General

Using Plantations to Catalyze Tropical Forest Restoration

Background

The article discusses the benefits and drawbacks of tropical forest restoration via monoculture tree plantation, using exotic species. The research references Parratto, Turnbull and Jones (1997) and five other specific articles from different regions that have prescribed different treament methods, with particular interest in the monoculture tree plantation, using exotic species, treatment option. 

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Regional and global concerns over wetlands and water quality

Background

This paper examines the ecological role of wetlands in agricultural cachements and examines the dymamics of nutrient loading in wetlands at a local and watershed scale.

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Agro-Successional Restoration as a Strategy to Facilitate Tropical Forest Recovery

Background

Abandoned agricultural lands have been increasingly around the world, forcing a recent drive to restore and reforest these lands. Yet, in the tropics there is often limited funding to meet the needs of restoration and the activities conflict with the uses of natural resources that contribute to human livelihoods. This paper outlines agro-successional restoration as a solution to these issues.  

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Prioritizing sites for ecological restoration based on ecosystem services

Background

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When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restoration

Background

This article highlights the importance of creating forest definitions--what is meant by forest, what is meant by forest loss, what is meant by forest restoration--in order to create a conceptual, institutional, legal and operational basis for forest policies and interventions.

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Legitimacy in REDD+ governance in Indonesia

Background

This study looks at the perception of non-state actors of Indonesia's REDD+ program, coming from domestic and international NGOs, private sector, and academics. These actors assess the legitimacy of REDD+ programs based on input legitimacy, coming from a balanced representation of stakeholders in project discourse, and output legitimacy, proxied by positive project outcomes.

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The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty

Background

This article focuses on agroecology as a farming practice based upon principles rooted in the biology of a place and its organic matter. Agroecology has been promoted by community organizations and NGOs and is scaling up to national peasant organizations and social movements. This study looks at Cuba as a case study for La Via Campesina, a global peasant movement, and how agroecology has spread in Cuba from campesino-a-campesino, or peasant-to-peasant.

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Social Capital in Biodiversity Conservation and Management

Background

The article begins with a description of the opposing views of the roles of smallholders in conservation strategies.  On the one hand they directly use resources that external agencies attempt to protect, on the other hand these people have intimate knowledge of these systems.  Thus leading to the question, “Could local people play a greater role in biodiversity conservation and management?” (Pretty, 2004).

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The Communal Management of Forests in the Semi‐arid and Sub‐humid Regions of Africa: Past Practice and Prospects for the Future

Background

This article is based on an extensive literature search to analyze indigenous forestry practices in the dryland regions of anglophone and francophone regions of Africa. The authors drew on biology, forestry, and ethnographic material and was written with the aim of encouraging practitioners to involve peoples living near forests into the land management strategies.

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The Restoration of Forest Biodiversity and Ecological Values

Background

Throughout Asia there has been significant push to restore degraded lands yet many of these initiatives lack clear objectives. This paper explores the failures that have emerged from this trend, paying close attention to restoration schemes that were politically driven and unsuccessful in yielding the economic and environmental benefits due to the lack of clarity in defining the precise restoration objectives.

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