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Although developing countries have established scores of new protected areas over the past three decades, they often amount to little more than “paper parks” that are chronically short of the financial, human, and technical resources needed for effective management. It is not clear whether and how severely under-resourced parks affect deforestation. In principle, they could either stem it by, for example, creating an expectation of future enforcement, or they could spur it by, for example, creating open access regimes. We examine the effect of Mexico's natural protected areas (NPAs) on deforestation from 1993 to 2000, a period when forest clearing was rampant and the vast majority of protected areas had negligible resources or management. We use high-resolution satellite data to measure deforestation and (covariate and propensity score) matching to control for NPAs’ nonrandom siting and for spillovers. Our broad finding is that Mexico's paper parks had heterogeneous effects both inside and outside their borders. More specifically, at the national-level, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that NPAs had zero average effect on clearing inside their borders, nor can we reject a similar hypothesis for spillover clearing outside their borders. However, we can detect statistically and economically significant inside- and outside-NPA effects for certain geographic regions. Moreover, these effects have different signs depending on the region. Finally, we find that NPAs with certain characteristics were more effective at stemming deforestation inside their borders, namely, those that were large, new, mixed use, and relatively well-funded. Taken together, these results suggest that paper parks have the potential to either reduce or exacerbate tropical deforestation and highlight the need for further research on the conditions that lead to each outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have been due largely to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, cultivation of the grasslands, drainage of the land, and land use changes. This has led to increase in greenhouse gases, created concerns about the potential for long-term climate change and interest in developing methods to sequester some of this atmospheric carbon. In agricultural land areas no-tillage (NT) systems have been proposed, to replace moldboard plow and chisel systems as a way to sequester soil organic carbon (SOC). Numerous estimates have been published of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration total and rates as a result of a switch to NT systems. Other researchers have proposed the use of cover crops, synthetic fertilizers, organic fertilizer, manure, liming, agricultural systems and management, agroforestry, forages, compost, crop rotations, and reduced row crop use as ways to sequester SOC. For SOC sequestration to occur as a result of a treatment applied to a land unit, all of the SOC sequestered must have come from atmosphere and be transferred into the soil humus through the unit plants, plant residues and other organic solids. The amount of SOC present in the soil humus at the end of the study has to be greater than the pre-treatment SOC levels in the same land unit and there needs to be a net depletion of atmospheric CO2 as a result. The objectives of this paper are to: (1) determine long-term study SOC levels and trends in agricultural lands, (2) application of the SOC sequestration concept to a specific site, (3) identify appropriate experimental designs for plot area use in determining SOC sequestration, (4) develop a procedure, such as pre-treatment measurements of SOC levels in the plots before treatments are applied, to verify SOC sequestration at a site (5) equivalent soil mass sampling method, (6) compare laboratory methods for quantifying SOC content, and (7) account for the loading of C rich amendments. To unequivocally demonstrate SOC sequestration at a specific site has occurred, a temporal increase must be documented relative to pre-treatment SOC level and linked to a net depletion of atmospheric CO2. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Satellite imagery can be used to assess the state of vegetation in areas that are rarely visited. Here we report how satellite imagery clearly shows the outline of Mucheve Forest Reserve in Mozambique because the vegetation within the park has been severely degraded. This is contrast to several other protected areas, where the vegetation outside their boundaries is often more degraded than within. Possible reasons for the difference between the vegetation structure inside and outside the reserve are shortly discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Debate about the causes and consequences of regional deforestation in India has paved the way for calls to action and intervention, and state-sponsored afforestation has led to government claims of progressagainst land degradation. Census statistics from the arid state of Rajasthan show a tide of forests reclaiming the land. These trends obscure crucial realities that continue to undermine the claims of the state: forest ecosystems continue to disappear, expanding cover is characterized by an ecologically narrow range of species, and forest management remains rooted in a decision structure that fails to educe local knowledge and experience. More fundamentally, the flaws in the Rajasthani forest campaign reflect an entrenched pattern that has long guided authorities in the region; to govern the landscape, the state must quite literally construct forests as mental categories, discursive tropes, and material realities where none have existed before. The material conditions of tree cover are, in this way, influenced by the discursive forms of forest imported into the region. This paper surveys the contradictory trends in Rajasthani land cover, interrogating the relationship between the forests that expand on paper and those that dwindle on the ground. In the process, the paper contributes to ongoing work in post-structural political ecology by asking how discourse matters in the reconstitution of material ecologies and by linking the construction of ecological categories to the formation of landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Due to rapid deforestation, the paper industry is facing problems like shortage of forest based raw materials, cost increment and negative effects on the environment including increasing air, water and soil pollution. In India, agro residues utilized in stubble burning could be used as a sustainable fiber resource for papermaking, but the paper made from these possesses poor strength properties. Considering the multiple advantages of using agro residues and weak strength properties of the paper made from these, this study was conducted. The effect of blending hardwood pulp and agro pulp with cationic starch or chitosan at wet-end of papermaking with and without subsequent surface sizing using oxidized starch was explored. As a wet-end additive, chitosan dose of 0.5 kg/t was more promising than cationic starch dose of 5 kg/t with all pulps. Paper was produced from 85% agro and 15% hardwood pulp and 0.5 kg/t of chitosan at wet-end after surface sizing with oxidized starch. It improved the tear index, Taber stiffness, double fold and air permeance by 2.7%, 6.5%, 170%, and 300%, respectively with 18.4% decrease in Cobb 60 as compared to paper made with 100% hardwood pulp. FTIR analysis was further done to evaluate the effect on crystallinity ratio and energy changes in hydrogen bonds in the papers of differently blended pulps after surface sizing. The study signifies the enhancement in strength and surface properties of paper made using agro pulp after addition of biopolymers at wet-end with and without surface sizing. Highlights • Mixing hardwood (HW) pulp with agro (AG) pulp to improve its paper properties. • Use of wet-end additives improved the strength and surface properties of paper. • Chitosan is a more efficient wet-end additive than starch. • Paper from 15% HW and 85% AG pulp after surface sizing was comparable to hardwood. • With surface sizing using chitosan agro pulp can be used to produce good quality paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political and performative function of the deforestation 'reference level' within Guyana's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) agreement with Norway. It argues that the establishment of, and continual negotiations around, the reference level rate illustrate how the Guyana-Norway REDD+ agreement was always more about ensuring the programme's 'success' than materially reducing deforestation in Guyana. By setting the 'reference level' at 0.275% per year in 2010, far above Guyana's historical rate of 0.02%, Guyana's successful performance in terms of 'avoiding deforestation' against this inflated level was all but guaranteed – even as 'business as usual' forest use continued on the ground. The fact that the reference level was high moreover allowed Norway to claim that it had 'contributed' (through its REDD+ payments) to higher 'avoided emissions', even though there was never a clear relationship between its payments and Guyana's deforestation rate throughout the programme. The 'performative' nature of the programme was meanwhile confirmed in 2019, when Norway disbursed the entire remaining balance from the US$250 million originally pledged to Guyana, despite the fact that Guyana had infringed the adjusted reference level 'floor' of 0.056% in several years of the programme. The article concludes that if meaningful solutions for 'avoiding deforestation' are to be developed, especially in the context of a new centrality for offsetting within the global 'net zero' agenda, 'success' must mean more than achieving results on paper and resources must be committed that are commensurate with the scale of the stated policy challenge. • Guyana's REDD+ programme with Norway is examined. • The REDD+ deforestation 'reference level' is central to ensuing programme 'success'. • The ultimately 'performative' nature of the programme is underlined. • 'Avoiding deforestation' must mean more than merely achieving results on paper. • Resources must be commensurate with the scale of the stated policy challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the potential implications of the proposed European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the recently adopted United Kingdom (UK) legislation on deforestation-free supply chains (henceforth 'the legislation') for different stakeholders in Brazil. These regulations intend to address global commodity-driven deforestation and forest degradation by ensuring that targeted commodities and products placed on (or exported from) markets are of minimal risk of being associated with - in the EU - deforestation and forest degradation or - in the UK - illegal deforestation. The paper examines potential compliance readiness in cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soybean and tropical timber supply chains in Brazil, indicating specific challenges that may arise. Through the construction of a "Compliance