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In the search for solutions to social and environmental challenges, all world nations have contributions to give. Brazil is no exception. On the contrary, as a megadiverse country and emerging economic power, it has a central role in this process. Between 1995 and 2014 the country made important improvements in terms of human development, including higher education and environmental protection. However, the current economic and political crisis threatens such advances. By reducing science funding and sidelining scientific advice in strategic environmental decisions, Brazil has veered off its path to sustainability, and several positive trends have already been reversed. If Brazil is to contribute to solving the challenges of improving human well-being and conserving biodiversity, it must renew its commitment to science, education and democracy.

Freshwater fish are a vital resource for local communities across the rural tropics. In Southeast Asia, biodiversity‐rich forests are being logged and converted to extensive oil palm monocultures. This clearly has impacts on associated freshwater ecosystems, but the impact on their biodiversity remains largely understudied and poorly understood, despite the important provisioning service that freshwater fishes provide for human well‐being. This study quantifies the biomass stocks of freshwater fish across a land‐use gradient encompassing primary forest, twice‐logged forest, and oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia, in an area where local communities are known to harvest freshwater fish. Stream fish were sampled using a cast net, the dominant technique used by local fishermen, in 200‐m‐long transects in 16 streams over three sampling years (2011, 2013, and 2015). Unexpectedly, no impact from land use on total fish availability was detected. There were no significant differences in fish species richness or, most importantly, biomass per unit fishing effort across the land‐use gradient. There was variation in the responses of five known food species (Tor tambra, Hampala sabana, Barbodes sealei, Barbonymus balleroides, and Gastromyzon lepidogaster), and these small differences are attributed to variation in species habitat selection that co‐vary with land‐use change. Despite evidence to suggest that freshwater fish communities are resilient to land‐use change, they still face risks associated with disturbance, such as invasion by alien species; furthermore, several of the more stenotopic species were only present in primary forest catchments. Nonetheless, freshwater fish in small headwater streams appear to represent a sustainable food resource for villages established in human‐modified forests or in developed oil palm plantations.

The major role tropical forests play in biodiversity and climate change has led the world to search for effective ways to slow down deforestation. Community forest management (CFM) is an example of the broader concept of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM). As part of the decentralization policy in many countries, mainly in Africa and Asia, CFM was expected to promote: (i) a more effective stewardship of the resources by involving the local communities in the management of the resources, and (ii) a more locally-driven development with them tapping most of the derived benefits. The precursors of CBNRM and CFM in Madagascar are the centrally-led compensation-based mechanisms to conservation. Madagascar is one of the first countries in the southern hemisphere to have put in place a legal framework for CBNRM and CFM. The CBNRM implementation process starts with the creation of a local natural resources management group. The government has identified the protection of natural capital and the harnessing of its value as a key pillar in its national development plan for 2015-2019. The plan identifies poor governance as a major constraint to achieving the country’s development objectives. It puts strong emphasis on the roles of both natural capital and the necessity for a more inclusive economy to achieve sustainable development. This report will help the Bank take stock of the nearly two-decades of implementation of the national environmental action plan and provide nation-wide facts that will inform future investment in renewable natural resources management, biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction, and local development in the future. The present work is targeted to decision makers and stakeholders involved in CFM policy with the objective of taking stock of almost 20 years of implementation and advise on future directions in policy formulation. The report is organized as follows: section one presents community forest management (CFM) in Madagascar. Section two provides the result of an impact evaluation analysis conducted on the application of CFM policy. Section three provides an analysis of the legal and institutional aspects of the application of CFM policy in Madagascar. Section four presents recommendations for the short, medium, and longer term. Section five concludes.

Road construction has often been viewed as the precursor to deforestation, especially in tropical forests. Traditional responses to such threats have been reactive, with attempts to mitigate impacts through physical measures, or the establishment of protected areas. These approaches often have not been entirely successful, especially in areas where economic potential is significant. This paper seeks to mitigate such conflicts by proposing a proactive approach to development planning and environmental policy. It develops a high-resolution spatial model of road improvement impacts that includes ecological risks and the economics of forest clearing. The approach is implemented by estimating the potential impact of road upgrading on forest clearing and biodiversity in eight Congo Basin countries. The paper demonstrates how the detailed analysis can identify areas of high ecological priority as well as areas at high risk of forest loss. The paper contributes to several aspects of the literature. First, it provides the most recent and reliable estimates of the drivers of deforestation in the Congo Basin, with the latest high-resolution satellite data on forest cover changes. Second, it presents novel estimates of biodiversity threats by creating an index that combines and synthesizes several measures of biodiversity loss and impacts. It then develops an empirical framework for estimating the ecological impacts of road improvement. Finally, the paper illustrates how the empirical framework can be used to preempt impacts and avoid potential ecological damage.

