Category: Theme 5: Impacts of trade and investment on forests and people

  • Home
  • Valuing the Cameroonian Forest: Special Issue

Valuing the Cameroonian Forest: Special Issue

26 January, 2017
Posted by

FTA

Authors: Lescuyer, G.; Eba’a Atyi, R.; Nasi, R.; Fomete Nembot, T.; (eds.)

This is a special issue of International Forestry Review on Valuing the Cameroonian Forest. Complete list of articles are:

Valuing the Cameroonian forest Editorial

Cameroon’s forest policy within the overall national land use framework: from sectorial approaches to global coherence?

Review and combination of recent remote sensing based products for forest cover change assessments in Cameroon

The technical and political challenges of the industrial forest sector in Cameroon

Contributions of community and individual small-scale logging to sustainable timber management in Cameroon

Economic and social importance of fuelwood in Cameroon

Vegetal non-timber forest products in Cameroon, contribution to the national economy

Will the proposed forest policy and regulatory reforms boost the NTFP sector in Cameroon?

Financial and economic values of bushmeat in rural and urban livelihoods in Cameroon: Inputs to the development of public policy

Does trophy hunting remain a profitable business model for conserving biodiversity in Cameroon?

Valuation of forest carbon stocks to estimate the potential for result-based payment under REDD+ in Cameroon

Learning from change in the Sangha Tri-National landscape

Publication Year: 2016

ISSN: 1465-5489

Source: International Forestry Review 18 (Supplement 1)

Latest post

  • Home
  • The forests of Central Africa: A source of wealth to be rediscovered

The forests of Central Africa: A source of wealth to be rediscovered

Photo by M.Edliadi/ CIFOR
Posted by

FTA
Photo by M.Edliadi/ CIFOR
Photo by M.Edliadi/ CIFOR

By Guillaume Lescuyer, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

Although Cameroon has benefitted from sustainable forest management in the past 20 years and has a relatively well-preserved forest cover today, its forests are under increased pressure due to expanding agro-industrial exploitation, shifting cultivation, infrastructure construction and logging.

A recently published study aims to provide an updated estimate of the economic benefits of forest resources in Cameroon to inform policymakers on the financial advantages of forest management and the opportunity costs of deforestation.

The International Forestry Review published this Special Issue, which was launched at the 16th meeting of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership on 22 November 2016 in Kigali. It is also being officially introduced to the Cameroonian partners in the capital of Yaoundé on January 25.

The valuation of forest products is essential to improve the design and implementation of public policies for sustainable development and poverty alleviation, in the perspective of an inclusive green economy.

The current lack of information on the value of subsistence and informal cash revenues from forests has led to an overemphasis on forest governance of products, such as timber, that are visible highly and contains a high market value.

Read also: Special Issue: Valuing the Cameroonian Forest

However, the focus on industrial exploitation of timber has obscured other forms of income derived from forest resources and has downgraded the perceived economic value of forests. Such a perception of forest uses and benefits creates an information asymmetry that poses bias to policymakers’ knowledge for rational policy hierarchy-setting in relation to the allocation of land uses.

What does the valuation of the current use of forest resources in Cameroon reveal?

Click to play video
Click to play video

First, and not surprisingly, the industrial timber sector holds the highest value. The fuelwood sector also has a significant value, although it remains largely informal. Non-timber forest products (NTFP), chainsaw milling (picture 2) and hunting each contributed around 0.2 percent to Cameroonian GDP (without the inclusion of oil) in 2013. In contrast, sport hunting and tourism have a negligible contribution to the country’s GDP.

However, it is noteworthy that the contribution to GDP is not a significant indicator of employment. There are many more people involved in the hunting, fuelwood, chainsaw milling and NTFP sectors than in the formal sectors, although these jobs are seldom comparable in terms of time spent, working conditions, and social protection.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

The results presented in this Special Issue suggest the need for three approaches to research and action to improve the sustainable management of forest resources in the Congo Basin countries.