Likelihood Index", our research provides comparable indications to policymakers on sectors and stakeholders that may need stronger support to meet the requirements, in order to maintain Brazil's access to EU and UK markets. The paper indicates that coffee is the sector with the highest level of incentivization and smallest hurdles for compliance, while the cattle sector may face stronger challenges to rapidly adjust its production system towards a deforestation-free value chain and prove compliance. Results of our analysis also highlight the need for collaboration between the EU/UK and Brazil in order to promote alignment between domestic and demand-side legislations so that they are mutually reinforcing. Results of this exercise, which has a focus on the producer-country view of demand-side legislation, will contribute to discussions on the merits of different approaches to strengthen the governance of deforestation-risk commodity trade. [Display omitted] • Brazil's coffee sector may currently have the greatest likelihood of ready compliance. • Cattle may be the sector to which the regulations may pose the greatest challenges. • The EU and UK should focus on providing financial means and technical assistance for smallholders. • The EU and UK legislation will need to be accompanied by domestic policies and regulations in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• High scores for forest governance were frequently related to reduced tropical deforestation. • Revision of governance frameworks would be beneficial as some indicators were hardly applied, others were interrelated. • The structure – agency concept can help to structure the numerous governance indicators. • Governance was moderated by context factors like corruption, population and technology. • Results are based on a content analysis of 28 most frequently cited papers. In view of a continuing global decrease of forest cover, many authors mention forest governance as a basic concept contributing to reduced deforestation, specifically in the tropics. There are numerous definitions for forest governance. The concept is commonly understood as a broad approach and assessment tools comprise dozens of indicators. However, there is no information about relations between single indicators, their individual importance and whether contextual factors modify their effects. This article aims to analyze if the hypothesized relation between governance leading to reduced tropical deforestation in general holds true, to identify the most decisive governance components and to explore if the wider socio-economic and political context influences potential governance effects. The structure - agency concept is used as theoretical basis to identify underlying mechanisms and as conceptual basis for discussing individual indicators. We employ a quantitative literature review based on scientific articles on governance and deforestation. From a total of 810 articles we select the most frequently cited publications related to the subject. From the resulting 198 papers only those are studied that contain empirical relations between governance and deforestation. The remaining 28 studies are analyzed by applying the governance indicators of the World Resource Institute as categories for content analysis. Likert scores are used to quantify governance effects as input for subsequent principal component analysis and multiple linear regressions. Results show that indeed high governance scores frequently relate to lower rates of deforestation and we thus recommend continued political support for the concept. But the reviewed studies mostly focus on a smaller number of classical governance indicators, which suggests that the governance concept might benefit from streamlining into a more targeted approach. In this respect, several indicators were related to underlying principal components reflecting the agency and structure concept. Even though we cannot claim a statistically significant stronger effect of one or the other component, single structural indicators were more strongly and more consistently linked to reduced deforestation in comparison to agency related indicators. The concept can thus be helpful to guide policy design and implementation. We show this by applying it to the ongoing discussion on results based payments under REDD+ as a prominent example for agency related measures. The reviewed literature in addition suggests that governance effects are moderated by deforestation drivers such as corruption, illegal logging and population growth and by interventions like technology transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We analyse peer punishment patterns in a cross-country framed field experiment. • First-order cooperation is associated to prosocial punishment. • Excessive forest use (free riding) is associated to antisocial punishment. • Prosocial punishment reduces free riding; antisocial punishment increases it. • Indonesian participants punish twice as often as those from Brazil and Peru. The conservation of common-pool resources (CPRs), such as tropical forests, is a key challenge of development and environmental policies. Peer sanctioning of excessive resource use increases the cost of free riding and may be an effective way to ensure sustainable management of CPRs, but it entails individual costs to punishers. This paper examines peer punishment patterns and impacts in a cross-country framed field experiment (FFE) with homogeneous and heterogenous agents. The FFE is conducted with 720 forest users in Brazil, Indonesia, and Peru. We first examine the relationship between the appropriation of the common-pool resource (first order cooperation) and peer punishment choices (second order cooperation), distinguishing between prosocial and antisocial punishment. A small share (18.2%) of the participants behaves as self-interested payoff maximisers (homo economicus) , while the largest group (26.1%) cooperates in both the appropriation and punishment decisions (homo reciprocans). Across countries, receiving prosocial punishment, defined as punishment of free riders, increases cooperation, while receiving antisocial punishment reduces cooperation. There are, however, important inter-country variations. In Indonesia, the marginal costs of non-cooperation are higher than in the Brazilian and Peruvian sites, and agent heterogeneity significantly increases peer punishment frequency. We conjecture that the higher punishment frequency in Indonesia is linked to stronger equality norms and a willingness to enforce them. Although peer punishment boosts cooperation across all our study sites, the research highlights how peer punishment patterns and impacts are linked to the institutional and cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental degradation and economic development are two of the most pressing issues facing the world today, and public policy that aims to address one of these may unintentionally affect the other. I study the effect of an increase in environmental law enforcement on local economic conditions in rural Brazil. In the first part of this paper, I use data on more targeted anti-deforestation law enforcement activities, guided by satellite alerts, and link that to local forest conversion. I then exploit the staggered introduction of a policy that increases monitoring and enforcement in municipalities with a history of high deforestation, and link this to a range of economic development outcomes. I find that more targeted law enforcement reduces conversion rates of forest to farm land. Furthermore, economic conditions in municipalities with stricter monitoring improve, indicating that environmental enforcement and economic development need not be at odds. • Targeted law enforcement in Amazon Biome of Brazil reduces deforestation. • Economic conditions in municipalities with stricter deforestation-monitoring improve. • GDP per capita is higher, and number of recipients of income support lower in targeted municipalities. • Environmental enforcement and economic development need not be at odds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Access to affordable mobile phones continues to be a policy focus, yet understanding of its impacts on the environment is limited. • We focus on rural households in Uganda (2009–2013) and find that mobile phone ownership is linked to increased deforestation. • A 1% increase in the share of households owning a mobile phone was associated with a 1.2% increase in deforestation within a 5-kilometer radius. • Households whose main source of income is not agricultural production may be driving the increased deforestation with more crop cultivation area (45%). • Our deforestation results are equivalent to 16,000 tons of lost carbon storage over two years, valued between $3 and $11 million. Increased access to information technology changes economic opportunities and may indirectly lead to changes in rural households' land use and the local natural environment. With the expansion of service coverage and decreasing cost of mobile phone service plans, particularly in Africa, it is critical to understand the implications of the rapid uptake of mobile phones on the environment. In this paper, we estimate the relationship between mobile phone adoption and deforestation in rural areas of Uganda over the 2009 to 2013 period. We exploit heterogeneity in household adoption of mobile phones using four rounds of the Uganda National Panel Survey (2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013). We find that a 1% increase in the share of households owning a mobile phone is associated with a 1.2% increase in deforestation within a 5-kilometer radius of these households. At the household level, those acquiring a mobile phone see an average of 8% increase in crop cultivation area, driven by households whose main source of income is not agricultural production. These results suggest that mobile phone adoption may lead to sizeable adverse impacts on the environment via an expansion of crop cultivation areas. The estimated increase in deforestation translates to approximately 16,000 tons of lost carbon storage over two years, valued between $3 and $11 million. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Investor can achieve its maximum interest through incentive coordination in REDD+. • Landholders will not suffer any losses after incentive coordination in REDD+. • Incentive-coordinated contracts can improve the efforts to reduce emissions. • Landholder with better capability is more likely to improve its efforts in REDD+. • Incentive coordination is interpreted as a techne of neoliberal environmentality. Abstract The complexity and profound spatial effects of incentives in the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) contracts make them an ideal case for applying neoliberal environmentality theory, as they provide a special lens to closely observe how incentive coordination, as a techne of neoliberal environmentality, shapes individual behavior in reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation. This paper introduces some political and economic arguments related to the issue of incentive coordination in REDD+ contracts from the perspective of neoliberal environmentality. According to the efforts of landholders to reduce emissions, this paper conducts a game model of payments for ecosystem services to describe the dynamic interaction behavior between an investor and several landholders in the current REDD+ contract and an incentive-coordinated REDD+ contract. In the theoretical framework, the effects of incentive coordination on the landholders' efforts to reduce emissions are analyzed. A numerical simulation is adopt to examine the changes in the efforts of landholders to reduce emissions and in the benefits of stakeholders under two REDD+ contracts. The results demonstrate the following: First, the investor can maximize benefits without losing the landholders' interests via designing incentive-coordinated REDD+ contracts. Second, extra incentives can improve landholders' efforts to reduce emissions, which contributes to achieving the goal of the REDD+ scheme. Third, landholders with stronger capabilities are more likely to reduce emissions, thus receiving more extra incentives. Incentive coordination has become a neoliberal environmentality; it can impact a landholder's use of forest resources by changing the benefits of reducing emissions in the REDD+ scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Scalar discourses can become dominant in environmental governance initiatives. • Scalar discourses define arenas of governance which may exclude certain groups. • Assemblage-thinking can be used to interrogate scalar discourses. • Assemblage-thinking reimagines relations between power and spatiality. Abstract This paper traces the relations and frictions that make up the institutional assemblage for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program in Papua New Guinea (PNG). By engaging with REDD+ using assemblage-thinking – a theoretical orientation and method that focuses on relationality, heterogeneity and emergence – this paper interrogates the dominance of scalar discourses around climate change and environmental governance. While scalar discourses predefine categories and hierarchies (such as the 'global,' 'national' and 'local'), assemblage-thinking offers a method to resist such framings and reimagine relations between power and spatiality. Through institutional ethnography and discourse analysis, this paper critically examines how scalar discourses become dominant and how they translate into environmental governance projects, specifically the Central Suau REDD+ Pilot Project. By using assemblage-thinking to problematise scalar discourses, we can see how such discourses may reinscribe inequalities by defining arenas of governance that work to exclude certain groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outcomes of forest management (FM) as implemented by industrial logging corporations in tropical forests is an issue that merits greater scrutiny than it has received thus far. We, therefore, welcome the contribution by Karsenty et al. (2017) that questions some of the findings advanced in our article (Brandt et al., 2016). Our paper used satellite-derived deforestation data and statistical matching techniques to examine patterns of deforestation and timber production in the Republic of Congo after the implementation of FM plans in timber concessions. We found that a) deforestation rates were higher in concessions that had a registered forest management plan (FMP) compared to those that did not ; b) deforestation rates increased after a concession adopted a FMP; and c) timber production was higher and more stable in concessions that adopted a FMP than in concessions that did not. In their response, Karsenty et al. (2017) question our analytical approach and advocate for different evaluative criteria. While their response offers new and potentially valuable perspectives, it also criticizes our paper for errors our paper does not contain, and suggests we should have carried out analyses that we already did. In this rejoinder, we discuss the extent to which we consider their arguments relevant, valid, and worthy of further study. We note that neither Karsenty et al. (2017), nor any other peer-reviewed article that we know of, provide empirical results that contradict the findings of our original article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity and deeply spatial effects of incentives in REDD+ make it a good case study for the application of governmentality theory, as it provides a special perspective to observe how REDD+ incentives shape individual conduct. This paper describes political and economic arguments related to incentives associated with the REDD+ mechanism from the perspective of governmentality. This paper conducts a theoretical analysis of policymaker, landholder, and developer strategies under different market power structures. The goal is to explore the optimal incentives and efforts for REDD+ through two-stage game models. A numerical simulation is applied to examine the effects of changing the parameters associated with each stakeholder’s strategies. The results demonstrate the following. First, the conduct of landholders and developers in reducing carbon emissions is unrelated to the market power they own. Policymakers need to consider market power structures when designing REDD+ incentives. Second, policymakers need to consider multiple factors to design heterogeneous REDD+ incentives under different market power structures. These factors include the price of carbon emission credits, opportunity costs, output elasticity of effort, cost coefficients and total factor productivity. Third, variations in compensation payments do not affect landholder and developer efforts to reduce carbon emissions, but would affect the REDD+ incentive design. Finally, REDD+ incentives have become hybrid neoliberal governmentality; they are consistent with the characteristics of neoliberalism, but are also instruments for serving state policy goals. All these factors need to be considered in designing future REDD+ incentives that achieve an incentive-compatible REDD+ mechanism and realize appropriate governance in forest conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a rapidly developing country, Indonesia faces a challenge in improving air quality that is made more difficult by frequent forest fires linked to deforestation and volcanic eruptions. This paper analyses the link between development and air pollution in 30 Indonesian cities from 2002 to 2019. Air quality is measured using two novel regional air quality indicators (AQIs) for PM 2.5 and PM 10 estimated from weather observations and NASA satellite data on Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD). Results from an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) analysis, based on a dynamic panel data model, show that forest fires and volcanic activity have significantly worsened regional air quality in Indonesia. The model also shows that the EKC hypothesis is rejected for Indonesia as cities have followed a monotonically increasing trend in air pollution with respect to economic growth. An additional 1% of economic growth increased long run pollution as measured by AQI PM 2.5 and PM 10 by 0.35% and 0.46%, and forest fire events by 0.11% and 0.06%. A partial Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) of forest fires shows that particulate matter pollution is excessive. Decreasing the frequency of forest fires by 1% would generate a net benefit of between US$17 million to 145 million. The lower estimate of the health benefits exceeds the agricultural benefits of forest fire without accounting for other non-market costs due to forest fires. Our results imply that, as Indonesia grows economically, air quality is likely to continue deteriorating. Further, regions affected by regular volcanic activity and wildfires should apply tighter emission standards to controllable point source emissions from industry and non-point source emissions such as agricultural forest fires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important initiative of climate action, REDD+ has been increasingly discussed in global policy arena. But delay in wider scale yet full-fledged implementation and its poor performance have raised suspects and pushed REDD+ toward in a long line of "conservation fad". In this paper, we have discussed the following ten questions to REDD+: (1) Does REDD+ address major causes of deforestation? (2) Does REDD+ contribute to global emissions reduction? (3) Does REDD+ recognize the inherent capacity of local people to manage their forests? (4) Does REDD+ respect the rights of indigenous people and local communities? (5) Does REDD+ justify the local governance and countries' sovereignty? (6) Does REDD+ ensure the transparency in program design and architecture? (7) Does REDD+ give credits to the carbon sequestering communities? (8) Does REDD+ supply sufficient reasons to justify the current carbon price? (9) Does REDD+ achieve climate goals through the voluntary carbon markets? and (10) Does REDD+ ensure sustainability of the ongoing projects? While discussing the questions, we have referred to global environmental issues of deforestation, emissions, transparency, decentralized governance, indigenous and local communities, voluntary carbon market, price effect, and other various contemporary sustainability issues. We argue that REDD+ could be a low-hanging fruit and act as a complimentary action to achieve its climate goal if it can address the issues raised under those ten questions. • We have raised and discussed ten important issues for REDD+ to be successful • REDD+ is popularly discussed yet highly debated conservation initiative • Forest centric activities would be inadequate for achieve climate goals through REDD+ • Voluntary carbon market is a challenge for successful REDD+ institutions • REDD+ should secure resource ownership and management authorship of locals [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Channel dynamics of pseudomeandering rivers is poorly known. • The study river reacted very rapidly to sediment supply changes. • Deforestation resulted in an increase of sediment supply and in a braided channel. • Reforestation and gravel mining caused river incision and a low sinuosity channel. • Post mining sediment supply increase was a key factor in shaping channel morphology. Typically, pseudomeandering rivers are gravel-bed streams considered unstable and prone to turning into braided or meandering channels under the effect of external forcings. Channel changes of pseudomeandering rivers have not been investigated in detail so far. This paper analyses the response of a pseudomeandering river (the Cecina River in western central Italy) to variations of sediment supply resulting from streambed material mining and land use change throughout the last two centuries. Old maps and 11 sets of aerial images from 1954 to the present of four representative sites were used to measure the variation through time of bankfull width and channel sinuosity. The changes in the number of bends, chute channels, bank erosion, bend extension, migration and retraction were recorded and the main processes which favoured pseudomeandering