The international development community is increasingly demanding better evidence on the effectiveness of policies and programs across different sectors. The forest sector is no exception. Governments and donor agencies explicitly seek to link investment to proven impact. Yet the evidence base necessary to inform interventions in the forest sector that can successfully enhance the livelihoods of the forest-dependent poor, foster economic growth, reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation, and conserve forest biodiversity remains weak. There is a particular need to identify robust indicators to track and assess the impacts of forest-related investments. The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) 2013 review of the Forests Strategy of the World Bank, the largest multilateral funding source in the sector, and the subsequent Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE) report highlighted this need. The IEG recommended the development of outcome indicators on sustainable forest management to track progress across the World Bank’s Forests Strategy. The 2013 CODE report highlighted the imperative to develop short-term proxy indicators for long-term impacts in the forest sector. To date, however, there is little systematic knowledge on the availability of such predictive proxies in the sector, what form they should take, and the conditions under which they are effective. This PROFOR-financed study responds to this gap in knowledge and to broader demand from donors, government agencies, and implementing organizations to develop robust, yet practical means to better understand the impacts of forest sector investments. It focuses in particular on potential predictive proxies for longer-term term outcomes and suggests that such indicators do in fact exist. The report identifies a set of theory-based predictive proxy indicators (PPIs) relevant to one or more overarching development objectives: poverty reduction and economic growth, biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaption, and good governance.

This article focuses mainly on the five primary case study countries. For forest impacts, the concentration is on forest conversion to other land uses and deforestation, defined as a (temporary or permanent) removal of trees to less than 10 percent crown cover, which is similar to the Food and Agricultural Organization's (FAO's) definition. Selective logging is thus not deforestation but may degrade forests and enable conversion. All of the case study countries are tropical countries that export oil, a choice made for two reasons. First, the macroeconomic 'laboratory' of oil exporters offers a good opportunity to study links between external economic changes and forests. Oil economies often fluctuate dramatically due to heavy reliance on a single export commodity with unstable world market prices. Second, earlier studies provide support for the hypotheses that on average oil- and mineral-exporting tropical countries have more forests left and lose them at a slower rate than non-mineral-exporting countries. The article briefly reviews hypotheses and methodologies and outlines the deforestation data problems and how they were dealt with. It presents empirical results for the five primary case study countries and takes a closer look at three of the key causal linkages in the model. It then examines the role of different policy instruments and finally discusses policy insights that extend beyond the oil exporting countries.

Congo Basin countries rely more on wood-based biomass to meet their energy needs than most other countries in the world. Wood fuel production is increasing in Congo Basin countries. Urbanization often produces a shift from fuel wood to charcoal consumption, because charcoal is cheaper and easier to transport and store. Charcoal is produced mostly using traditional techniques, with low transformation efficiencies. Under a business as usual scenario, charcoal supply can represent the single biggest threat to Congo Basin forests in the coming decades. This report aims at providing some thinking on how Congo Basin could meet their energy needs in a forest-friendly manner. It is one of a series of outputs prepared during a two-year exercise to analyze and better understand the deforestation dynamics in the Basin. It presents the main findings related to the wood fuel sector in the Congo Basin and its potential impact on forest cover. It is based on an in-depth analysis of the sector (past trends and future prospects). It also builds on results derived from a modeling exercise conducted by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) that examined the national and regional trends in in wood-based biomass energy use and the impacts on Congo Basin forests. The report is structured as follows: chapter one gives an overview of the wood fuel sector in the six Congo Basin countries, including an analysis of its impact so far on forest cover; chapter two presents the prospects of energy needs and production in the near future, and the potential impacts on forest under a business as usual scenario; and chapter three identifies potential key levers in the wood fuel sector that could limit adverse impacts on forest cover.

This publication is the result of an initiative to promote an exchange between Brazil and African countries on lessons learned about the role of community forestry as a strategic option to achieve the goals of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). The initiative was supported by the World Bank with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and coordinated by the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS) with support from the National Forestry Agency International (ONFI). Representatives of five countries from the Congo Basin (Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Congo) and Madagascar participated in this initiative. This publication organizes information, analyses and conclusions on issues relevant to the design and implementation of REDD+ strategies. The findings do not represent an official position of any of the institutions or governments involved. In fact, the material presented here aims to stimulate further discussions, as the REDD+ debate is still unfolding and could benefit greatly from technical exchanges among the various ongoing initiatives. This publication has the following sections: (i) a conceptual approach to community forestry and REDD+; (ii) the key issues of REDD+ in connection with community forestry in Africa; (iii) how REDD+ and forest carbon (FC) are being developed in Brazil; and (iv) conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the challenges and the practical successes that a selected number of countries are experiencing in moving towards 'climate-smart' agriculture while also meeting the food requirements of a growing population, broader economic development and green growth objectives. It complements papers prepared in 2010 on technologies and policy instruments, research, and farmers' perspectives. The paper is also intended to provide a broad country perspective to two additional papers produced for a meeting of African Ministers of Agriculture which took place in Johannesburg in September 2011. The main conclusion is that a number of countries have made impressive progress in integrating 'climate-smart agriculture' into broader development and growth programs. Several countries are supporting policy measures and programs to conserve soil and moisture while enhancing productivity and competitiveness, and are addressing the particular concerns of drought-prone semi-arid areas. They are improving agricultural water management and watershed management, and addressing sea-surges, salinity and coastal flooding. Some countries are also including climate-smart agriculture as a core element in broader green growth agendas. The private sector has a key role to play in climate-smart agriculture, especially where the enabling environment has been favorable. Achieving climate-smart agriculture needs an integrated approach, tackling productivity and food security, risk and resilience, and low carbon growth together, but integration and institutional coordination remains a challenge in many countries.