Tag: conservation
AFLI-II: Developing and promoting market-based agroforestry and forest rehabilitation options for North-west Viet Nam (Project Standee poster)
AFLI-II introduction with key activities, expected outputs and partners
Are Village Forest licences for rural development or conservation? A case study from Jambi Province, Indonesia
The Government of Indonesia has initiated a forest and agrarian reform process aiming to bring at least 30% of state forests under Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) schemes (10 million ha in 2015, 40 million ha to 2019). Additional elements of this reform process include the restitution of use rights in indigenous territories and resolution of conflict over forest land.Jambi has been seen as a successful province in terms of CBFM development. One of the schemes promoted is called Village Forest (Hutan Desa). A local conservation and development NGO based in Jambi, has supported local governments to extend the Village Forest scheme. It has been recognized as a mechanism to resolve land disputes and for communities to be ready for REDD+. It has also been expected to help increase forest sustainability and improve community welfare.Governmental Regulation PP.49/Menhut-II/2008 sets the legal foundation for the establishment of a Village Forest. The objective is the welfare and development of village communities. The official body supervising the application process is the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, which receives formal proposals from the head of a district that have been drafted by an applicant village.Village Forest areas are state forests managed by a village institution through a management licence for a period of 35 years. The licence is allocated based on the administrative area of the village and can be granted over areas categorized as either ‘protection’ or ‘production’ state forests. In protection forest areas, permitted activities are limited to reforestation, harvesting of non-timber forest products (NTFPs), eco-tourism and protection efforts through REDD+ and rewards for environmental services’ schemes. Inproduction forests, the village community, besides collecting NTFPs, can harvest 50 m3 of timber per year for village use. A village that is granted the licence (Surat Keputusan) is required to establish a committee (Lembaga Pengelola Hutan Desa/LPHD) to manage it. The committee is also responsible for submitting detailed annual (RTHD) and long-term (RKHD) work plans.At the time of writing, more than 30 villages have been granted Village Forest licenses in Jambi Province. However, little research has been done into how villages manage after receiving a licence. This brief analyses the challenges and threats posed by the licence in three villages in Jambi.
Public Sensitization Meeting: Witu Primary School, July 22, 2015. Theme: Improving Livelihoods through Biodiversity Management
This report covers public event organized by ICRAF in collaboration with partners to sensitize the stakeholders including communities on biodiversity conservation for improved livelihoods. The event attracted over 100 invited participants including community members from Witu and Aweer areas. Key speakers during the event included Lamu County Commissioner representative, Lamu County minister for Land s, Divisional Officer-Witu, ICRAF project staff and area women representative. Two schools; one secondary and one Primary performed during the event, the schools were selected as winners of the event theme competition organized before the public event. Local Traditional dancers also performed during the event. The main achievement of the event was the positive significant public response participation and kind reception from the local communities, assurance of support from the Lamu county government and successful Biodiversity related exhibitions by invited partners and community groups.
Toward an empirical analysis of justice in ecosystem governance
The 2010 Nagoya Protocol under the Convention on Biological Diversity and recent changes in the policies of major international conservation organizations highlight current interest in revisiting the moral case for conservation. Concerns with equity and human rights challenge well-established notions of justice centered on human responsibility toward nature, the common good or the rights of future generations. This review introduces an empirical approach to the analysis of justice and shows how conservation scientists can apply it to ecosystem services-based governance (or in short, ecosystem governance). It identifies dominant notions of justice and points out their compatibility with utilitarian theories of justice. It then discusses the limited appropriateness of these notions in many contexts in which conservation takes place in the Global South and explores how technical components of ecosystem governance influence the realization of the notions in practice. The review highlights the need for conservation scientists and managers to analyze the justice of ecosystem governance in addition to their effectiveness and efficiency. Justice offers a more encompassing perspective than equity for the empirical analysis of conservation governance.
Is China’s unparalleled and understudied bee diversity at risk?
China is one of the most significant providers of pollination ecosystem services globally. In addition to having unparalleled bee diversity, China has more than eight million managed bee colonies, and it is the world’s major honey producer. Yet, pollinators in China, especially bumble bees (Bombus spp.) and honey bees (Apis spp.), are likely at risk. Massive pollinator declines in various countries have rightly grabbed the attention of beekeepers, scientists, policymakers, and the general public, but research has almost exclusively focused on the U.S. and Europe, while countries with significantly higher pollination resources (such as China) have received far less attention. This perspective piece questions and highlights the risks to wild and managed pollinators in China and critical research gaps. We show that there may be a “pollination gap” in China for crops dependent on insect pollination and we examine the potential causes. Specifically, we assess the risks associated with land-use intensification, pesticide poisoning, climate change, invasive species, and other factors affecting the survival of bee pollinators in Asia. If true, the effects of declining pollinator populations in China would be felt globally, and with so much at stake, this problem merits careful consideration in the development of agriculture, economic, and conservation policies.
Global conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services
Habitat destruction has driven much of the current biodiversity extinction crisis, and it compromises the essential benefits, or ecosystem services, that humans derive from functioning ecosystems. Securing both species and ecosystem services might be accomplished with common solutions. Yet it is unknown whether these two major conservation objectives coincide broadly enough worldwide to enable global strategies for both goals to gain synergy. In this article, we assess the concordance between these two objectives, explore how the concordance varies across different regions, and examine the global potential for safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services simultaneously. We find that published global priority maps for biodiversity conservation harbor a disproportionate share of estimated terrestrial ecosystem service value (ESV). Overlap of biodiversity priorities and ESV varies among regions, and in areas that have high biodiversity priority but low ESV, specialized conservation approaches are necessary. Overall, however, our findings suggest opportunities for safeguarding both biodiversity and ecosystem services. Sensitivity analyses indicate that results are robust to known limitations of available ESV data. Capitalizing on these opportunities will require the identification of synergies at fine scales, and the development of economic and policy tools to exploit them.
The science of bird conservation
Colin Bibby (1948-2004) was the quintessential bird conservation biologist. Over his career, he served as lead scientist at two of the world’s largest bird conservation organizations, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and BirdLife International. His contributions encompassed detailed autecological studies of rare bird species such as the Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata (e.g. Bibby 1978) and Fuerteventura Stonechat Saxicola dacotiae (e.g. Bibby and Hill 1987), a sweeping synthesis of the techniques of bird conservation science (Bibby et al. 1992, 2000), and pioneering contributions in conservation planning such as the Endemic Bird Areas concept (ICBP 1992).
Hope for Threatened Tropical Biodiversity: Lessons from the Philippines
The Philippines is a megabiodiversity country, but it is also often seen as a country of ecological ruin whose biodiversity is on the verge of collapse. Decades of environmental neglect have pushed ecosystems to their limit, often with deadly repercussions for the human population. Is conservation in the Philippines a lost cause We review current conservation efforts in the Philippines, considering the actions of academics, field researchers, local communities, nongovernmental organizations, the government, and other sectors of society. Remarkably, however precarious the present situation may seem, there have been some recent positive gains and signs of hope. Although there is no room for complacency, we conclude that the diversity of available indicators suggests that conservation in the Philippines, against many odds, shows signs of success, and thus deserves greater attention and increased investment.
A Note on Terms of Gender Equality & Equity: Terminology and hints to improve Gender Equality and Equity in work and everyday life – in the Ethiopian context
GENDER Gender Is a bit trickier. Gender as a concept refers to the roles and responsibilities of boys, men, girls, and women influenced by the society we live in, our traditions, religion, values, culture, and economy. Gender is about the behaviours that are expected of each gender = Gender is about both men and women. These roles and expectations are learned from childhood, they are not determined by biology.