river channel changes were investigated. The old maps indicate that in the first half of the XIX century, the study river had probably a braided morphology in response to the increase in sediment supply following the liberalization of deforestation. From the beginning of the XX century to the present, the river had a predominantly single thread, pseudomeandering morphology which did not change during about 20 years of intense gravel mining (the 1960s – mid-1980s) when the main response of the river was channel incision and narrowing. A few years after bed material extraction stopped the river started to widen, to increase channel sinuosity and consolidate its pseudomeandering morphology. The study confirms that marked variations in sediment supply are more effective than floods in triggering river channel changes. The study also shows that the pseudomeandering configuration is less unstable than previously highlighted in other scientific works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deforestation is cutting trees of forests on a huge scale, often resulting in loss of habitat of millions of wild animals. About 30% of earths land is still covered with forests but due to deforestation we are losing them at the rate of about half the size of England per year. In forests, tree cutting activities are illegal but due to shortage of manpower and other resources, governments are not very successful in curbing this menace. One way to stop this is to detect the tree cutting process in an early stage so that timely measures can be taken to stop the same. The simplest method of early detection of tree cutting is to regularly monitor the forest area either manually or using some automatic techniques. As tree cutting generates lot of noise, it can be detected by regularly monitoring the acoustic signals inside the forest. An acoustic signature can provide valuable information about the activities of any intruder inside the forest. This paper proposes an algorithm for automatic detection of tree cutting in forest. The proposed algorithm is based on distance between parameters, along with K-means clustering, GMM and PCA for comparison. The efficiency of proposed algorithm is 92%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper performs the first meta -regression analysis of Chinese aid effectiveness using 1,149 estimates from 29 studies. • Chinese aid is positively associated with economic outcomes in recipient countries. • Chinese aid correlates with deforestation and negative perceptions of China among citizens, albeit negligible in size. • Sub-sample MRAs detect publication selection bias in the Chinese aid effectiveness literature. • Heterogeneity is driven by differences in the choice of data, estimation method, and authors' institutional affiliation. This paper employs a meta -regression analysis of 1,149 estimates from 29 studies to take stock of the empirical literature on Chinese aid effectiveness. After accommodating publication selection bias, we find that, on average, Beijing's foreign assistance is positively associated with economic outcomes in recipient countries, but correlates with deforestation and negative perceptions of China among citizens, albeit negligible in size. We also show that studies that fail to uncover empirical effects that conform to researchers' expectations are less likely to be submitted or accepted for publication. Differences in the choice of data, estimation method, and authors' institutional affiliation explain the heterogeneity among Chinese aid effectiveness estimates reported in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About three billion people worldwide use solid fuels for cooking and space heating. This fueling practice contributes to global forest depletion and disease prevalence. To abate the environmental and health threats caused by the inefficient burning of biomass fuels, large-scale initiatives were undertaken globally for the dissemination of fuel-saving and energy-efficient stoves, known as improved cookstoves (ICS). This paper examines the adoption of ICS in northwest Pakistan by using a logit analysis. The results show that the education of the respondent, number of working household members, and total income of the household had significant effects on the adoption of ICS. Conversely, the age of the respondent and possession of land did not exhibit any significant influence on adoption. The overall model was significant with p < 0.001 which reveals that the selected socioeconomic variables have a statistically significant relationship with the adoption of ICS. The paper concludes that the efforts to improve health and environmental conditions may be more successful if ICS programs take the socioeconomic, contextual, and market related factors into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REDD+ is a global scale climate change mitigation program aiming at creating financial values for carbon stored in forests. According to the proponents, REDD+ is an effective, efficient, and equitable mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Some scholars question this assumption, and some call for further analysis to understand how REDD+ can contribute to economic, environmental, and social goals, and what are the synergies and trade-offs between them. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate about whether REDD+ projects can be brought to accommodate economic (efficiency), environmental (effectiveness), and social (equity) concerns at the same time by drawing on own field results from a REDD+ project in Cambodia. The paper follows three tracks. The first is to develop and explain the conceptual and analytical framework for our empirical investigations. The second is to explain the field results. The third track is to discuss what general lessons can be learnt. Our case illustrates some of the mechanisms that are likely to work against the willingness and ability of REDD+ projects to ensure local people’s net-gains, and the risk that effectiveness and equity will suffer if REDD+ projects rely solely on the private market. Our case thus indicates a tension between the objectives of creating financial value from carbon stored in trees through the private market, and environmental and social equity concerns. However, we call for more comparative studies of REDD+ projects, and hope our conceptual framework can assist such studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has been aimed at implementing and validating a simplified environmental feedback fire model in FDS as a complement to more advanced pyrolysis models. The two main means of environmental feedback have been identified as the oxygen concentration close to the fuel base and the radiative feedback from the surrounding obstructions and smoke layer. The oxygen concentration at the fuel base has previously been identified to linearly influence the normalized burning rate compared to the free burning behavior; this correlation has been implemented in FDS as a simple way to compensate for the reduced radiative feedback the fuel surface receives when the oxygen concentration is lowered and the flame is cooled down, prolonged or detached from the fuel base. In large pool fires it is often considered that the net radiative heat flux to the fuel surface is the dominant factor compared to convection when determining the total mass loss rate, and in enclosed spaces the additional radiative heat flux feedback from other sources than the flame itself might be significant. To predict these environmental effects another simplified model has been implemented; the external radiative heat flux (radiative heat flux not sourced from the flames) divided by the fuel heat of vaporization is assumed to be directly proportional to the additional mass loss rate. This model is mostly needed in very hot enclosures and its effect has been limited in the cases used for validation in this paper. Overall the model produces accurate predictions of the mass loss rate as long as the overall flow is reasonably resolved by the model. The grid dependency has been observed to be relatively small even at coarse meshes which can be a benefit compared to more detailed models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Assumptions of the causality and temporality of climate change intersect. • Foregrounding and marginalising assumptions enables and constrains solutions. • Storytelling can reveal how people perceive and perform climate change. Climate change is shaped and understood through assumptions of causality and temporality that enable and constrain feasible approaches to environmental governance, approaches that may reproduce inequalities. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) provides an entry point to examine the intersecting assumptions and politics around climate change and how it is managed. Actors in the REDD+ regime promote particular assumptions about the causality and temporality of climate change, which are often privileged over local ways of being and knowing. Through ten months of ethnographic fieldwork with communities implicated in the Central Suau REDD+ Pilot Project in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG), this research engages with storytelling as a methodology to investigate how people in Suau perceive and perform climate change. While people in Suau draw on a multiplicity of assumptions to make sense of complex socio-ecological change, they often foreground relational assumptions of causality and temporality. By destabilising and problematising the notion of a "common understanding" of climate change, this paper contributes to emerging work on political ontology. The ongoing privileging of categorical causal and temporal assumptions in the REDD+ regime in PNG is political – it not only places blame on subsistence agriculturalists but marginalises relational ways of seeing and addressing climate change. By telling stories, we can open up to the multiplicity of assumptions about how and why climate change is occurring and make space for alternative approaches to manage this change that may avoid reinscribing inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Results using entropy balancing show that EITI implementation reduces deforestation. • The treatment effect is more significant according to the stage of EITI adoption. • The treatment effect is more significant if we include governance indicators. • The role of EITI in financing sustainable development and combating deforestation. • Further studies could focus on property rights, forest communities and green spending. The exploitation of extractive industries poses a serious threat to the environment. However, the exploitation of extractive industries through an equitable and transparent resource tax regime can also finance alternative livelihoods that can prevent forest loss in the short, medium, or long term. Through two main channels, this paper assesses the "treatment effect" of implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) standard on deforestation in resource-rich developing countries. The first concerns a fair and transparent resource tax regime and environmental payments that can prevent