First, there is a need to recognize the importance of domestic consumption of forest products in the development of forest policy. It is being largely ignored in the current forestry policy even though an overwhelming majority of rural people are producing forest goods consumed by the majority of Cameroonians. In this context, international conventions covering carbon sequestration, biodiversity protection and timber legality have had a negligible impact on cash incomes from forest revenues. Instead, the achievement of sustainable forest management depends largely on domestic markets for forest products and on commodities – especially agricultural and mineral – produced in and often to the detriment of forest areas.

Second, the procedures to integrate informal uses of forest resources in national accounts can be improved. The comparison of macroeconomic estimates of forest-related activities in national accounts with our assessments of sub-sector analyses indicates a significant under-valuation of the economic benefits derived from forest resources in official statistics. Two main reasons can explain this difference. First, the classifications used in public accounting are poorly suited to assess and analyze the diversity of forest resources. Moreover, this failure is due both to the low frequency of surveys and the nature of surveys used, which are often inappropriate to capture the value and extent of highly sensitive, illegal forest activities.

Finally, the information on the uses of forest resources in Cameroon – and across Central Africa – should be more easily accessible. Mechanisms to systematically collect, verify and publicize this information have long been proposed and urgently need to be developed.

A better dissemination of such data would contribute to show that forests have a far greater economic value beyond timber logging, and could be used to prevent the increasing pressures of forest conversion to other land uses. Valuing forest resources can also help to clarify and optimize the interactions between complementary and competing uses of forest resources, and to make a transition from informal exploitation of forest resources to sustainable and legal harvest and trade.

Cameroon possesses tremendous forest resources, but its forest policy needs to be revised urgently in order for its potential to be realized. If this can be achieved, the development of an inclusive green economy will be closer than ever.

For more information on this topic, please contact Guillaume Lescuyer at g.lescuyer@cgiar.org.
This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

Latest post

  • Home
  • Legalizing Cameroon’s timber production chain

Legalizing Cameroon’s timber production chain

18 January, 2017
Click to play video
Posted by

FTA


By Leona Liu, originally posted at CIFOR’s Forests News

A recent study presents the most comprehensive scientific analysis of illegal logging to date. Its findings indicate that one third of tropical timber traded globally comes from illegal deforestation.

“Forestry crime including corporate crimes and illegal logging account for up to $152 billion every year, more than all official development aid combined,” said Erik Solheim, Head of UN Environment, one of the partner organizations supporting the assessment.

More than 40 scientists around the world, including several scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), produced the report. The study was coordinated by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) in association with the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF).

Researchers found that bilateral trade agreements between producer and consumer countries- like the European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Action Plan (FLEGT), which requires timber products imported into the EU be legally sourced – have prompted shifts in the timber trade from industrial export-oriented markets to small-scale logging operations for the domestic market.

This pattern can be observed in Cameroon, Africa’s largest exporter of tropical hardwood to the EU, most of which is sawn timber that goes to Italy and Spain. Due to a lack of government regulation concerning the domestic wood sector, approximately half of the country’s timber is sold on the black market.

Timber produced for domestic consumption is generally absent from official statistics and produced without a valid permit. But now, under a voluntary partnership agreement signed with the EU under FLEGT, Cameroon is developing the systems needed to control, verify and license legal timber.

This video documents the challenges facing small-scale loggers in Cameroon. The country’s entire domestic timber sector is marked by informal practices, from felling trees to selling sawnwood. Although informal methods do not respect all the national regulations, they do not necessarily break the law either. This is why researchers prefer the word ‘informal’ to ‘illegal.’

Latest post

  • Home
  • Host country governance and the African land rush: 7 reasons why large-scale farmland investments fail to contribute to sustainable development

Host country governance and the African land rush: 7 reasons why large-scale farmland investments fail to contribute to sustainable development
Posted by

FTA

Authors: Schoneveld, G.C.

