One of REDD+’s early movers, Peru has legal proposals to help it run a fair carbon market that incorporates all stakeholders. Researchers say this could be a key regulatory benchmark for other countries eyeing carbon trade with higher environmental integrity
Tag: deforestation
Impact of Indonesia’s Forest Management Units on the reduction of forest loss and forest fires in Sulawesi
The establishment of Forest Management Units (Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan/ KPH) represents one of Indonesia’s most significant forest governance reforms, covering the 120 million hectares of designated Forest Areas. Sharing features with the Landscape Approach, KPHs are expected to reduce deforestation and forest degradation through improved forest planning, oversight, open access avoidance, and fire prevention and response. This paper assesses the impact of KPHs on the reduction of forest loss, including forest loss due to fire, and the factors that influence this impact (e.g. KPH’s primary objective, deforestation risk). We use remotely sensed data to estimate difference-in-differences models accounting for differences in baseline characteristics and multiple time periods. Our case study, Sulawesi Island, is primarily shaped by smallholder farmer land use, where KPHs can exert significant influence. We do not find evidence of an overall effect of KPHs on deforestation. However, we observe intriguing heterogeneous effects depending on the year, including significantly less deforestation in already-established KPHs during the El Niño years of 2015–16, and a notable impact on the reduction of forest loss due to fire in some early-established KPHs. These findings warrant further investigation.
Modest forest and welfare gains from initiatives for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) projects and programmes promise to deliver performance-based, cost-effective climate change mitigation. Fifteen years after its conception, we analysed the rigorous counterfactual-based evidence for environmental and welfare effects from such national and subnational initiatives, along with a Theory of Change. Using machine-learning tools for literature review, we compared 32 quantitative studies including 26 primary forest-related and 12 socioeconomic effect sizes. Average environmental impacts were positively significant yet moderately sized, comparable to impacts from other conservation tools, and mostly impermanent over time. Socioeconomic impacts were welfare-neutral to slightly positive. Moderator analysis showed that environmental additionality was likely restricted by project proponents’ adverse spatial targeting of low-threat areas. Scarce funding flows from carbon markets and ill-enforced conditionality probably also limited impacts. Hence, important policy and implementation lessons emerge for boosting effectiveness in the current global transition towards larger-scale, jurisdictional action.
Defining and promoting agroforestry cocoa for Cameroon and Central Africa
In recent years, the cocoa sector has undergone significant change worldwide, with pressure to produce sustainable and deforestation-free cocoa. Several international initiatives have been launched or supported to achieve this goal. One is the African Regional Standard (ARS) 1000, enacted in 2021 to set the requirements for sustainable cocoa. It subsequently received ISO approval (34101 series). This general standard is currently broken down into national standards in the countries concerned.
Scaling Jurisdictional Approaches in the Indonesian Palm Oil Sector
The Scaling Jurisdictional Approaches in the Indonesian Palm Oil Sector research project was aimed at enhancing the readiness of selected palm oil producing regions to implement jurisdictional programmes (JPs) for sustainable palm oil through a participatory, multistakeholder and gender-inclusive approach drawing on lessons learned from JPs carried out by CIFOR-ICRAF and other parties.