forest loss. The second consists of improving citizens' institutions and living standards through increased government revenue. This study is the first to provide an empirical impact assessment of EITI standards on deforestation. Using a sample of 83 resource-rich developing countries from 2001 to 2017, we use entropy balancing methods to address the self-selection bias associated with EITI membership. Compared with the non-EITI country, the results show that implementing the EITI standard significantly reduces the loss of forest cover by approximately 300–760 ha. Additionally, the magnitudes of the effects are larger and more significant if we include institutional indicators that are more important for EITI-compliant countries. This result supports the conclusion that EITI, but not a panacea, is an effective policy program for limiting the negative impacts on forests partly caused by extractive industries. This study provides clear guidance to both the EITI Board and the EITI National Committees, and more generally, to the governments of extractive resource-rich developing countries on the vital role of the EITI in combating forest cover loss and sustainable development finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We employ nearest neighbor matching to obtain a balanced sample of pixels from certified and non-certified forests. • We estimate Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) and Two-Way Fixed Effect Models (TWFE) with the matched pixel-level data. • Inviting oversight by FSC reduces the probability of deforestation in private properties designated for sustainable forest management. • The greatest potential of forest certification lies in regions with low governance capacity and high deforestation pressure. • Scaling up of certification in new areas can make real contributions to protecting forests and mitigating and adapting to climate change. In the American tropics, logging is almost always highly selective, leaving most of the forest standing and available for future harvest under sustainable forest management. However, forest that has been logged is often more accessible to deforestation agents such as farmers. Thus, areas legally designated for sustainable forest management in reality may be more susceptible to illegal deforestation. Third-party certification of sustainable forest management is one strategy for protecting such forest. In this paper, we estimate the effect of certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) on deforestation, drawing on data from the years 2001 to 2019. We observe strong selection effects resulting in systematic differences between certified forest areas and other forest areas designated for sustainable forest management, and we find that after controlling for those selection effects, inviting oversight by FSC reduces the probability of deforestation. Our study design compares forests "treated" with FSC certification to "control" forests designated for sustainable forest management but not (yet) certified in the two Brazilian states of Pará and Rondônia. Adopting pixel-based analyses, we first create a matched sample of treated and control pixels and then estimate GLMM models, with two-way fixed effects (TWFE) models as a robustness check. We find that where forest managers have obtained certification and thus invited oversight by FSC auditors, rates of forest loss are lower (although the results are not fully robust across regions). The estimated effects vary across regions, likely due to varying socioeconomic and policy contexts and competing land uses. We conclude that especially in settings of low governance capacity and high deforestation pressure, certification can contribute to long-term forest conservation by reducing deforestation rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We use difference-in-differences estimators suitable for heterogeneous effects. • The study finds no evidence that DRC's logging concessions increase or decrease deforestation and forest degradation. • The study finds no evidence that logging concessions reduce deforestation in high deforestation pressure areas. The Congo Basin is home to the second largest tropical humid forest in the world and an important participant in climate change mitigation. While the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) boasts the largest proportion of Congo basin forests, it is also the main contributor to forest loss. Industrial logging concession is a forest management model that is likely to expand in the DRC in the coming years as the Government recently announced the probable end of the 2002 moratorium on logging concessions. It is thus crucial to understand whether this model can further the DRC's deforestation reduction efforts. The literature suggests that the effect of titling forestland on avoided deforestation and forest degradation is generally limited, unless environmental restrictions are enforced. The DRC's 2002 forest code introduced a new logging concession model that includes requirements to submit and implement Forest Management Plans (FMP) and increase benefit-sharing with communities. Our paper evaluates the impact of this new model of concession contracts signed in 2011 and 2014 on deforestation and forest degradation. We use remotely sensed data series to estimate difference-in-difference models. We ensured baseline parallel trends in deforestation and similarity in baseline characteristics between control and treated units. We find no evidence that deforestation and forest degradation is significantly different between logging concessions and control areas, even for concessions that had their FMP accepted. Our study highlights the need for evaluating the impact of FMPs once they are fully implemented, the importance to improve degradation outcome variables and to conduct complementary studies analyzing impact pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scale and pace of land tenure change for agricultural development, often known as 'land grabbing' or 'global land rush,' are historically unprecedented. Control over millions of hectares of land has shifted over the past decade for the production of food, fiber, and biofuel. However, the rapidly growing body of research on land tenure change provides few rigorous assessments of deforestation across multiple countries with distinct biophyisical and socioeconomic characteristics. In this paper, based on spatial boundaries of land transactions (LTs) in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Liberia, and Peru, we investigate their association with deforestation using a pixel-based matching approach. Our findings suggest that the context, size, and distribution of LTs and the associated deforestation patterns vary substantially across the four countries. Land tenure change significantly accelerates deforestation in Cambodia and Liberia, but such acceleration is insignificant in Ethiopia. In Peru, we observe the opposite trend, where areas adjacent to LTs experience higher deforestation than areas within. Our analysis reveals how patterns and outcomes of LTs are linked to country characteristics and contexts, and suggests that sweeping generalizations about positive or negative consequences of LTs on deforestation and possibly other socioenvironmental outcomes need to attend more closely to specific patterns and drivers of LTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We develop a deforestation theoretical framework, with socio-economic determinants and politically motivated armed actors • The case study, Colombia, is a global biodiversity hotspot, currently threatened by its long-term internal armed conflict • The theoretical structure is tested using a wide set of spatiotemporal panel regression specifications • In Colombia, different armed actors have had different and contrasting spatiotemporal effects on deforestation This paper assesses the impact of the Colombian internal armed conflict on local development processes and deforestation during 2000–2018. The paper develops a theoretical framework of the deforestation process, as determined by the spatiotemporal patterns of socio-economic and conflict related variables. These determinants are examined using a system of spatial dynamic panels by land-use activity, and emphasizing interactions and spatiotemporal lags. The theoretical approach is innovative and applicable to other cases where political, economic and ideological interests interact in deforestation processes. In addition, the methodological structure of our spatial panels allows us to determine the effect of armed conflict agents' and socio-economic structures, combined and in isolation. Our results formally verify that different armed actors' strategies and ideologies, determine different and contrasting spatiotemporal patterns of deforestation/conservation, in the context of structural socio-economic determinants in Colombia. We argue about the need of context-specific modelling in any microeconomic or agent-based analysis of deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linking weak governance and forest degradation has received increasing attention in scientific and political spheres. Deforestation remains a global matter as a major agent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for endangering the lives of several plant and animal species, and for triggering political disputes involving land tenure and rural violence. Political factors are acknowledged to have a direct impact on forest resources management. Corruption and weak governance are able to deflect policies to private interests, and encourage illegal logging and unlawful allowances to forest degradation even in protected areas. However, the effects of corruption and weak institutions in forest management are still uncertain. This paper offers empirical-based evidence about the relationship between institutional factors and forest cover conversion. The role of weak institutions is explored by employing a logistic model of recent high-resolution global remote sensing data from the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Land Cover (CCI-LC) from 1992 and 2015. We assess the cross-country associations of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and the World Bank Government Effectiveness (GE) index while controlling for physiographic and structural variables. Results are robust and show, as expected, that difficult access areas pose considerable barriers to forest conversion, and regions of high agricultural suitability are more likely to be converted from forests to agricultural fields. Furthermore, higher government effectiveness with stronger political enforcement, policy design, and lower corruption perception are significantly related to a lower probability of deforestation. Further elaborating governance and corruption indicators with emphasis on forest management/conservation can potentially improve the accuracy of local and cross-country quantitative land use studies. Our findings support the continuous understanding of weak institutions in deforestation debates. The paper highlights the need to fight corruption and to build strong institutions into effective policy