The large social and environmental footprint of rising investor demand for Africa’s farmland has in recent years become a much-examined area of enquiry. This has produced a rich body of literature that has generated valuable insights into the underlying drivers, trends, social and environmental impacts, discursive implications, and global governance options. Host country governance dynamics have in contrast remained an unexplored theme, despite its central role in facilitating and legitimizing unsustainable farmland investments. This article contributes to this research gap by synthesizing results and lessons from 38 case studies conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. It shows how and why large-scale farmland investments are often synonymous with displacement, dispossession, and environmental degradation and, thereby, highlights seven outcome determinants that merit more explicit treatment in academic and policy discourse.

Source: CIFOR Publications

Publication Year: 2016

ISSN: 0016-7185

Source: Geoforum

DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.12.007

Latest post

  • Home
  • Organized Forest Crime: A Criminological Analysis with Suggestions from Timber Forensics

Organized Forest Crime: A Criminological Analysis with Suggestions from Timber Forensics

29 December, 2016
Posted by

FTA communications

Authors: van Solinge, T.B.; Zuidema, P.; Vlam, M.; Cerutti, P.O.; Yemelin, V.

It was only during the first decade of this century that illegal timber was recognised as a transnational crime problem by international law enforcement organizations and academic criminologists. In 2008 the World Bank asked INTERPOL to look at illegal logging from the perspective of international criminal justice. This led to INTERPOL’s first project on illegal logging, the Chainsaw Project.

Series: IUFRO World Series no. 35

Publisher: Vienna, Austria, International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO)

Publication Year: 2016

ISBN: 978-3-902762-70-2

ISSN: 1016-3263

Source: Daniela Kleinschmit, Stephanie Mansourian, Christoph Wildburger, Andre Purret (eds.) Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade – Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses: A Global Scientific Rapid Response Assessment Report. 81-96, CIFOR’s library

Latest post

  • Home
  • Multiple and Intertwined Impacts of Illegal Forest Activities

Multiple and Intertwined Impacts of Illegal Forest Activities

28 December, 2016
Posted by

FTA communications

Authors: Pacheco, P.; Cerutti, P.O.; Edwards, D.P.; Lescuyer, G.; Mejia, E.; Navarro, G.; Obidzinski, K.; Pokorny, B.; Sist, P.

There have been numerous country-level studies and attempts to quantify illegal logging and related timber trade. A few reports have offered some global assessments about illegal logging but they are fragmented and fail to provide a detailed assessment of the impacts of illegal forest activities (see Lawson and MacFaul, 2010; Lawson, 2014; Hoare, 2015). In addition, because of their nature, some illegal forest activities as well as their impacts are hard to estimate (Tacconi, 2007).

Series: IUFRO World Series no. 35

Publisher: Vienna, Austria, International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO)

Publication Year: 2016

ISBN: 978-3-902762-70-2

ISSN: 1016-3263

Source: Daniela Kleinschmit, Stephanie Mansourian, Christoph Wildburger, Andre Purret (eds.) Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade – Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses: A Global Scientific Rapid Response Assessment Report. 99-116, CIFOR’s library

Latest post

  • Home
  • Drivers of Illegal and Destructive Forest Use

Drivers of Illegal and Destructive Forest Use

27 December, 2016
Posted by

FTA communications

Authors: Pokorny, B.; Pacheco, P.; Cerutti, P.O.; van Solinge, T.B.; Kissinger, G.; Tacconi, L.

This chapter reflects upon the drivers of illegal logging and associated timber trade. Much of this discussion is related to a broader debate about the drivers of forest degradation and deforestation (FAO, 2016a; Kissinger et al., 2012; Geist and Lambin, 2001). In this debate illegal logging is primarily interpreted as harvesting of timber for export by logging companies that take advantage of flaws in regulations and law enforcement (Kissinger et al., 2012). This framing has been partly driven by the lobbies of timber importing countries to bring the issue of deforestation within the legality debate, and so to extol those policy measures aimed at improving forest legality as a means to tackle deforestation.

