Major land use changes such as deforestation and restoration influence water resources in agriculture–forest landscapes. Changes are observed in water flows, groundwater infiltration, water quality and rainfall. Interdisciplinary water–forest research has unravelled biophysical parts of the interplay that influences forest and water resources. In this Perspective paper, we propose an expanded interdisciplinary research approach to study water and policies in agriculture–forest frontiers. The approach differs in four important aspects from previous ones: (i) a conceptual ‘frontier’ understanding; an analytical focus on (ii) agriculture and (iii) policy–water linkages; (iv) empirical attention to northern and southern countries. The approach is put into practice with the “Pendulum” framework, with interventions and the agriculture–forest frontier oscillating over time between exploitation and restoration. Through the approach, a better understanding will be provided on the dynamic interplay of water and policies in oscillating agriculture–forest frontiers, with changing outcomes for people and environment.
Tag: deforestation
Preliminary results of assessments on the impacts of Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) on forest networks and governance, household income and forest loss in Vietnam
Key messages
- PFES and the large number of workshops have helped catalyze or strengthen cooperation between participants, which in turn can help organizations contribute more effectively to forest governance initiatives. However, when organizations work in the same provinces, they are less likely to collaborate.
- The impact of PFES on household income depends on the levels of payments, livelihood options available in the area, the area of forest managed by households, and PFES contract types (between individual households and the fund or between village administrations and PFES agencies). There were substantial differences between study sites.
- PFES appears to have been successful in lowering rates of deforestation for forest plots that were standing in 2000. The longer PFES programs have been active in a province, the greater the expected reductions in deforestation.
- Estimated PFES impacts can vary significantly depending on the assessment method used. While this infobrief discusses the impacts of PFES on forest governance, local livelihoods and forest loss separately, their interaction could offer a more complex picture of PFES impacts.
The context of REDD+ in Indonesia: Drivers, agents and institutions [2nd edition]
This country profile is a second version from the first country profile that was published by CIFOR in 2012. Since then, REDD+ developments has changed drastically in Indonesia. This version documents changes from 2012 to 2020, on drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, institutional settings and governance for REDD+, the political economy of drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, REDD+ actors and 3Es (Effectiveness, Efficiency and Equity) implementation. Indonesia keeps the commitment to addressing climate change but reducing deforestation and forest degradation remains a challenge. Major issues surrounding REDD+ implementation include weak implementation of various international agreements, contradictory regulations and weak coordination between government agencies, changing national political regimes that affects transformation commitment, disconnection between central and regional levels, unclear REDD+ projects impact, and continuous business as usual solution to bridge conservation and development. More attention to elite capture is needed to avoid bias of promoting business and economic growth for the benefit of all but at the expense of the environment.
Long-term (1990–2019) monitoring of forest cover changes in the humid tropics
Accurate characterization of tropical moist forest changes is needed to support conservation policies and to quantify their contribution to global carbon fluxes more effectively. We document, at pantropical scale, the extent and changes (degradation, deforestation, and recovery) of these forests over the past three decades. We estimate that 17% of tropical moist forests have disappeared since 1990 with a remaining area of 1071 million hectares in 2019, from which 10% are degraded. Our study underlines the importance of the degradation process in these ecosystems, in particular, as a precursor of deforestation, and in the recent increase in tropical moist forest disturbances (natural and anthropogenic degradation or deforestation). Without a reduction of the present disturbance rates, undisturbed forests will disappear entirely in large tropical humid regions by 2050. Our study suggests that reinforcing actions are needed to prevent the initial degradation that leads to forest clearance in 45% of the cases.
Participation and influence of REDD+ actors in Vietnam, 2011–2019
Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) is an important component of the Paris Agreement. Inclusive decision making is essential to ensure REDD outcomes, but there is limited anecdotal and empirical evidence demonstrating that stakeholder participation in REDD+ decision making has improved over time. This paper presents an analysis of the Vietnamese government’s claim that stakeholder participation in REDD+ had been improved over the course of 2011–2019, specifically focusing on various actors’ perceptions of their level of interest, engagement and influence in REDD+ policy events. Findings show that the country’s legal framework on REDD+ demonstrated Vietnam’s political commitment to improve inclusive decision making, and initial effort was made to provide political space for actors to engage in REDD+ decision making. However, momentum has been lost over time. This suggests that understanding the political context, addressing underlying power dynamics in the existing government regime, building up coalitions for change among political elites and civil society, and fostering sustainable political will and commitment are all essential to ensuring inclusive REDD+ decision making in Vietnam.