strategies. • The study exams the cross-country relationship of institutional indices and high-resolution forest conversion. • Higher government effectiveness and lower corruption perception are significantly related to lower deforestation. • Institutional effects remain consistent when testing for country groups, various sampling sizes and replications. • Results point to the need to strengthening the fight against corruption within forestry conservation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An incentive mechanism is key to succeed the investments in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation programs. However, the diversification of determinants makes it difficult to establish one mode to best incentive stakeholders. This paper compares various incentive modes in benefiting stakeholders by simulating dynamic game models. It analyzes the profit-making of developers and landholders based on four incentive modes. The modes are preferential tax for developers, incentive of carbon offsets for developers, investment incentive for developers, and incentive of reducing emissions for landholders. This paper compares the effects of incentive modes on benefit distribution of stakeholders and contributes to a new dynamic game framework. The results show that: (i) the effects of incentives of carbon offsets for developers and incentives of reducing emissions for landholders are almost same for the stakeholders; (ii) a preferential tax can only make developers unilaterally benefit, and will not change landholder welfare; (iii) investment incentives for developers can make landholders' profits be increased, while the effects of incentives on developers' profits are uncertain. Finally, the numerical simulation is used to verify these hypotheses. The core implication is that for the design of REDD+ incentives, the government should combine various incentive modes to fulfill different objectives in policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Amazon forest is host for a large number of deforestation activities caused by artisanal mining and mainly by agriculture and livestock businesses. In order to regulate these activities and relieve the environmental impacts, local authorities have been trying to guide them towards more responsible operations. This paper describes the initiative of monitoring forest areas located near deforestation regions since fundamental elements such as biomass and carbon accumulation of trees may be adequately controlled and monitored against occasional disturbances brought by these activities. The current standard approach in the Amazon is to monitor all trees in the forest within an area called transecto , in order to keep a rigorous record of their behavior and growth. However, these control activities are restricted to controlling portions that are located in strategic areas, therefore they do not represent the entire region to be monitored. This research exploits a new methodology based on geostatistics, aimed at optimizing sampling, and allowing the extension of the study to much larger forest areas, while keeping unitary utilization of human resources unchanged and at the same time, increasing the studied areas footprint and the precision of the results. The proposed methodology also allows the selection of the Legal Reserve (RL) area to be made according to the actual carbon-accumulation distribution on the property's contained forest, allowing the determination of a location target for the RL, what is not possible with the current used methodologies that rely simply on a percentage area utilization for the RL, inside the property. This methodology was applied using the available data set in this paper in order to optimize the samples and to monitor the capacity of the forest to store carbon at Tapajós National Forest, in Pará, Brazil. It is expected that this methodology will contribute to an overall cost decrease per unit area of the monitoring activities, increase the precision for the RL location and simplify the needed procedures through the application of a user friendly toolkit, that can be developed using the proposed methodology, whose complexity is totally transparent to the land and business owners, regulators, environmental scientists and workers involved. This, if correctly applied could ultimately contribute to the sustainable development of the affected regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exhibits the multiple dimensions of the cost of stopping the main driver of deforestation in Madagascar, slash-and-burn agriculture (tavy). As well as being a major component of the economic livelihoods of most local households living at the edge of forests, tavy has been described by anthropologists as an important cultural practice. In this paper, we show that stopping tavy does not only entail an economic cost for local households. The loss of the cultural dimension of tavy would come at an additional “cultural cost” for some. Our results suggest that a viable cessation of deforestation in Madagascar would require going beyond simple compensation of the opportunity costs of avoiding deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Environmental law enforcement and policies in Brazil are compromising deterrence. • High profitability of illegal activities is boosting environmental degradation. • Nash solution is compatible with full depletion of the Brazilian Amazônia's resources. • New economic alternatives seem to be a promising way to Amazônia's conservation. This paper aims to assess causes and the interactions between decision making, stakeholders and individuals, law and public policies to build a more precise overview of the relations, the possible results, and the factors which can interfere with environmental conditions and dynamics in Brazilian Amazônia. To better elucidate the issue, rational choice and deterrence theories were used, and a model based on game theory was built. It shows that the noncooperative Nash solution is compatible with the full depletion of the Brazilian Amazônia's resources and the tragedy of the commons could be certain. The lack of incentive for greener practices and deficiencies in the Brazilian law system can be pointed out as two of the main causes for the current noncollaborative interactions between the agents that lead to environmental degradation in the region. However, other aspects and circumstances are being disregarded in Brazilian environmental law and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does oil palm boost agricultural growth and reduce rural poverty, or is it a threat to rural livelihoods and tropical forest landscapes? This paper introduces a Special Issue on this question, focusing on Latin America. It reviews available literature and data for countries where oil palm either covers large areas (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras) or has recently expanded (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru), and presents evidence from nine case studies (including Nicaragua). Combining political economy with a livelihood approach, this article discusses how dissimilar policies supporting oil palm combined with contrasting agrarian change dynamics, market structures, and institutional arrangements driving rural inclusion (and exclusion) in oil palm production have resulted in a variety of expansion trajectories (ranging from smallholder-to plantation-based, plus mixed forms in between) and outcomes across the region. Main findings show that rural livelihoods and landscapes are most threatened where industrial plantations predominate, particularly in weakly governed forest frontiers, while oil palm is beneficial where policies guarantee land access and support smallholders. However, policies that are beneficial to smallholders do not preclude conflicts between oil palm smallholders (often migrant settlers) and forest-dependent (indigenous and Afro-descendant) communities opposing this industry. • Oil palm expansion is shaped by wider political economies and development policies. • Market-based development policies have favored large-scale over smallholder production. • Benefits from oil palm are unevenly distributed across rural population. • Violence across forest frontiers has fueled conflicts linked to oil palm. • Weak forest governance has led to significant deforestation by industrial plantations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Briquettes made from biomass residues could contribute to ensuring the sustainable supply of biomass energy. The paper reviews the present briquette making process in Kenya especially in Nairobi and peri-urban areas. The paper introduces the energy situation in Kenya, then the briquette making process and finally presents the challenges and opportunities in briquette making. In the opportunities section, eighteen briquette producers participated in the question and answer exercise to quantitatively provide information on briquette making. Most producers use bare hands (handmade briquettes), others make use of novel-based machines such as ram-piston type, motorized screw press, shredder, wooden press and the mold-box piston type all made from locally available materials. The mixing ratios and the various ingredients used in briquette making are haphazard with no standard ratio and specific mixture for optimum briquette production. Despite these, most briquette producers are well along in the briquette business. At the same time, the end-use consumers are very positive in using the briquette fuel as an alternative fuel. Some of the end-use consumers are the schools, churches, hotels and some households. This study indicates that the opportunities for briquette making are immense and could help curb deforestation thereby reduce environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deforestation and degradation are tied to a complex array of socioeconomic and political factors. Many assume that among the most important of these are the particular bundles of rights regulating who can benefit from land (tenure form) and the overall assurance that those rights will be upheld (tenure security). This paper reviews literature that connects forest outcomes and land tenure to better understand broad interactions between tenure form, security and forest change. Papers from economic theory suggest tenure is embedded in a broader socioeconomic context, with the potential for either a positive or negative conservation impact on forested land. Empirically, we find 36 publications that link land cover change to tenure conditions while also controlling for other plausibly confounding variables. Publications often investigate more than one site and more than one form of tenure, so from these we derive 118 cases linking forest change with a specific tenure form in a particular location. From these cases, we find evidence that protected areas are associated with positive forest outcomes and that land tenure security is associated with less deforestation, regardless of the form of tenure. We conclude with a call for more robust identification of this relationship in future research, as well as set of recommendations for policymakers, particularly as