Series: IUFRO World Series no. 35

Publisher: Vienna, Austria, International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO)

Publication Year: 2016

ISBN: 978-3-902762-70-2

ISSN: 1016-3263

Source: Daniela Kleinschmit, Stephanie Mansourian, Christoph Wildburger, Andre Purret (eds.) Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade – Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses: A Global Scientific Rapid Response Assessment Report. 61-78, CIFOR’s library

Latest post

  • Home
  • Global Governance Approaches to Addressing Illegal Logging: Uptake and Lessons Learnt

Global Governance Approaches to Addressing Illegal Logging: Uptake and Lessons Learnt

26 December, 2016
Posted by

FTA communications

Authors: Cashore, B.; Leipold, S.; Cerutti, P.O.; Bueno, G.; Carodenuto, S.; Xiaoqian, C.; de Jong, W.; Denvir, A.; Hansen, C.; Humphreys, D.; McGinley, K.; Nathan, I.; Overdevest, C.; Rodrigues, R.J.; Sotirov, M.; Stone, M.W.; Tegegne, Y.T.; Visseren-Hamakers, I.; Winkel, G.; Yemelin, V.; Zeitlin, J.

One of the most challenging tasks facing development agencies, trade ministries, environmental groups, social activists and forest-focused business interests seeking to ameliorate illegal logging and related timber trade is to identify and nurture promising global governance interventions capable of helping improve compliance to governmental policies and laws at national, subnational and local levels. This question is especially acute for developing countries constrained by capacity challenges and “weak states” (Risse, 2011). This chapter seeks to shed light on this task by asking four related questions: How do we understand the emergence of illegal logging as a matter of global interest? What are the types of global interventions designed to improve domestic legal compliance? How haveindividual states responded to these global efforts? What are the prospects for future impacts and evolution?

Series: IUFRO World Series no. 35

Publisher: International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), Vienna, Austria

Publication Year: 2016

ISBN: 978-3-902762-70-2

ISSN: 1016-3263

Source: Daniela Kleinschmit, Stephanie Mansourian, Christoph Wildburger, Andre Purret (eds.) Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade – Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses: A Global Scientific Rapid Response Assessment Report. 119-131, CIFOR’s library

Latest post

  • Home
  • Defining Illegal Forest Activities and Illegal Logging

Defining Illegal Forest Activities and Illegal Logging

25 December, 2016
Posted by

FTA communications

Authors: Tacconi, L.; Cerutti, P.O.; Leipold, S.; Rodrigues, R.J.; Savaresi, A.; Phuc, T.; Xiaoxue, W.

A dictionary definition of the term illegal tells us that it means something “not allowed by the law”.1 According to the same dictionary, a law is “the system of rules of a particular country, group or area of activity”. To further clarify the meaning of illegal, it is also useful to consider its synonyms, which include “criminal”, “illegitimate” and “irregular”.2 The term “criminal act” is often used interchangeably with the term “illegal act”. However, the former has a more markedly negative connotation, as it refers to an act that is sanctioned under criminal law. Furthermore, a crime may be carried out by someone whose activities are normally legal, such as a logging company, or by a criminal organization whose main goal is to carry out criminal acts, as discussed in Chapter 5. The term “irregular”, on the other hand, refers to “a behaviour or action not according to usual rules or what is expected” 1. It may refer, for instance, to an action that deviates from a certain procedure specified in a voluntary code of conduct that does not have the status of law. Though not a synonym, the term “informal” has also become quite prominent in recent discussions about illegality in the forest sector. It deserves some qualification to avoid conflation with the term “illegal” and it will be considered in the following section.

Series: IUFRO World Series no. 35

Publisher: Vienna, Austria, International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO)

Publication Year: 2016

ISBN: 978-3-902762-70-2

ISSN: 1016-3263

Source: Daniela Kleinschmit, Stephanie Mansourian, Christoph Wildburger, Andre Purret (eds.) Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade – Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses: A Global Scientific Rapid Response Assessment Report. 23-35, CIFOR’s library

Latest post

  • Home
  • Amazonia's best and worst areas for carbon recovery revealed

Amazonia’s best and worst areas for carbon recovery revealed
Posted by

FTA

10050176886_1a7ca4748d_zThe first mapping of carbon recovery in Amazonian forests following emissions released by commercial logging activities has been published in the journal eLife.

