General
On the hope for biodiversity-friendly tropical landscapesBackgroundAs pristine tropical forests get harder to preserve, much expectation has been allocated to the conservation of ecosystem services and biodiversity into Human-modified landscales (HMLs). However, it has not been fully assessed to what degree HMLs are able to sustain ecosystem services and what management practices can enhance biodiversity conservatoin in them. Available with subscription or purchase |
Restoring Working Forests in Human-Dominated Landscapes of the Wet Evergreen Forest Region of South AsiaBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Ecosystem Services Approach to Landscape Restoration and Sustainable LivelihoodsBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Leaders in Action: Success Stories from the TropicsBackgroundThe Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative (ELTI) seeks to seeks to train and support people to restore and conserve tropical forest landscapes. Since 2006, the organizations has engaged with thousands of people both through their in-person and online training platforms and through follow-up support and mentorship. This paper highlights select inspirational stories from ELTI alum. These stories come from the Neotropics, including Panama, Colombia, and Brazil, and Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, and the Phillipines. Open access copy available |
Towards a Synthesized Critique of Neoliberal Biodiversity ConservationBackgroundThis paper seeks to review critiques concerning neoliberal biodiversity conservation. The author sees two reasons for this review. First off, the majority of focus has been on neoliberal natures and neoliberal environment instead of neoliberal conservation. Second, there has been recent papers that explore the latter but the lessons are disconnected. Thus, this review seeks to analyze and provide connections among an emerging field. Open access copy available |
Diversity enhances carbon storage in tropical forestsBackgroundTropical forests are extremely important due to the ability to sequester large amounts of carbon and provide habitat for high levels of biodiversity, particularly tree species. Still there is limited understanding of the relationship between biodiversity and carbon. This study seeks to study this relationship and examine the forest attributes and environmental drivers for ecosystem functioning. Open access copy available |
Advances in remote sensing technology and implications for measuring and monitoring forest carbon stocks and changeBackgroundUsing satelite images to monitor forest cover has advanced significantly in the past few decades but it still requires time to move into operation readiness. This article contributes to this progress through discussing how new technologies (i.e. improved satelite images and Lidar) can be used to improve monitoring of above ground carbon estimates. It specifically focusses on using Lidar technology and how moving Lidar devices from moving planes to satelite equipment could improve Carbon stock estimates. Open access copy available |
Monitoring and estimating tropical forest carbon stocks: making REDD a realityBackgroundAboveground carbon is directly impacted by deforestation and degradation, thus it is often the variable of choice in monitoring activities. It is also used to estimate the amount of carbon in other pools. This article reviews methods available to estimate national-level forest carbon stocks in developing countries. Open access copy available |
An Operational Framework for Defining and Monitoring Forest DegradationBackgroundThe article discusses how the current definitions of forest degradation do not account for certain factors that should be included, and further presents that the monitoring of forests is a much more holistic means of determining the state and the process (as a continuum of space and/or time) of degradation, which in turn can allow for much better restoration treatment options. Open access copy available |
Getting the Right End of the Stick: Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation in an Organizational ContextBackgroundThis chapter documents the process by which CARE Zambia institutionalized a learning approach to their internal management and a participatory model of monitoring and evaluation as well as the results of this transition, using a food security project as a case study. CARE Zambia used seven principles to turn themselves into a 'learning organization': 1) thrive on change, 2) facilitate learning from the surrounding environment, 3) facilitate learning from staff, 4) encourage experimentation, 5) communicate sucesses and failures, 6) reward learning, and 7) promote a sense of caring. Open access copy available |
