbon tenure and REDD+ benefit sharing. We explore various land-tenure scenarios and their implications for carbon ownership in the context of a research site in northern Laos. Our case study shows that a combination of relevant scientific tools, knowledge, and participatory approaches can help avoid the marginalization of rural communities during the REDD+ process. The findings demonstrate that participatory land-use planning is an important step in ensuring that local communities are engaged in negotiating REDD+ schemes and that such negotiations are transparent. Local participation and agreements on land-use plans could provide a sound basis for developing efficient measurement, reporting, and verification systems for REDD+.