The findings suggest that, in some of the forests disturbed by logging, surviving trees may be more reliable for storing carbon emissions than newly ‘recruited’ trees (juveniles that naturally regenerate in the logged forests).

Amazonia, the largest tropical forest globally, holds 30% of the carbon stored in the earth’s forests. Logging releases a significant amount of this carbon — a key component of climate change – into the atmosphere, which is then recovered by surviving trees and new recruits.

The Tropical managed Forest Observatory is a product of partnerships within FTA. Click on image to see more.
The Tropical managed Forest Observatory is a product of partnerships within FTA. Click on image to see more.

No investigations of post-logging carbon dynamics have previously been carried out Amazon-wide. Now, researchers from the Tropical managed Forest Observatory, which forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, have created a unique modelling approach to estimate accurately how the different forest environments impact carbon changes in surviving and newly recruited trees during post-logging carbon recovery.

“We studied long-term data from 133 permanent forest plots from 13 experimentally disturbed sites across Amazonia to model the changes in the aboveground carbon stocks in the first decades after logging,” says first author and PhD student Camille Piponiot from UMR Écologie des Forêts de Guyane in Kourou, French Guiana.

“We looked at regional differences in climate, soils, and initial aboveground biomass within the forests and linked these with the changes in carbon stocks caused by both newly recruited and surviving trees to predict the carbon recovery potential Amazon-wide.”

Their model reveals that carbon recovery is highest in the Guiana Shield in northeastern South America, and also in the western regions of the Amazonian forests, due mainly to the high carbon gain of trees that survived logging activity. In contrast, recovery is lower in the south.

8898637546_123d4e95e6_z
Unamat forest, Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru. Photo: Marco Simola/CIFOR

Piponiot explains: “Forests of the Guiana Shield are generally dense and grow on nutrient-poor soils, where wood productivity is constrained by competition for key nutrients. Short pulses of nutrients released from readily decomposed stems, twigs, and leaves of trees damaged and killed by logging explain the substantial but limited-duration increase in the growth of surviving trees.

“In the southern Amazon, on the other hand, high seasonal water stress is the main constraint on carbon recovery. Stress-tolerant trees are generally poor competitors and this may explain the slower carbon accumulation in survivors in this region.”

Principal Investigator and senior author of the study, Bruno Hérault, from Cirad, adds: “As climate change continues, we can also expect to see increases in droughts and fires that will further disturb the Amazonian forests. Betting on newly recruited trees to store carbon in some of the forests disturbed by logging might be a risky gamble, as most of them are pioneer trees highly vulnerable to water stress. Trees that survive logging activities may therefore be more reliable in accumulating carbon in these disturbed forests.”

Hérault concludes: “While our study focuses mainly on carbon recovery after logging, our findings may also give useful clues to predict the forests’ responses to carbon loss from fires and other events brought on by climate change, which is ironically caused in part by mass disturbance and deforestation.”

The paper ‘Carbon recovery dynamics following disturbance by selective logging in Amazonian forests‘ can be freely accessed online. Contents, including text, figures, and data, are free to reuse under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Latest post

  • Home
  • Oil palm-community conflict mapping in Indonesia: A case for better community liaison in planning for development initiatives

Oil palm-community conflict mapping in Indonesia: A case for better community liaison in planning for development initiatives

07 December, 2016
Posted by

FTA

Authors: Abram, N.K.; Meijaard, E.; Wilson, K.A.; Davis, J.T.; Wells, J.A.; Ancrenaz, M.; Budiharta, S.;Durrant, A.; Fakhruzzi, A.; Runting, R.K.; Gaveau, D.L.A.; Mengersen, K.

