Tag: ecosystem services


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  • Forest ecosystem services and the pillars of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness

Forest ecosystem services and the pillars of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness

09 January, 2018

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In the eastern Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, culture, society, economy and environment are linked in the development framework of Gross National Happiness (GNH). In this literature review, we highlight the relationships between forests and Bhutan’s development framework and current priorities, identifying plausible causal pathways. Due to the mountainous nature of this country, our particular interest is in the impacts of upstream forest activity on downstream stakeholders.

Our hypothetical framework identifies specific causal pathways between forests and the four pillars of GNH (environmental conservation, cultural preservation, equitable socioeconomic development and good governance), and evidence was sought in the published literature to test the hypothesis. While conceptual support for many linkages between forests and each of the pillars was found in the literature, evidential support specifically for Bhutan is limited. The strongest evidence is found for the role of forests in socioeconomic development and good governance, particularly through the community forestry program.

To develop incentive programs for forest conservation and restoration, such as payment for ecosystem services and pay-for-performance donor funding, the evidence base needs to be expanded for causal pathways between upstream forest condition and downstream security, particularly for services such as water regulation. The evidence should inform public policy and forest management strategies and practices.

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  • Challenges for developing Forest Stewardship Council certification for ecosystem services: How to enhance local adoption?

Challenges for developing Forest Stewardship Council certification for ecosystem services: How to enhance local adoption?

26 October, 2017

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The rise of ecosystem services (ES) as a conservation and management tool has changed the way forests are conceived, but so far its translation into management actions has been limited. In this paper, we discuss the development of certification of forest ecosystem services (FES) from the perspective of those implementing it at the local level. We focus on the lessons that emerged from applying the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification framework at selected sites in Chile, Indonesia, Nepal and Vietnam.

Our results indicate a clear relationship between local and global levels in the development of FSC FES certification. Although the FSC already had a broad vision of ES, it was only through local-level learning within a specific pilot experiment that the vision evolved and resulted in more formal FES certification becoming part of FSC forest management certification. We also found that those sites where participatory approaches to management and decision-making were applied could work with an undefined vision of the future system, and still successfully design and implement management activities. However, overall the lack of specific vision and detailed information about future FES certification was problematic in attracting market interest in FSC certified ES.

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.10.001

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  • Mechanisms mediating the contribution of ecosystem services to human well-being and resilience

Mechanisms mediating the contribution of ecosystem services to human well-being and resilience

25 October, 2017

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Human benefits from ecosystems result from complex interactions between ecological and social processes. People affect ecosystems’ capacity to deliver services that contribute to the well-being of humans and their resilience. The delivery of ecosystem services (ES) has often been considered as a linear and direct flow from nature to people without feedbacks or human inputs. We adjusted the widely used ES cascade to highlight how humans mediate each step in the ES delivery. We then applied the proposed framework to empirical field studies in Indonesia. We focused on the role of forested landscapes to increase rural people’s resilience to climate hazards such as drought and floods. We found that human actions determine benefits from ES through several mechanisms (ES management, mobilization, allocation-appropriation, and appreciation). These mechanisms are influenced by peoples’ decisions along the ES cascade, which depend on specific factors related to rules, assets, values, and spatial context. By facilitating or hindering ES flows, some stakeholders can determine who benefits from ES and influence the well-being of others. A better understanding of the mediating mechanisms, factors, and feedbacks in ES delivery can support the design of sound environmental assessments and sustainable land management practices.

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  • Local tree knowledge can fast-track agroforestry recommendations for coffee smallholders along a climate gradient in Mount Elgon, Uganda

Local tree knowledge can fast-track agroforestry recommendations for coffee smallholders along a climate gradient in Mount Elgon, Uganda

01 September, 2017

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Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) is economically important for many smallholder farmers in the Mount Elgon region of East Uganda, but its production is increasingly threatened by climate change. However, ecosystem services (ES) provided by companion trees in coffee agroforestry systems (AFS) can help farmers adapt to climate change.

