Global climate change and environmental degradation highlight the need for institutions of sustainability. In particular, there is increased interest in the potential of payments for environmental services (PES) to improve incentives for sustainable land management. Although smallholder land users can be efficient producers of environmental services of value to larger communities and societies, experience shows that the international and national institutions that govern PES are often designed in ways that entail transaction costs that cannot be feasibly met by individual smallholders. This chapter presents a conceptual framework to examine the inter-linkages between property rights, collective action, payment for environmental services, and the welfare of smallholder land users, examining how these play out in the contexts of carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and watershed functions. Greater consideration of the linkages between PES and other rural institutions can lead to more equitable outcomes, particularly by (1) suggesting how collective action can be used to overcome transaction costs and barriers to participation by smallholders and (2) identifying mechanisms through which managers of small private parcels or areas of common property can be rewarded for environmental stewardship through PES.
Tag: globalization
On bridging gaps
Southeast Asia has been a focus for research by the global alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) program (http://www.asb.cgiar.org) since 1994. ASB has been recognized for ‘scaling up’ results of its research to the global level and its findings on tradeoffs between global environmental concerns and local and national development objectives, both of which have been useful in the global debate on sustainability (CGIAR, 2000). However, other more localized environmental services at the landscape and watershed scales were recognized as a significant gap in this analysis in terms of impacts on local people, priorities of key policymakers and in the potential complementarity of landscape and watershed (what we call ‘meso-scale’) environmental issues with global environmental concerns such as habitat loss and carbon sequestration.
When neglected species gain global interest: Lessons learned from quinoa’s boom and bust for teff and minor millet
Until recently, many so-called neglected and underutilized species (NUS) were not present in global markets despite playing a pivotal role in the local livelihoods in their places of origin. Today, some NUS receive substantial global interest and face growing global demands. Sudden increases in consumer demand trigger prices to rise; land-use change at the farm and national levels results in a rapid production increase. This phenomenon is known as “boom” and is usually followed by a “bust”, a rapid decrease in prices, and subsequently, production. This review elaborates on the boom-and-bust phases of two NUS: quinoa from the Andes and teff from Ethiopia. We explored the potential upcoming boom of minor millets in India. Our study proposes a generic framework for exploring cross-scale interactions and rethinking sustainability pathways for future NUS booms.
Consumers’ Willingness to Purchase Imported Cherries towards Sustainable Market: Evidence from the Republic of Korea
Globalization has led diverse stakeholders to join the market and has resulted in corporate and product diversification; however, some markets remain monopolized by a few countries owing to “shadow trade barriers” influencing willingness to purchase. The Korean cherry market has grown rapidly since 2000 but is monopolized by U.S. cherries, which makes the market unsustainable; however, Uzbekistan cherries are 1.75-times less expensive than U.S. cherries. We examined the potential of Uzbekistan cherries to replace U.S. cherries as cherries are imported only from these countries during the spring–summer season. After collecting data through a web survey, we conducted logistic regression analyses to investigate what specific factors affect Korean consumers’ willingness to purchase Uzbekistan cherries over U.S. cherries: price perception, brand familiarity, perceived risk, and country of origin. Results showed that the more price awareness (price perception), experience (brand familiarity), and higher confidence of safety (perceived risk) that consumers had, the more they were willing to purchase Uzbekistan cherries. Consumers who checked the country of origin were less likely to purchase Uzbekistan cherries. The results provide useful information for exporters, importers, researchers, decision-makers, and policymakers concerning the utilization of products for sustainability in a monopolized market.
Plan d’action participatif pour une gestion inclusive des parcs à karité dans les communes de Bougnounou et Nébiélianayou
L’exploitation des produits forestiers non ligneux dont le karité (Vitellaria paradoxa) compte parmi les stratégies de résilience des populations rurales burkinabè. Le beurre de karité, un produit fortement associé aux femmes rurales, qui collectent et transforment les amandes de karité en beurre végétal, est aujourd’hui un produit à haute valeur ajoutée. Cependant, une très forte pression s’exerce sur la ressource, entrainant ainsi sa dégradation et affectant les moyens de subsistance de nombreux ménages.
