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The tragedy of the commons

Background

Open access copy available

Forty years of community-based forestry: A review of its extent and effectiveness

Background

This report assesses the effectiveness of community-based forestry (CBF) over the past 40 years. Governments have been implementing programs such as participatory conservation, joint forest management, community forestry with partial or full devolution, and private ownership over several decades, and the authors assess the biophysical and social impacts of these programs, and outline the key lessons learnt during this time. 

Open access copy available

Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?

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Open access copy available

Resistance, acquiescence or incorporation? An introduction to land grabbing and political reactions ‘from below'

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While several research studies have examined the processes surrounding rural land transformation(s), and, in particular, the accumulation of public land by private entities, there are few studies that examine the responses of locally impacted people to these processes. This paper introduces a set of articles which discuss the varied reactions that local people have to the acquisition of public land and the ways in which they are formed and expressed.

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Pitfalls of tree planting show why we need people-centered natural climate solutions

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Open access copy available

Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in rural India

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Open access copy available

Anything but a story foretold: multiple politics of resistance to the agrarian extractivist project in Guatemala

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A systematic review of the socio-economic impacts of large-scale tree plantations, worldwide

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Large-scale tree plantations can provide raw material for industries and support climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration. However, they can have positive and negative ecological and socioeconomic impacts. This paper presents the findings on a systematic review of literature on the socioeconomic impacts of large-scale tree plantations.

Open access copy available

Potential for low-cost carbon removal through tropical reforestation

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Open access copy available

Compensatory Afforestation in Odisha, India: A political ecology of forest restoration

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Open access copy available

Understanding the value and limitations of nature-based solutions to climate change and other global challenges

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Open access copy available

Carbon-focused conservation may fail to protect the most biodiverse tropical forests

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The authors examine the relationship between carbon and biodiversity at the landscape-level across four gradients of disturbances and offer insight on optimizing carbon conservation projects with biodiversity conservation.

Open access copy available

Carbon-focused conservation may fail to protect the most biodiverse tropical forests

Introduction

The authors examine the relationship between carbon and biodiversity at the landscape-level across four gradients of disturbances and offer insight on optimizing carbon conservation projects with biodiversity conservation.

Open access copy available

The Effectiveness of Payments for Environmental Services

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Open access copy available

Designing optimal human-modified landscapes for forest biodiversity conservation

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Current land-use patterns have resulted in the rapid conversion of forests to human modified forest landscapes (HMFLs). This degradation of forest landscapes can threaten species diversity and disrupt the ecological functions and services they provide. As such, designing and implementing effective landscape conservation strategies that benefit biodiversity as well as promote human well-being is essential.

Open access copy available

Payments for Ecosystem Services: Rife with Problems and Potential—For Transformation Towards Sustainability

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Open access copy available

Financing Nature: Closing the Global Biodiversity Financing Gap

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The authors of this report point out that current economic systems promote unsustainable levels of land conversion for infrastructural and agricultural growth and natural resource extraction. They outline some economic and social reasons for protecting nature, and argue that economic systems need to be transformed to incentivize financing biodiversity conservation instead of enabling unsustainable land conversion and natural resource extraction.

Open access copy available

Conservation Finance: A Framework

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The authors define conservation finance as “mechanisms and strategies that generate, manage, and deploy financial resources and align incentives to achieve nature conservation outcomes.” Governments are the largest contributors to conservation finance resources, and common mechanisms include grants, subsidies, and fiscal transfers, among others.

Open access copy available

The Little Book of Investing in Nature: A simple guide to financing life on earth

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The authors of this book point out that the international community has missed almost all collective biodiversity targets till date. Insufficient finance or the large gap between the funds that are required for biodiversity conservation and the funds that are allotted and the inappropriate implementation of existing finance mechanisms are part of the reason for the continued decline in global biodiversity. 

Open access copy available

Adopt a carbon tax to protect tropical forests

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International investments in natural climate solutions such as conservation, restoration and land management remain low in many tropical countries. The authors point to research which shows that only 3% of global finance for climate change mitigation went towards natural climate solutions in 2017-18. They recommend constituting a national level carbon tax on fossil fuel companies to generate revenue to fund natural climate solutions.

Open access copy available