Putumayo, Colombia: Low-emission rural development (LED-R) at a glance
- ~19% of the department is within the National System of Protected Areas
- Located in Andes-Amazon region, with wide ecological & cultural diversity
- Trinational region borders both Ecuador & Peru, complicating governance of environmental issues in shared Putumayo River basin
- Highest number of green business initiatives of any jurisdiction within the Corporation for Sustainable Development in the Southern Amazon (Corpoamazonia, environmental authority of the region) such as ecotourism & the use of non-timber forest products (NTFPs, e.g., açai) for export to the USA & Europe
- Expansion of the mining industry at the national level discourages rural business development & threatens indigenous territories, & lack of subnational conservation policies exacerbates vulnerability to impacts of extractivism
- 14% indigenous population; 55 indigenous territories cover ~8% of the department
West Papua, Indonesia: Low-emission rural development (LED-R) at a glance
- Forests cover 90% of West Papua (WP) with lowest historical deforestation rates in Indonesia; WP commits to maintain at least 70% as protected areas through Manokwari Declaration (MD) & Special Regulation on Sustainable Development
- Special Autonomy (SA) status allows provincial government regulation-making abilities, more decision-making authority considering local context & access to funding from central government through 2021
- ~13% provincial GDP growth from 2003-2012, due in part to growth in natural gas industry [BP Indonesia Tangguh liquid natural gas (LNG) project] & related sectors, & government spending following creation of province
- WP rural poverty rate (35%; 2017) is more than 2x the national average & wealth is concentrated in urban areas; infrastructure development aims to promote equitable wealth distribution
- In 2015-2016, degraded peatlands accounted for 50-55% more emissions than forest clearing
Alternatives to slash-and-burn: a global imperative
Our generation has seen an upswelling of interest and concern for atmospheric pollution and for the concomitant destruction or degradation of our natural resources. High on the list of both these concerns is the rapid destruction of tropical forests and their release of greenhouse gases in the process. Much of the forest destruction is to provide lumber for building construction worldwide, and for fuelwood, but most of it is to provide land for agriculture.
Economic crisis, farming systems, and forest cover change in the humid forest zone of Cameroon
The rate of forest clearing by small farmers in the humid forest zone (HFZ) of Cameroon increased significantly in a period of economic crisis dating from 1986. A random sample survey of 648 households was conducted in 54 villages in the HFZ to understand the effect of the crisis and of a 1996 currency devaluation on the practices of small farmers, and the effect of these practices on forest cover change. Three hypotheses were tested: (1) the balance between export crop and food crop production; (2) the degree of market-orientation of food crop production; and (3) the gender division of labour. The key results are: (1) the area of cocoa production has stagnated while that of coffee, plantain and other food crops has tended to increase; (2) food crop production is now more market-oriented; and (3) more men are now far more involved in food crop production than in the past. The results corroborate other studies showing that increased deforestation in the HFZ is largely a product of these three factors and also of: increased rural population, partly resulting from urban-rural migration; decline of food imports and corresponding increase in food crop production; decreased government subsidies for agricultural inputs; and increased logging. The study concludes that: (1) macroeconomic instability can lead to unforeseen and grave consequences not only for the well-being of farmers but also for efforts to protect remaining tropical forests: and (2) crop diversification might be one way to help avert future income shocks to farmers and minimise forest clearing activity.
The impact of trade and macroeconomic policies on frontier deforestation
The purpose of this lecture note is to summarise different research results about the impact of macro-level factors and “extra-sectoral” policies on tropical forest cover. Specifically, we are interested in the forest margins – i.e. the spatial transition zone between tropical forests and converted land uses. What are the policy factors that accelerate frontier expansion, and which ones tend to slow it down? The main objectives are: a. To learn how different changes related to trade and macroeconomic policies affect the loss of frontier forests, i.e. to understand both the likely direction and weight of these factors in influencing the speed of forest conversion; b. To comprehend trade-offs and synergies between policies for natural-forest conservation and those designed to promote economic development; c. To appreciate these linkages in the light of a few micro- and macro-level examples. A key finding is that what happens to tropical forests is more determined by events outside the forest arena than by what happens inside the forest sector. In other words, the extra-sectoral impacts will often be more important than, for instance, the new forest law, the participatory tree planting project or the environmental education programme that is implemented at the forest margins. That does not necessarily mean that forestry interventions are not effective. What it does mean is that some macroeconomic and extra-forestry factors tend to set the scene for success or failure of the projects and strategies of forest margin stabilisation, so that the promoters of these strategies need to have a realistic vision about the direction and proportions of impacts. In some cases, the macro decision makers should also explicitly take into account how forests are affected before they make their “extra-sectoral”, macro-level choices.