The objectives of this research were to develop agroforestry species recommendations and tailor these to the farmers’ needs and local context, taking into consideration gender. Local knowledge of agroforestry species and ES preferences was collected through farmer interviews and rankings. Using the Bradley-Terry approach, analysis was done along an altitudinal gradient in order to study different climate change scenarios for coffee suitability. Farmers had different needs in terms of ES and tree species at different altitudes, e.g. at low altitude they need a relatively larger set of ES to sustain their coffee production and livelihood. Local knowledge is found to be gender blind as no differences were observed in the rankings of species and ES by men and women.

Ranking species by ES and ranking ES by preference is a useful method to help scientists and extension agents to use local knowledge for the development of recommendations on companion trees in AFS for smallholder farmers.

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  • Ecosystem services from community-based forestry in Nepal: Realising local and global benefits

Ecosystem services from community-based forestry in Nepal: Realising local and global benefits

23 June, 2017

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Overview

Community-based Forestry (CBF) is now a popular approach for landscape restoration, forest management, biodiversity conservation and support for rural livelihoods worldwide. The Himalayan country Nepal has been at the forefront of CBF for over four decades, with almost 40% of the total population directly involved in protecting and managing more than 32% of the country’s forested land.

However, in the past, the focus of CBF in Nepal was the provision of goods for local subsistence, and there has been limited analysis of the role of CBF in providing ecosystem services (ES) from restored forest landscapes. Based on material drawn from a literature review and a stakeholders’ workshop, this paper analyses changes in Nepalese forest policies to provide a more holistic framework for CBF that provides a wider range of ES and to potentially underpin payments for ecosystem services in Nepal.

The analysis indicates that Nepal’s forest policy and practices are still dominated by a narrowly conceived notion of forest management that does not accommodate the holistic concept of ES. The study illustrates that CBF provides many ES from local to global benefits as result of forest restoration. For example, timber, firewood, food, and water have local importance, while climate regulation, flood/erosion control, and habitat improvement have global importance.

Many innovative cases are emerging in the long journey of CBF in Nepal that demonstrate more diverse management strategies, new forms of tenure rights and autonomy in institutional spaces. These can potentially provide a catalytic platform for the wider adoption of the ES framework in CBF regimes, in order to focus and reward forest management more directly for the provision of services such as water, biodiversity, climate regulation and recreation. Consequently, this study discusses the issues and challenges that are impeding the implementation of the ES concept in Nepal and suggests some ways forward.

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  • Ecosystem services from planted forests

Ecosystem services from planted forests

02 May, 2017

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A presentation by Himlal Baral, Senior Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

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  • Addressing Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Together: A Global Assessment of Agriculture and Forestry Projects

Addressing Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Together: A Global Assessment of Agriculture and Forestry Projects

25 January, 2017

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Authors: Rico Kongsager, Bruno Locatelli, Florie Chazarin

Adaptation and mitigation share the ultimate purpose of reducing climate change impacts. However, they tend to be considered separately in projects and policies because of their different objectives and scales. Agriculture and forestry are related to both adaptation and mitigation: they contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and removals, are vulnerable to climate variations, and form part of adaptive strategies for rural livelihoods. We assessed how climate change project design documents (PDDs) considered a joint contribution to adaptation and mitigation in forestry and agriculture in the tropics, by analyzing 201 PDDs from adaptation funds, mitigation instruments, and project standards [e.g., climate community and biodiversity (CCB)]. We analyzed whether PDDs established for one goal reported an explicit contribution to the other (i.e., whether mitigation PDDs contributed to adaptation and vice versa). We also examined whether the proposed activities or expected outcomes allowed for potential contributions to the two goals. Despite the separation between the two goals in international and national institutions, 37 % of the PDDs explicitly mentioned a contribution to the other objective, although only half of those substantiated it. In addition, most adaptation (90 %) and all mitigation PDDs could potentially report a contribution to at least partially to the other goal. Some adaptation project developers were interested in mitigation for the prospect of carbon funding, whereas mitigation project developers integrated adaptation to achieve greater long-term sustainability or to attain CCB certification. International and national institutions can provide incentives for projects to harness synergies and avoid trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation.

