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Paying for Environmental Services: An Analysis of Participation in Costa Rica's PSA Program

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This study evaluates demographic and other factors that played a role in the participation of households in Costa Rica's Payment for Environmental Services program.

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Application of Assisted Natural Regeneration to Restore Degraded Tropical Forestlands

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Assisted natural regeneration (ANR) has been proposed as an alternative restoration method that reduces the costs and scalability barriers of other restoration alternatives. This article describes the steps to applying ANR to disturbed ecosystems where forest succession processes have been halted by dominant grass or fern monocultures. 

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Tropical forest recovery: Legacies of human impact and natural disturbances

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Land-use history interacts with natural forces to influence the severity of disturbance events and the rate and nature of recovery processes in tropical forests. This perspective article highlights several trends in tropical forest recovery processes emerging from recent literature.

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Beyond Deforestation: Restoring Forests and Ecosystem Services on Degraded Lands

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In this review, the author presents the various stages of topical forest restoration. She describes a spectrum of reforestation approaches varying by time, cost, and biodiversity conservation value.

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When and Where to Actively Restore Ecosystems?

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While conservation efforts around the world have focused on restoring degraded ecosystems to provide ecosystem services and benefit biodiversity, yet there has been an increasing recognition that certain ecosystems can rapidly recover without human intervention. This paper examines the question: what cases and to what extent should humans actively facilitate ecosystem recovery?

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Environmental Impacts of Community-Based Forest Management in the Philippines

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This article describes the history of the Community-Based Forest Management program in the Philippines. In the past century, over 70% of the Philippines' forests have been lost, and other existing lands degraded due to massive logging, extreme poverty, and shifting cultivation.

Open access copy available

Site and species selection — Changing perspectives

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Plantation forestry in the tropics today is characterized by increasing refinement of matching species with site and increasing emphasis on non-industrial purposes for growing trees. This perspective comments on the increased number of objectives that a tropical forester or scientist is called upon to fulfill.

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Rationale and Methods for Conserving Biodiversity in Plantation Forests

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When compared to degraded lands, developed lands, or areas of intensive industrial agriculture, forest plantations can positively contribute to biodiversity conservation. However, when monoculture stands of exotic trees, or native trees not typically found in single-species stands are used for plantations, they have been found to have impoverished flora and fauna compared with natural forest.

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Promoting Biodiversity Co-Benefits in REDD

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This article describes the potential for maximizing biodiversity conservation as a co-benefit of REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).

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Community Based Forest Management in Cambodia and Laos

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This working document provides a comparison of community-based forest management (CBFM) in Cambodia and Laos. Some foundational factors distinguish the two countries, including governmental structure, population, ethnicities, and terrain. However, in both countries, a majority of the population lives in rural subsistence communities, with livelihoods often strongly dependent on forest use.

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What Does it Take? The Role of Incentives in Forest Plantation Development in Asia and the Pacific

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This document is a compilation of case studies from different countries on the incentives and their impact on plantation development in South and Southeast Asia. The countries addressed are Australia, China, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, The Philippines, Sabah (Malaysia), Thailand, and the United States.

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Rehabilitation of Degraded Forest Ecosystems in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam: An Overview

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This document describes reforestation policies and actions in the four countries of the lower Mekong river: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam.

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Regreening the Bare Hills- Tropical Forest Restoration in the Asia-Pacific Region (Overview)

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In this book, the author addresses various concepts and techniques for reforestation in the deforested areas of the Asia-Pacific Region.

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Maya Nut Reforestation

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Maya Nut is an NGO that seeks to find balance between people, forests, and food. While they do not run a reforestation program directly, they do work closely with communities to reforest degraded lands throughout Latin America. The mission of the program is to conserve the Maya nut tree, Brosimum alicastrum, by planting trees and teaching rural and indigenous women to harvest and process the seed for food and income.

Open access copy available

CHOCO2-Maquipucuna Foundation

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Large-scale Ecological Restoration of Degraded Tropical Forest Lands: The Potential Role of Timber Plantations

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This study offers suggestions for how timber plantations can be designed to yield timber and improve biodiversity on cleared and degraded lands.

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Tropical Tree Seed Manual

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Tree Plantations in the Philippines and Thailand: Economic, Social, and Environmental Evaluation

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Tropical land area under plantations have dramatically increased in recent decades, largely as a result of natural forest depletion. Forest plantations cannot qualitatively substitute the timber or the habitat of natural forests, yet are growing in global importance both commercially and ecologically. However, the negative and positive social and environmental impacts must also be included in analysis of tropical forest plantations.

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Trees Commonly Cultivated in Southeast Asia: An Illustrated Field Guide

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This manual is an identification guide for the commonly-encountered trees of Southeast Asia. It provides botanical information for conifers, broad-leafed trees, bamboos, palms, and bananas.

Open access copy available

Payments for Environmental Services in Latin America as a Tool for Restoration and Rural Development

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Open access copy available