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China's sloping land conversion program: Institutional innovation or business as usual?

Background

China’s Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) is the largest land retirement program in the developing world, having the goal of converting 14.67 million hectares of cropland to forests by 2010, primarily targeting high-slope and marginal lands. The program is being implemented in more than 2000 counties across 25 provinces in China and affects tens of millions of rural households using PES models to promote afforestation.

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Readiness for REDD: Financial Governance and Lessons from Indonesia’s Reforestation Fund (RF)

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This article explains how REDD payments can generate significant financial flows into Indonesia, and how efficient and transparent financial governance is necessary. Using the history of the Indonesia's Reforestation Fund, this article offers recommendations for effective REDD financial management.

Open access copy available

Land Ownership and Forest Restoration

Background

Reports have indiciated that the majority of forests worldwide are owned by governments yet are typically managed similar to an open-access regime. Moreover, the use of forests by various stakeholders have led to issues, typically regarding access and ownership. This paper examines the connection between ownership regimes and restoration. 

Open access copy available

Managing Forest Remnants and Forest Gardens in Peru and Indonesia

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Mahogany and Kadam planting farmers in South Kalimantan: the link between Silvicultural activity and stand quality

Background

Incentive structures in Indonesia have promoted forest plantations conducted and managed in partnership with local farmers. This paper examines the relationship between farmers’ socio-economic characteristics, silvicultural activity and the quality of their mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and kadam (Anthocephalus/Neolamarkia cadamba) plantation stands in two independent case study villages in South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia.

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Disturbance, Recovery and Resilience in Tropical Forests: A Focus on the Coastal Peat Swamp Forests of Malaysian Borneo

Background

This thesis represents four years of work investigating the long-term ecological changes that have occurred in the coastal peat swamp forests of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo over the Late Holocene.

Open access copy available

Afforestation and Reforestation Projects in South and South-East Asia Under the Clean Development Mechanism: Trends and Development Opportunities

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The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was created as part of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol to assist countries in achieving both development and sustainability. Afforestation and reforestation (AR) projects are a part of the CDM protocal, but can be challenging to implement and measure.

Open access copy available

The Use of Ants and Other Soil and Litter Arthropods as Bio-Indicators of the Impacts of Rainforest Clearing and Subsequent Land Use

Background

This study evaluates the impacts of rainforest clearing on soil and litter arthropods with a particular focus on ant species.

Open access copy available

Between Cash and Usufruct Rights: In Search of an Appropriate Policy Instrument for Sustained Local People's Participation

Background

This study examines a reforestation program that was launched in the Philippines funded by the Asian Development Bank in 1988. Contract restoration and incentive mechanisms were introduced to include the participation of civic and local community groups in reforestation. 

Open access copy available

Gmelina Boom, Farmers Doom: Tree growers risks, coping strategies and options

Background

The widespread smallholder tree plantations of Gmelina arborea established in the South Philippines in the 1980s led to price boom and bust cycles rather than the expected economic returns for growers. This study evaluates grower responses to the timber price bubbles of the 1990s and recommends policy responses.

Open access copy available

Rehabilitation of Nickel Mining Sites in New Caledonia

background

New Caledonia has the fourth largest Nickle deposits in the world, and major mining companies have frequently used open-pit nickle extraction. New Caledonia boasts around 1,137 endemic species, and distrubance from mining threatened many of them. The government came under pressure to regulate the mining sector and rehabilitate mined areas damaged from mining pollution. Both the waterways and New Caledonia's tourism sector suffered from the pollution.

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Tropical rain forest fragmentation and its ecological and species diversity changes in Southern Yunnan

Background

Animal species richness is understood to decline with fragmentation of tropical forests. While the same is assumed of plant species richness, fewer studies have been undertaken on this subject. This study on sacred groves in southern Yunnan, southwestern China, evaluates the plant species richness of these tropical rainforest fragments.

Open access copy available

Degraded Lands Worth Protecting: the Biological Importance of Southeast Asia's Repeatedly Logged Forests.

Background

The study examines the impacts of second logging cycles on biodiversity by comparing species richness, species composition and population-level responses of birds and dung beetle species across unlogged forest, first rotation forest, and second rotation forest in Sabah, Malaysia.

Open access copy available

Drought, Fire, and Tree Survival in a Borneo Rainforest, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Background

While draughts and fires are seen as important components of tropical forests, large-scale assessments of the effects of these events are scarce. This paper compares the forest stand level impact between severe drought and a subsequent extensive fires on forest stand in a lowland rainforest in East Kalimantan.

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Monitoring Forest Degradation in Tropical Regions by Remote Sensing: Some Methodological Issues

Background

This review examines different remote sensing techniques to monitor vegetation cover at a regional scale. The objective was to discuss implications related to monitoring of open forest degradation.

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Nurse Plant Theory and its Application in Ecological Restoration in Lower Subtropics of China

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This study examines the mechanisms of the nurse tree effect and ecological factors that influence tree nursing and its relationship to ecological restoration.

Open access copy available

Fallow to Forest: Applying Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge of Swidden Cultivation to Tropical Forest Restoration

Background

This study analyzed vegetation at two sites of shifting cultivation by Lawa and Karen indigenous people in the Mae Chaem watershed in 1-year, 3-year and 6-year fallow fields, with an area of natural forest as a control comparison.

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Early Effects of Four Fast-Growing Tree Species and Their Planting Density on Ground Vegetation in Imperata grasslands

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This study aims to test the success of fast-growing exotics tree species and alternative planting densities on the development of ground vegetation. The study was conducted in Riam Kiwa, South Kalimantan, Indonesia in Imperata grasslands. The four fast-growing exotic tree species used in the study were Acacia mangium, Acacia crassicarpa, Gmelina arborea, and Paraserianthes falcataria.

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Biodiversity–Productivity Relationships in Small-Scale Mixed-Species Plantations Using Native Species in Leyte Province, Philippines

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Multiple-Purposes Reforestation on Degraded Lands in Longyang, Chin

Background

The following is a project design document submitted to the UNFCCC in 2008 for a project to restore and preserve degraded forests in Longyang, Yunnan, P.R. China. The project will be headed by the Longyang Forestry Farm in cooperation with local farmers.

Open access copy available