Conflict between large-scale oil-palm producers and local communities is widespread in palm-oil producer nations. With a potential doubling of oil-palm cultivation in Indonesia in the next ten years it is likely that conflicts between the palm-oil industry and communities will increase. We develop and apply a novel method for understanding spatial patterns of oil-palm related conflicts. We use a unique set of conflict data derived through systematic searches of online data sources and local newspaper reports describing recent oil-palm land-use related conflicts for Indonesian Borneo, and combine these data with 43 spatial environmental and social variables using boosted regression tree modelling. Reports identified 187 villages had reported conflict with oil-palm companies. Spatial patterns varied with different types of conflict. Forest-dependent communities were more likely to strongly oppose oil-palm establishment because of their negative perception of oil-palm development on the environment and their own livelihoods. Conflicts regarding land boundary disputes, illegal operations by companies, perceived lack of consultation, compensation and broken promises by companies were more associated with communities that have lower reliance on forests for livelihoods, or are located in regions that have undergone or are undergoing forest transformation to oil-palm or industrial-tree-plantations. A better understanding of the characteristics of communities and areas where different types of conflicts have occurred is a fundamental step in generating hypotheses about why certain types of conflict occur in certain locations. Insights from such research can help inform land use policy, planning and management to achieve more sustainable and equitable development. Our results can also assist certification bodies (e.g. the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil-RSPO, and the Indonesian and Malaysian versions, ISPO and MSPO), non-government-organisations, government agencies and other stakeholders to more effectively target mediation efforts to reduce the potential for conflict arising in the future.

Publication Year: 2017

ISSN: 0143-6228

Source: Applied Geography 78: 33-44

DOI: 10.1016/j.apgeog.2016.10.005

Latest post

  • Home
  • Incentives and Constraints of Community and Smallholder Forestry

Incentives and Constraints of Community and Smallholder Forestry

05 December, 2016
Posted by

FTA

Authors: de Jong, W.; Galloway, G.; Katila, P.; Pacheco, P.

This editorial introduces the special issue: Incentives and constraints of community and smallholder forestry. The special issue contains nine papers, listed in a table in the main text. The editorial reviews briefly some key elements of our current understanding of community and smallholder forestry. The editorial also briefly introduces the nine papers of the special issue and points out how they link to the debate among academics and specialists on community and smallholder forestry. Finally, the editorial highlights the new elements that the nine papers contribute to our understanding of community and smallholder forestry, before it concludes at the end.

Publication Year: 2016

ISSN: 1999-4907

Source: Forests 7(9): 209

DOI: 10.3390/f7090209

Latest post

  • Home
  • Alignment is key to making partnerships work

Alignment is key to making partnerships work

Workers in a timber yard that sells wood from the Amazon, Quito, Ecuador. Timber is one of the commodities that FTA researchers focus on. Photo: Thomas Munita/CIFOR
Posted by

FTA

 

Photo: CIFOR
Photo: CIFOR

By Pablo Pacheco, Coordinator of Flagship 5, Global Governance, Trade and Investment, of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. See more stories on partnerships here.

For the Flagship on Global Governance, Trade and Investment, I would like to highlight how instrumental the partnership between the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the French Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) has been in developing the whole theme. While CIFOR has a strong emphasis on applied policy research, CIRAD has brought to the program diverse capacities for conducting forestry, agricultural and economic research.

In general, the reason partners want to engage with us is because they recognize the factors that define our program, and see an opportunity in working in collaborative ways.

Some progress has been made with regards to integrating our work on global value chains around key commodities with research on farmer systems and livelihoods conducted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). These two research streams ideally complement each other.

We have consolidated an effective partnership with Utrecht University in the Netherlands, with the International Development Studies (IDS) and Copernicus institute. These relationships are about developing ideas, implementing research, and supporting social learning on the impacts of large-scale investments on smallholder agriculture, and options for more inclusive business models. We are making progress in supporting some learning platforms around specific initiatives.