Incentives for landscape restoration: Lessons from Shinyanga, Tanzania
Owing to high rates of land and forest degradation, there is consensus that forest landscape restoration is a global priority with the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration on Forests committing to restore about 350 Million hectares by 2030, globally. However, there is a need for incentives that motivate these restoration efforts and disincentives aimed at restricting activities that result in further land degradation. We provide insights and understanding of the incentives and disincentives measures applied within the forest restoration systems through a case study in the Shinyanga region of Tanzania. Incentives that have promoted forest landscape restoration in Shinyanga include; conservation benefits, education and information, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), well-defined property rights & increasing land prices and awards while disincentives include; penalties, quotas and permits. Intrinsic incentives that are derived from self-desire within an individual such as conservation benefits and education & information were more preferred within Shinyanga region compared to extrinsic incentives which relied more on external factors such as REDD+ and awards. Nonetheless, a combination of both incentives and disincentives has led to the success of restoration in Shinyanga; positive incentives worked better for privately owned lands while regulatory disincentives worked better for communally owned restoration lands. High levels of social equity and trust have enabled the functioning of these incentives while a robust governance structure at the local level has been instrumental in enforcing the disincentives. There is need for government and all stakeholders to maintain and enhance the gains from restoration, especially empowering communities further, for these incentives to work.
Putumayo, Colombia
- ~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
How climate change and land use/land cover change affect domestic water vulnerability in Yangambi Watersheds (D. R. Congo)
In the tropics, the domestic water supply depends principally on ecosystem services, including the regulation and purification of water by humid, dense tropical forests. The Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (YBR) landscape is situated within such forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Surprisingly, given its proximity to the Congo River, the YBR is confronted with water issues. As part of its ecosystem function, the landscape is expected to reduce deterioration of water quality. However, environmental consequences are increasing due to conversion of its dense forest into other types of land use/land cover (LULC) in response to human activities. It is therefore important to check how the physicochemical quality parameters of water resources are influenced by landscape parameters—and to know if the population can adapt to this water vulnerability. To do this, we analyzed the watershed typology (including morphometric and LULC characteristics) and the physical and chemical parameters of water within the principal watershed’s rivers. We also analyzed data from surveys and the Yangambi meteorological station. We found that some landscape indices related to LULC significantly influence water quality deterioration in Yangambi. On average, each person in the Yangambi landscape uses 29–43 liters of water per day. Unfortunately, this falls short of World Health Organization standards regarding some parameters. The best fitted simple linear regression model explains the variation in pH as a function of edge density of perturbed forest, edge density of crop land and patch density of dense forest up to 94%, 92% and 90%, respectively. While many researchers have identified the consequences of climate change and human activities on these water resources, the population is not well-equipped to deal with them. These results suggest that water management policies should consider the specificities of the Yangambi landscape in order to develop better mitigation strategies for a rational management of water resources in the YBR in the context of climate change.
The role of miombo woodlands in the three Rio conventions
Miombo woodlands are some of the most important and widespread woodlands in eastern and southern Africa across southern Africa. The 1992 earth summit in Rio resulted in the formation of three conventions United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This article aims at analyzing the national commitments to the three conventions from the miombo ecoregion. The national reports were screened for references to miombo. The analysis shows that limited references were made to the miombo woodlands. Highlighted significantly in the CBD and UNFCCC national reports, the miombo does not feature in the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or Nationally Determined Contributions. The lack of differentiation between miombo and other woodland types hinders further coordination. The numerous ecosystem services and non-timber forest products from miombo woodlands are not well captured in national economies, and thus receive little attention at the policy level. The study concludes that there is a momentum for countries to improve regional collaboration on the miombo woodlands and to share experiences and lessons learned. It would be key to improve the knowledge and understanding of the immense role miombo plays in national and local economies.
The challenge of reconciling conservation and development in the tropics: Lessons from Brazil’s oil palm governance model
Due to its controversies, oil palm cultivation has been targeted by regulatory innovations. Among these, transnational efforts—such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and corporate commitments to zero deforestation have been highly influential but often tend to overvalue environmental over socio-economic outcomes. This article discusses to what extent domestic governance models of palm oil producing countries can be better equipped to reconcile domestic demands such as economic development and poverty alleviation, and transnational concerns about forest conservation. We do so by looking into the Brazilian case, where the government intended to drive oil palm expansion in the Amazon through a program launched in 2010 that simultaneously only allowed expansion into already deforested areas and offered companies incentives to engage smallholder farmers in their supply chains. Our findings, drawn from primary research activities and existing literature, indicate that Brazil has managed to avoid deforestation typically associated with oil palm expansion elsewhere. Oil palm establishment involved the conversion of 0.8% and 1.3% of primary forests for corporate and smallholder plantations, respectively. However, the Brazilian government did not manage to optimally enhance smallholder participation in the sector, as significant differences in performance were observed between farmers, ranging from very successful (17%) to highly unsuccessful (12%); and failed to achieve sectoral development and competitiveness targets. While some failings can be attributed to external factors such as context, broader domestic governance frameworks and alignments, and private supply chain initiatives, the program itself did not manage to reconcile social, environmental and economic objectives into a single coherent sectoral governance model. Yet, this case study suggests that domestic governance strategies can enable commodity production in a way that is more coherent with national priorities, at the same time as preventing deforestation and minimizing social risks more effectively.