Environmental Management, February 2016, Volume 57, Issue 2, pp 271–282

 

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  • Certify and shift blame, or resolve issues? Environmentally and socially responsible global trade and production of timber and tree crops

Certify and shift blame, or resolve issues? Environmentally and socially responsible global trade and production of timber and tree crops


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Authors: Mithöfer, D,; van Noordwijk, M.; Leimona, B.; Cerutti, P.O.

Certification of adherence to social and environmental standards allows companies involved in the (global) trade of commodities to dissociate themselves from negative impacts in the public eye. It can go beyond compliance with legal requirements. Certification can be an attempt to shift blame to uncertified others, but it can also contribute to resolving the underlying issues of concern. We provide a framework for a study of when, where and how certification schemes emerge and evolve, with specific attention to the degree to which underlying issues get addressed. Three strands of literature are combined in this framework (1) the issue–attention cycle as a schematic representation of public concerns shaping policy responses; (2) the management swing potential defined as the gap between best and worst current production systems and the basis for defining standards and (3) global value chains that link distant producers and consumers, and the power relations along these chains, including standards and certification. Based on literature review, we introduce a set of four propositions that inform testable specific hypotheses. We outline questions for reviews, in subsequent papers of this issue, of the experience on timber, oil palm, coffee, cacao and rubber as tropical-forest-margin commodities dominated by global trade.

Publication Year: 2017

ISSN: 2151-3732

Source: International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services & Management 13(1): 72-85

DOI: 10.1080/21513732.2016.1238848

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  • The impact of swidden decline on livelihoods and ecosystem services in Southeast Asia: A review of the evidence from 1990 to 2015

The impact of swidden decline on livelihoods and ecosystem services in Southeast Asia: A review of the evidence from 1990 to 2015

22 December, 2016

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Authors: Dressler, W.H.; Wilson, D.; Clendenning, J.; Cramb, R.; Keenan, R.J.; Mahanty, S.; Bruun, T.B.; Mertz, O.; Lasco, R.D.

Global economic change and policy interventions are driving transitions from long-fallow swidden (LFS) systems to alternative land uses in Southeast Asia’s uplands. This study presents a systematic review of how these transitions impact upon livelihoods and ecosystem services in the region. Over 17 000 studies published between 1950 and 2015 were narrowed, based on relevance and quality, to 93 studies for further analysis. Our analysis of land-use transitions from swidden to intensified cropping systems showed several outcomes: more households had increased overall income, but these benefits came at significant cost such as reductions of customary practice, socio-economic wellbeing, livelihood options, and staple yields. Examining the effects of transitions on soil properties revealed negative impacts on soil organic carbon, cation-exchange capacity, and aboveground carbon. Taken together, the proximate and underlying drivers of the transitions from LFS to alternative land uses, especially intensified perennial and annual cash cropping, led to significant declines in pre-existing livelihood security and the ecosystem services supporting this security. Our results suggest that policies imposing land-use transitions on upland farmers so as to improve livelihoods and environments have been misguided; in the context of varied land uses, swidden agriculture can support livelihoods and ecosystem services that will help buffer the impacts of climate change in Southeast Asia.

 

Pages: 20p.

Publication Year: 2016

ISSN: 0044-7447

Source: Ambio, CIFOR’s library

DOI: 10.1007/s13280-016-0836-z

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  • An integrative research framework for enabling transformative adaptation

An integrative research framework for enabling transformative adaptation

13 December, 2016

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Authors: Colloff, M.J.; Martín-López, B.; Lavorel, S.; Locatelli, B.; Gorddard, R.; Longaretti, P-Y.; Walters, G.; van Kerkhoff, L.; Wyborn, C.; Coreau, A.; Wise, R.M.; Dunlop, M.; Degeorges, P.; Grantham, H.; Overton, I.C.; Williams, R.D.; Doherty, M.D.; Capon, T.; Sanderson, T.; Murphy, H.T.

