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  • Impact of Land Cover Change on Ecosystem Services in a Tropical Forested Landscape

Impact of Land Cover Change on Ecosystem Services in a Tropical Forested Landscape


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Ecosystems provide a wide range of goods, services or ecosystem services (ES) to society. Estimating the impact of land use and land cover (LULC) changes on ES values (ESV) is an important tool to support decision making. This study used remote sensing and GIS tools to analyze LULC change and transitions from 2001 to 2016 and assess its impact on ESV in a tropical forested landscape in the southern plains of Nepal. The total ESV of the landscape for the year 2016 is estimated at USD 1264 million year-1. As forests are the dominant land cover class and have high ES value per hectare, they have the highest contribution in total ESV. However, as a result of LULC change (loss of forests, water bodies, and agricultural land), the total ESV of the landscape has declined by USD 11 million year-1. Major reductions come from the loss in values of climate regulation, water supply, provision of raw materials and food production. To halt the ongoing loss of ES and maintain the supply and balance of different ES in the landscape, it is important to properly monitor, manage and utilize ecosystems. We believe this study will inform policymakers, environmental managers, and the general public on the ongoing changes and contribute to developing effective land use policy in the region.


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  • The returnee: Inside the lives of migrant workers from Nepal

The returnee: Inside the lives of migrant workers from Nepal


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With seven children and a wife of 21 years, Bahadur believed moving abroad from the village of Nalma in Nepal to Saudi Arabia in order to work was a financially wise choice for his family. All was going well until the news came, six months into his time abroad, that his wife had eloped with someone else, leading Bahadur to returned to his children in Nepal.

Originally published by CIFOR.


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  • Left behind in Nepal: Shanti’s story

Left behind in Nepal: Shanti’s story


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Shanti Tamang, a 20-year-old mother with a 3-year-old son, was left to live with her in-laws in a village in Nepal after her husband went abroad to work. While her husband sends back better wages from Qatar, Shanti still has to struggle with the responsibilities of looking after the family and working in the fields to make ends meet. Nearly three-quarters of Nepal’s young male population now works overseas, sending money back to their families in the form of remittances that contribute almost 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. On the home front, women, children and the elderly are left to keep village life running, reshaping traditional roles, responsibilities and land management practices.

Originally published by CIFOR.


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  • Comparing governance reforms to restore the forest commons in Nepal, China and Ethiopia

Comparing governance reforms to restore the forest commons in Nepal, China and Ethiopia


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  • Approaches and tools for assessing mountain forest ecosystem services

Approaches and tools for assessing mountain forest ecosystem services


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Mountain forest ecosystems provide a wide range of direct and indirect contributions to the people who live in the mountains and surrounding areas. Occupying steep slopes at high elevation, these ecosystems provide services such as stabilizing slopes, regulating hydrological cycles, maintaining rich biodiversity and supporting the livelihoods of those who are diverse in culture but vulnerable to poverty and food security. This paper (i) reviews several tools for assessing the sociocultural, economic and ecological values of mountain forest ecosystem services, (ii) demonstrates case studies of tool applications from several countries namely, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Iran and Nepal, and (iii) discusses assessment challenges that should be considered in the application of these tools.

In Bhutan, an application of benefit transfer showed that the average total value of forest ecosystem services was over USD 14.5 billion per year. In India, an application of stakeholder and household analyses indicated that a total of 29 different ecosystem services are available and sustain livelihoods of local communities near the Maguri Mottapung wetland. In Indonesia, an application of Q methodology identified anticipated benefits and concerns of forest watershed stakeholders related to certification applications for a payment for ecosystem services. In Iran, an application of the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs Tool showed that the regulation of ecosystem services has been declining in Hyrcanian forests despite the forests’ critical roles in the region. In Nepal, an application of a spatial analytical approach and participatory assessment techniques identified key mountain ecosystem services for community forests at the Charnawolti sub-watershed of Dolakha, and demonstrated forest restoration on degraded lands over the last two decades. Several challenges exist for the assessment of mountain forest ecosystem services and these must be reflected in assessment design. These challenges include the complexity of defining and classifying ecosystem services; limited availability of data on ecosystem services; uncertainties associated with climate change; complex relationships among services including trade-offs and synergies; and limitation of assessments to build successful payments for ecosystem services.


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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?


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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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  • Rural women left behind in Nepal

Rural women left behind in Nepal


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Sita Pariyar, a 27-year-old mother of two living in the village of Nalma, Nepal, has balanced housework, childcare and field work alone for a year now since her husband moved to Qatar as a migrant worker. Nearly three-quarters of Nepal’s young male population now works overseas, sending money back to their families in the form of remittances that contribute almost 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. On the home front, women, children and the elderly are left to keep village life running, reshaping traditional roles, responsibilities and land management practices.

Read more at Forests News. Originally published by CIFOR.


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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


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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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  • How do property rights regimes provide incentives for Forest Landscape Restoration? Evidence from Nepal, China and Ethiopia

How do property rights regimes provide incentives for Forest Landscape Restoration? Evidence from Nepal, China and Ethiopia


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Presentation by Peter Cronkleton, Senior Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), at IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania, October 2016, in Bejing, China.


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  • Projected climate change impacts on climatic suitability and geographical distribution of banana and coffee plantations in Nepal

Projected climate change impacts on climatic suitability and geographical distribution of banana and coffee plantations in Nepal


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World Agroforestry Centre 2015, Working Paper

Global circulation models all forecast that climate change will increase mean temperatures and change precipitation regimes. Change in bioclimatic conditions will impact the productivity of high-value agricultural crops. As a result of this change, traditional cash crop-growing regions may disappear and new regions may become available.


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