La présente recherche vise à identifier et à évaluer les principaux facteurs qui contribuent au maintien et à l’amélioration de la gestion de l’espèce dans les parcs agroforestiers des provinces de la Sissili et du Ziro, incluant le Chantier d’aménagement forestier (CAF) de Bougnounou-Nébiélianayou. Elle vise à comprendre l’évolution des parcs à karité et les facteurs qui influencent l’utilisation des terres et les décisions prises par les communautés par rapport à la gestion de la ressource arborée. Il s’agit d’accompagner les communautés dans un processus de réflexion collective qui puisse résulter en une gestion plus équitable de leurs ressources naturelles et particulièrement du karité.
Développé de façon participative et inclusive, le plan d’actions qui en résulte comporte des suggestions institutionnelles, techniques, politiques, économiques et sociales pour améliorer la gestion des arbres à karité dans les forêts gérées par les communautés. Il permet aux acteurs impliqués dans la gestion des parcs à karité de planifier des activités et de préciser les rôles et responsabilité pour l’ensemble des parties prenantes, assortis des périodes de mise en œuvre.
Role of the Table Filière Karité in supporting local producers in Burkina Faso
Globalization and economic liberalization are affecting how the shea sector is organized and how it operates in shea producing countries. In Burkina Faso, where shea is the country’s fourth largest export, the shea sector is a major source of foreign currency. The sector-wide trade organization Table Filière Karité (Shea Sector Round Table – TFK), which brings together direct stakeholders in the Burkinabe shea sector, supports the development of the sector. Our analysis of the role of TFK in supporting local stakeholders in the sector in the current context of a globalized market and the regulations in force in Burkina Faso has shed light on the challenges that TFK must overcome and opportunities that it could harness to achieve its mission. It is based on information collected through interviews and documentary research.
Renegotiating Access to Shea Trees in Burkina Faso: Challenging Power Relationships Associated with Demographic Shifts and Globalized Trade
This paper uses an original integrated theoretical framework to reveal the mechanisms behind socio-economic differentiation in the changing patterns of access to shea in western Burkina Faso, in the context of globalization of the shea nut trade and internal migrations from both the Mossi Plateau and the Sahelian zone. Based on more than 200 interviews, we unravel the complex dynamic mechanisms of changes in access to shea. We show that negotiations result in reduced access to shea for late comers as well as for people with a limited number of shea trees in their fields, since areas where shea is managed as a common-pool resource are becoming less accessible. However, we also demonstrate that late comers are not powerless in the face of first comers’ claims to shea. Our results should help policy-makers and project-based activities concerning shea to focus more on issues related to access to this resource.
Unpacking Indonesia’s independent oil palm smallholders: An actor-disaggregated approach to identifying environmental and social performance challenges
Processes of globalization have generated new opportunities for smallholders to participate in profitable global agro-commodity markets. This participation however is increasingly being shaped by differentiated capabilities to comply with emerging public and private quality and safety standards. The dynamics within Indonesia’s oil palm sector illustrate well the types of competitive challenges smallholders face in their integration into global agro-commodity chains. Because of public concern over the poor social and environmental performance of the sector, many governments, companies, and consumers are attempting to clean up the value chain through self-regulatory commitments, certification, and public regulation. As a result, many of Indonesia’s oil palm smallholders face compliance barriers as a result of informality and poor production practices,and threaten to become alienated from formal markets, leading to a bifurcation of the oil palm sector. Recognizing that many oil palm smallholders lack compliance capacity, myriad public and private actors have begun designing initiatives to address compliance barriers and enhance smallholder competitiveness. However, failure to properly account for the heterogeneity of the smallholder oil palm sector will undermine the effectiveness and scalability of such initiatives. By developing a typology of independent smallholder oil palm farmers in the Rokan Hulu district of Riau province, this article reveals the wide diversity of actors that compose Indonesia’s smallholder oil palm economy, the types of compliance barriers they face, and sustainable development challenges they pose. In doing so, this article illustrates how global agro-commodity chains can drive agrarian differentiation and offer new insights into the complex dynamics of agricultural frontier expansion.