Transformative adaptation will be increasingly important to effectively address the impacts of climate change and other global drivers on social-ecological systems. Enabling transformative adaptation requires new ways to evaluate and adaptively manage trade-offs between maintaining desirable aspects of current social-ecological systems and adapting to major biophysical changes to those systems. We outline such an approach, based on three elements developed by the Transformative Adaptation Research Alliance (TARA): (1) the benefits of adaptation services; that sub-set of ecosystem services that help people adapt to environmental change; (2) The values-rules-knowledge perspective (vrk) for identifying those aspects of societal decision-making contexts that enable or constrain adaptation and (3) the adaptation pathways approach for implementing adaptation, that builds on and integrates adaptation services and the vrk perspective. Together, these elements provide a future-oriented approach to evaluation and use of ecosystem services, a dynamic, grounded understanding of governance and decision-making and a logical, sequential approach that connects decisions over time. The TARA approach represents a means for achieving changes in institutions and governance needed to support transformative adaptation.

Pages: 10p.

Publication Year: 2016

ISSN: 1462-9011

Source: Environmental Science and Policy

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2016.11.007

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  • Ecosystem Services in plantations: from economic valuations to market-based instruments

Ecosystem Services in plantations: from economic valuations to market-based instruments

10 December, 2016

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  • Beyond protected areas: Landscape approaches to reconcile conservation and development

Beyond protected areas: Landscape approaches to reconcile conservation and development

04 November, 2016

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cifor

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  • Certification of forest watershed services: A Q methodology analysis of opportunities and challenges in Lombok, Indonesia

Certification of forest watershed services: A Q methodology analysis of opportunities and challenges in Lombok, Indonesia

24 October, 2016

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Authors: Wanggi Jaung; Putzel, L.; Bull, G.Q.; Kozak, R.; Markum

This study examines opportunities and challenges of applying certification of forest watershed services to a payment for watershed services (PWS) scheme. The certification has potential to mitigate the problem of incomplete information in a PWS scheme, but necessary enabling conditions remain untested, including stakeholder support. To examine stakeholder perspectives, Q methodology was conducted with intermediaries, buyers, and sellers of a PWS scheme in West Lombok, Indonesia. Stakeholders revealed interest in using certification as a capacity-building tool, towards which they indicated a willingness to bear associated costs. However, their preferences indicated confusion about the meaning of certification and skepticism as to its transparency, as well as a need for as-of-yet unavailable simple but scientific standards. The study contributes to analyzing the feasibility of certification as a tool for disclosure of information.

Geographic: Indonesia,Lombok

Publication Year: 2016

Source : CIFOR Publication

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  • Are the major imperatives of food security missing in ecosystem services research?

Are the major imperatives of food security missing in ecosystem services research?

13 October, 2016

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Authors: Cruz-Garcia, Gisella S.; Sachet, Erwan; Vanegas, Martha; Piispanen, Kyle

It has been widely recognized that food security depends on the sustainable use and provisioning of ecosystem services. The goal of this paper is to present an overview of the scientific literature on ecosystem services and food security, with a major focus on case studies of farming communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, in order to answer the following research questions: (1) does ecosystem services research generate knowledge that helps to address the major imperatives of food security?, and (2) are the multiple linkages between ecosystem services and food security analyzed or assumed in research? The results of the study highlighted that food utilization, access and stability, which are the major food security challenges in the world, remained under-investigated. There is a major bias on food availability in relation to crop production, and most articles assumed that food security would improve by increasing crop productivity, but this hypothesis remained largely untested. Other research blind-spots were co-production, trade-offs and off-site effects of ecosystem services in relation to food security, gender and cultural services. The study concludes that ecosystem services research needs to improve efforts to generate knowledge that helps to address the main imperatives of food security.

Source: Ecosystem Services, June 2016

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  • Communities in Vietnam conserving forest ecosystems and and benefiting from them

Communities in Vietnam conserving forest ecosystems and and benefiting from them

17 June, 2016

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By World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)

Southeast Asia contain the world’s third largest tropical forest. However, deforestation persists. Climate change often aggravates the situation. Over 50% of the population of ASEAN depends on the forest for sustenance. Large forest areas in the ASEAN region are already managed by local people.

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