forest carbon incentive programs such as REDD integrate further into national policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We provide new evidence on the effectiveness of PAs and the role of institutions. • We use high-resolution satellite imagery and regression discontinuity methods. • PAs significantly reduce deforestation in both national PAs and collective lands. • National PAs are only effective near human settlements, in more developed regions. • In contrast, Collective lands avoid deforestation in remote, less developed regions. Protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone of conservation policy. While evidence shows that, overall, PAs have contributed to preserving forests, their impact varies greatly depending on the institutional context. This paper provides new evidence on the mechanisms through which local institutions shape the effectiveness of PAs. We use high-resolution satellite imagery of deforestation and illicit activities in Colombia and spatial regression discontinuity methods to estimate the causal effect of PAs in different institutional contexts. Our main results indicate that PAs significantly reduce deforestation, with larger effects for collective lands than national (strict-use) PAs, and no impact for regional (multiple-use) PAs. However, national PAs are only effective near human settlements, in municipalities that provide more public goods and are less violent. In remote areas, national PAs are particularly vulnerable to the expansion of coca crops and gold mining. In contrast, collective lands reduce coca crops and avoid deforestation in remote, less developed regions. These results highlight the extent to which natural PAs rely on the institutional capacity of the national and local governments, while collective lands protect forests even when state presence is weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Deforestation-induced rainfall changes negatively impact soybean and maize yields in Brazil. • Soybean and maize yields could have been 6.6 % and 9.9 % higher per year if rainfall patterns hadn't been altered by deforestation. • Agricultural efficiency improvements insufficient to counteract rainfall-changes effects on yields. • Study underscores the vital role of forest preservation for agricultural resilience and food security. • Forests' critical role in regulating the water cycle highlighted in the face of climate change. Whereas the global demand for food, fiber and energy is increasing, the capacity of ecosystems services to sustain agricultural production is being compromised worldwide. Brazil is a global food supplier that has benefitted from agricultural intensification in the past decades. At the same time, expansion of cropland has led to deforestation that, in turn, is increasingly affecting rainfall patterns thereby influencing crop yields. This study examines how loss in forest cover has impacted agricultural yields through change in rainfall. To do so, we use modelled data on changes in rainfall patterns due to deforestation as input to a crop model. We assess yield changes within the soybean-maize double cropping system, the country's most relevant agricultural system, in five states within the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. Findings revealed that soybean and maize yields would have been respectively 6.6 % and 9.9 % higher per year in the last decade if rainfall patterns hadn't been altered by deforestation from 1982 onwards. Although agricultural efficiency improved between 2011 and 2020, it was insufficient to offset the negative effect of altered rainfall on yields. Our paper reveals the link between deforestation and crop yields, emphasizing the need to preserve forest cover for agricultural resilience and food security. It reinforces the critical role of forests in regulating the water cycle, particularly in the face of climate change-induced warmer and drier conditions that can impact agricultural production and other human activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses to what extent it would be possible to ensure food availability to the world population by 2050 with two objectives: healthy diets and no farmland expansion. Assumptions were made to project exogenous demand and supply variables. Climate change impacts on crop yields, grazing use intensities and maximum cultivable areas were taken into account. Cropland and pastureland needs were then estimated for 21 regions using a global biomass balance model. Simulation results established for two sets of crop yield projections ('moderate' versus 'high' growth) show that several regions (India, Rest of Asia, Near- and Middle-East countries and North Africa, as well as West Africa in the case of 'moderate' yield growth) would be constrained by their maximum cultivable areas with no deforestation. Our scenarios would be technically infeasible because of additional pastureland needs notably in sub-Saharan Africa. As a consequence, we analyse to what extent additional levers could reduce pastureland needs in sub-Saharan Africa. [Display omitted] • Farmland areas in 2050 were estimated assuming healthy diets and no deforestation. • MENA and Asia (except China) would be constrained by their available cultivable areas. • The scenarios would be infeasible because of increases in pastureland needs in SSA. • The additional levers analysed would not reduce pastureland needs sufficiently to prevent farmland expansion in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Community managed forest concessions combined with certification performed as well as, and in some cases better than private industrial concessions in reducing forest loss in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. • Community forest management combined with forest certification can be an effective policy tool for reducing deforestation. • The extent to which deforestation is reduced varies based on group characteristics. This paper examines the role of community forest management coupled with mandatory forest certification in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR). Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification aims to promote sustainable forest practices and increase economic returns for harvesting certified timber through price premiums gained through eco-labeling and specialized access to international markets. Guatemala established community and industrial forest concessions in the reserve as a way to stem rampant deforestation in the region in the 1990s. Concessions are required to obtain FSC certification to maintain their harvesting rights to the forest. The communities that manage the concessions vary across a number of cultural and socio-demographic characteristics, such as income, educational attainment, and previous forest experience. Some community concession members have lived in the region for multiple generations and have historically depended on the forest for their livelihoods, while other groups are comprised of more recent migrants that come primarily from agricultural backgrounds. The differences among the community forest groups, along with the private industrial concessions, allow for a robust examination of the impact of forest certification across different institutional approaches to forest management. Using Hansen's forest loss data from 2000 to 2017 for Guatemala, we employ a random effects model to compare the effectiveness of the community and industrial concessions in reducing deforestation compared to a matched control group. Additionally, we test whether the benefit of increased market access that comes with FSC certification further decreases deforestation. Our findings suggest that sustainable forest management practices have continued to reduce forest loss in the MBR, just as well, if not more so than the industrial concessions, but the impact varies based on community characteristics. The market access component of FSC certification also impacts deforestation, although the effect is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we employ for the first time a Bayesian process-tracing approach to assess the role of different interventions designed to halt deforestation. We applied the methodology to six initiatives implemented between 2006 and 2019 in the municipality of São Felix do Xingu, namely: (i) institution of protected areas, (ii) environmental monitoring and enforcement, (iii) credit restrictions, (iv) commodity agreements, (v) multi-stakeholder processes, and (vi) value chain projects. Bayesian process tracing is an alternative to traditional counterfactual approaches that allows the gleaning of in-depth insights into 'causal chain' mechanisms and complex interrelationships in individual cases, rather than identifying common or cross-cutting features across different cases. Contrary to traditional process-tracing methodologies, the Bayesian approach provides analytical transparency and replicability through a formal and fine-grained assessment of the strength of the evidence. We assessed 31 individual pieces of evidence, developed using data collected through a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. We grouped these into interventions spanning three periods of time and traced the causal mechanisms linked to their success or failure. In total, we developed nine theory components. Our results reveal that we are practically certain that four theory components are true. We are also reasonably certain or highly confident that four other theory components are true, and only cautiously confident that one component is true. Drawing on the nine components, we offer a composite theory explaining deforestation outcomes. Our findings provide four implications for global debates. Namely, they provide a strong case for the importance of conceptually distinguishing: the types of actors targeted (e.g., smallholder or medium-to-large landholders) and the frontier status (i.e., whether interventions take place in active frontiers or in consolidated areas). They also prove that interventions may be well implemented for a certain period but can lose effectiveness over time. Finally, our findings call attention to synergies among interventions, and in particular to the combination of regulatory interventions to halt frontier expansion with market-based approaches to incentivize non-deforestation behaviour. • Effectiveness of interventions to halt deforestation is not constant over time. • Effectiveness depends on whether interventions take place in active frontiers or in consolidated areas. • Effectiveness also depends on whether interventions target smallholder or medium-to-large landholders. • Greater effectiveness is achieved through the combination of regulatory interventions with market-based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This essay introduces five papers investigating land tenure issues related to conserving tropical forests via incentive-based strategies (e.g., PES, REDD+). After briefly reviewing key terms and concepts, we point to important contributions from the papers regarding (a) a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the relationship between land tenure and forest outcomes, and (b) policy lessons from early efforts to address tenure in sites targeted for forest carbon projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is receiving increasing political and scientific attention as a climate change mitigation approach. The government of Cameroon has expressed an interest in participating in REDD+, and national deliberation on a policy strategy has attracted interest from different actors in the forest sector. This paper analyses the challenges of designing a governance structure for a REDD+ strategy in Cameroon. Theoretically, the paper builds on the literature on governance structures for resource management, focusing analytically on the interactions between actor constellations (state and non-state) and institutions (formal and informal) to produce policy outcomes. The paper draws on documentation of REDD+ policy events, policy texts and 23 in-depth interviews with members from government, civil society, research organizations, development partners and the private sector. It argues that although the actors involved in REDD+ are, to an extent, polarized around different issues and priorities, they are nonetheless increasingly distributing roles and responsibilities among themselves. The institutional arrangements within the policy process include: (1) rule-making systems for engagement; (2) expanding existing coordination mechanisms; (3) national safeguard standards; and (4) building on existing forest governance initiatives. The paper concludes that the multiple benefits promised by REDD+, such as poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation and economic development, are critical for the legitimacy of the mechanism. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The new climate change mitigation scheme for developing countries known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) has been proposed as a way of reducing carbon emissions in the forest sector, whilst also protecting and improving the livelihoods and wellbeing of communities. This paper argues that it is important to resolve tenure ambiguity and ensure that communities participate in the REDD+ process by engaging them in project development and implementation. Drawing on data collected in six villages under two REDD+ projects targeted in Cameroon, this paper addresses four questions: (1) What are the tenure conditions at the two study sites? (2) How have the project proponents perceived the tenure and other challenges and how do they plan to address those challenges? (3) What have the proponents done to engage communities in the process of establishing REDD+? (4) Are communities informed about and satisfied with the process of establishing REDD+? The paper shows that while the proponents have worked to resolve tenure issues and engage communities, there is still frustration among project participants because of a lack of progress toward implementing compensation and benefit sharing system. The paper concludes that it is crucial to safeguard the rights, access and participation of local communities, and benefits to them, throughout the design and implementation of REDD+ projects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A common drug policy in source countries -forced eradication- has unintended consequences in multiple dimensions. Aerial spraying in particular, has social and environmental costs including, increased violence, deforestation, and adverse health outcomes. However, there is less evidence of the unintended consequences of illicit crop substitution programs, another widely used intervention. This paper illustrates an unintended effect of the largest crop substitution program in the world, namely increased violence against social leaders. Examining the recent Colombian illicit crop substitution program implemented in 2017, this paper estimates the effect on violence towards social leaders employing an event study econometric strategy. The program increased the rate of social leader killings by 481% and the probability of a killing by 122%. The findings reveal a greater effect on municipalities where leaders oppose the expansion of illicit crops, where organized crime does not hold consolidated power, and where there is a presence of illegal armed groups. This study contributes to the literature on antidrug policies by providing empirical evidence of unintended consequences for local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is evidence that suggests that both the creation of Protected Areas (PAs) and indigenous Reserves (IRs) has helped to reduce deforestation. Nevertheless, there are some overlapping zones between these institutions in the Colombian Amazon that have not been studied. Are these overlaps affecting the deforestation in the IRs? How are the indigenous communities responding to these overlaps? In this paper I estimate the impacts of these overlaps on the deforestation inside the IRs using a Propensity Score Matching (PSM) methodology. I use important determinants of the location of PAs and deforestation to create a valid counterfactual within the IRs. My results suggest that the overlap significantly reduces the deforestation, but that there is a differential effect depending on the IR's size. These results suggest that the extra legal restriction imposed by the central government favor the territorial control inside the IRs. This paper provides a starting point to analyze the current relationship between the central government, the indigenous communities and how it affects deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest conversion for farming remains an issue of scientific and societal concern due to its growing impacts on biodiversity and climate change. Therefore, scientists and policymakers emphasise the urgent need to find a balance between forest conservation and agriculture. Meanwhile, across tropical Africa, subsistence farmers account for nearly two-thirds of forest conversion to farms annually. These farmers' perceptions and experiences about forest conversion may offer alternative perspectives about the problem and how to tackle it. However, such viewpoints remain scanty in the sustainable forestry literature. This paper employs narrative policy analysis to disentangle the stories that underpin farming by forest-fringe communities (FFCs) in protected forests. The FFCs' narratives were identified through fieldwork in 12 forest communities of Southwestern Ghana and juxtaposed with forest regulators and cocoa sector actors' narrativization of forest conversion in Ghana. The results indicate that a combination of factors incite FFCs to farm in protected forests, but the perceived need to respond to food insecurity is the most crucial factor. In the absence of strong grassroots organisations, FFCs cannot convey this crucial need to the forest policy arena, leaving it largely unaddressed in forest policy. Thus, forest encroachment has become a tool for FFCs to resist forest conservation, and generally, as a means for their survival. The paper proposes food security corridors (FSCs) as an integrated landscape management option that can enable FFCs and other policy actors to negotiate and institute food security and conservation goalswithin communities trapped in blocks of forest reserves. The potential FSCs hold to overcome forest conversion for subsistence farming can be unleashed when governments, development partners invest to refine and pilot the concept. Overall, the paper contributes to the land-use conflict literature, showing how context-specific food insecurity can accelerate deforestation. Forestry sector actors need to guard against oversimplifying their assumptions about forest conversion in order to find pragmatic and sustainable solutions to the problem. • Smallholder farmers account for about 65% of forest conversion to farmlands in tropical Africa. • The experiences of these farmers have often been neglected in forest policy formulation. • Disentangling the farmers' narratives show food insecurity is most crucial reason why they farm in protected forests. • Food security corridors offer an opportunity to produce food permanently in forest-fringe communities. • Governments and development agencies need to invest to refine and pilot FSCs in communites trapped by protected forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the modern era, high-impact mega-fires are unprecedented for the suppression costs, property losses, natural resource damages, and loss of life often involved. For a number of years, these extraordinary wildfires have been increasing in number and in severity. They affect countries around the world, including those with enormous firefighting capabilities. High-impact mega-fires are frustrating efforts to provide for public safety, slow rates of deforestation, sequester carbon and reduce black carbon emissions. Despite more determined bidding, attempts to match increasing wildfire threats with greater suppression force have not stemmed climbing mega-fire trends. Yet, the majority of after-action reviews, reports, and commissions continue to weight recommendations to correcting emergency response deficiencies, generally through a fire operations lens. This paper explores the mega-fire phenomenon through a forest land management prism. It is an early attempt to focus on the contributory factors that may set the stage for high-impact mega-fires. The paper draws on the results from two coarse-filter overviews of high-impact mega-fires from around the world and the authors’ firsthand experiences dealing with others in the United States. Drought and fire exclusion policies have been implicated in the large fire problem. However, several high-impact mega-fires can be further traced to land management decisions that resulted in dense forest conditions with high biomass and fuel build-ups over extensive areas. As droughts have intensified, more of these accumulated fuels have become available to burn at intensities that exceed suppression capabilities. In contrast, some places have managed to largely avoid high-impact mega-fires. State and federal lands in Florida and Crown lands in Western Australia have better aligned policies and practices with the disturbance regimes that define the forested landscapes that they protect. They use prescribed fire at appropriate intensities, intervals, and scales to reduce fuels as the means to protect people, maintain forest resilience, ensure biodiversity, and increase margins of suppression effectiveness. Forest land management policies and practices that, by design or by default, result in greater volumes of fuel and rely on suppression capabilities to maintain these conditions may no longer be sustainable as droughts deepen and become more widespread. This paper suggests that adapting wildland fire management programs, forest land management policies, and the current regulatory framework to the reality of warmer, drier climate patterns will be essential in reducing mega-fire risks. Protecting fire-prone landscapes can no longer rely on suppression alone; protection will become more dependent on the management of forests where high-impact mega-fires incubate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]