General

Assessing Forest Degradation: Towards the Development of Globally Applicable Guidelines

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This FAO report defines forest degradation and provides guidelines for assessing levels of degradation with the purpose of influencing policies and forest management plans towards restoration. The report provides directions on how to measure four markers: 1) growing stock and biomass, 2) biodiversity, 3) production of forest goods, and 4) soil erosion. 

Open access copy available

Prioritization of Target Areas for Forest Restoration

BAckground

This is a report on target areas for forest restoration written by World Conservation Monitoring Centre and submitted to WWF International. The purpose of the report was to provide recommendations for prioritization to WWF International and WWF field programs.

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The Restoration Diagnostic: A Method for Developing Forest Landscape Restoration Strategies by Rapidly Assessing the Status of Key Success Factors

Background

This report outlines the social, economic, and environmental benefits that forest restoration landscape restoration can have in countries with degraded or deforested landscapes.

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Dipterocarp Forest Ecosystems: Towards Sustainable Management

Background

This book describes the difficult problem of sustainably managing the valuable resources of Dipterocarp forests in Southeast Asia. It highlights the social, economic, and forest management challenges associated with Dipterocarp governance and attempts to reconcile the often disparate roles of forest scientists and local community managers. 

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GHG Mitigation Potential, Costs and Benefits in Global Forests: A Dynamic Partial Equilibrium Approach

Background

In this article, the authors discuss the global mitigation potential for greenhouse gas carbon sequestration in forest plantations. They estimate the land area that land users would plant or prevent from being deforested above the reference scenario of no carbon prices. Their economic analysis suggests that billions of dollars are gained through carbon sequestration.

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Land Degradation, Less Favored Lands and the Rural Poor: A Spatial and Economic Analysis.

Background

Previous studies have examined the differing economic consequences of land degradation for various groups of people, finding that the rural poor of less developed countries rely on some of the most marginal, degraded land. Yet, these studes seignificantly differ in their use of key spatial land and population indicators and the spatially referenced data generated are inadequate for cross-country economic analysis of the impact of land degradation on global poverty. This study aims to rectify these shortcomings. 

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Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture: Contributing to Food Security and Sustainability in a Changing World

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This report identifies challenges in current agricultural production and argues for the incorporation of biodiverse agricultural practices to best realize sustainable development goals.

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Restauration écologique: contexte, contraintes et indicateurs de suivi (Ecological restoration: context, constraints and indicators for monitoring)

The authors provide a review of the literature on ecological restoration. Most imprtantly, the authors focus on the importance of indicators in ecological restoration projects.

 

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Foresters' beliefs about farmers: a priority for social science research in social forestry

Background

The author states that social science research is largely lacking throughout forestry, not due to its inadequacy but a failure to select relevant topics to be explore through social science research. The paper attempts to show that conducting social science research about foresters' belief is valid and necessary.

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Forest transitions: An introduction

Background

The authors present an introduction to the idea of "forest transitions", which is theory coined by Alexander Mather to explain the changes that forest landscapes undergo as societies industrialize and urbanize. This special issue seeks to extend and deepend the theory. 

Open access copy available
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