We also collaborate with the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn, which allows us to bring in some more specialized knowledge for assessing the economic implications of key agricultural commodities and their conservation and livelihood trade-offs. Together with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) we work on analyzing the implications of oil palm development under different probable future scenarios.

Click to read seven-country study on oil palm
Click to read seven-country study on oil palm

In addition, we have established partnerships with universities in the countries on which we tend to focus our work such as the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) in Indonesia, and the University of Sao Paolo (USP) in Brazil. These universities contribute with researchers quite knowledgeable of their national realities and support our efforts on policy engagement.

It is very difficult to build meaningful partnerships in situations in which there is no long-term alignment of institutional objectives and research agendas, so some partnerships are more spurious than others, which is often the case on partnerships built around specific projects.

For the new phase we therefore look for long-term alignment with some partners with which we share objectives of co-production of knowledge aimed at informing development initiatives and policy dialogues. The FP provides an interesting network of partners and people with different backgrounds and expertise working across a diverse set of key select countries.

We have initiated some new partnerships based on common topics of interest with organizations supporting development actions, such as with the SNV Netherlands Development Organization, which has a vast experience in promoting inclusive business models involving different stakeholders. Our aim is to distil some of the knowledge already available.

Workers in a timber yard that sells wood from the Amazon, Quito, Ecuador. Timber is one of the commodities that FTA researchers focus on. Photo: Thomas Munita/CIFOR

Workers in a timber yard that sells wood from the Amazon, Quito, Ecuador. Timber is one of the commodities that FTA researchers focus on. Photo: Thomas Munita/CIFOR

The Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST), a network of financial institutions ranging from the Dutch Rabobank to microfinance institutions in developing countries, has showed interest in contributing to our work. They are going to become a quite important partner in developing our research on finance, mainly aimed at reaching smallholder farmers.

In addition, we are increasingly looking for partnerships with business sector initiatives (e.g. TFA 2020), as well as with multi-stakeholder processes, mainly expressed in commodity roundtables and certification systems. For example, we support the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), as well as ISEAL Alliance that constitutes the global membership organization for sustainability standards. We want to extend these partnerships to cover other initiatives driven by the private sector in specific countries.

What we do in each country is strongly connected to the work already being undertaken by partners at different levels, including academia, to build credibility and achieve policy impacts. In every one of these countries, we collaborate with a diverse range of partners and maintain strong linkages with ministries and government agencies. It is important to build such partnerships, even though it may take long processes to consolidate them.

More on partnerships

Robert Nasi: Partnerships make forests, trees and agroforestry program work

Long-term relationships and mutual trust—partnerships and research on climate change

The best science is nothing without local voices: Partnerships and landscapes

Influence flows both ways: Partnerships are key to research on Livelihood systems

Partnership increases number of academically trained foresters in DR Congo from 6 to 160 in just ten years

Bringing in the development expertise: INBAR to join CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

Connecting with countries: Tropenbos International to join CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

 

 

 

Latest post

  • Home
  • FTA event coverage: Climate, business and landscapes: Mobilizing large-scale investment for smallholder farmers

FTA event coverage: Climate, business and landscapes: Mobilizing large-scale investment for smallholder farmers

30 November, 2016
Posted by

FTA

Smallholder farmers play a key role in the production of agricultural crops for domestic and global markets. But, smallholders remain disenfranchised, often facing economic, financial and institutional constraints that make the adoption of more efficient practices, technologies and business models difficult.

This discussion forum at the 2016 Global Landscapes Forum in Marrakesh explored the multiple perspectives of development practitioners and financiers, including impact investors, by drawing on specific cases, experience and innovative approaches.

The session was co-hosted by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and moderated by Pablo Pacheco, Coordinator of the theme Global governance, trade and investment of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

Latest post

  • Home
  • Developing partnerships between CIFOR and the private plantation sector

Developing partnerships between CIFOR and the private plantation sector

24 November, 2016
Posted by

FTA

Latest post


Back to top

Sign up to our monthly newsletter

Connect with us