Funding
Bridging conservation and policy: evaluating national targets to reduce mangrove loss under the Kunming–Montreal biodiversity frameworkBackgroundThis research examines the alignment between the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets and national efforts to halt mangrove loss. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, GBF’s Targets 1 and 3 aim to reduce habitat loss and expand protected areas to conserve 30% of critical ecosystems by 2030. Mangroves, vital for biodiversity, carbon storage, and coastal protection, continue to experience degradation due to both human and natural drivers. Despite partial success in global mangrove protection, national policies often fail to address underlying drivers of degradation or incorporate specific, measurable conservation actions. Open access copy available |
REDD’ing Forest Conservation: The Philippine PredicamentBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
Forests, food, and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuelsBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Against political ecologyBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
The Social Life of Forest Carbon: Property and Politics in the Production of a New CommodityBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
The Prospects for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Vietnam: A Look at Three Payment SchemesBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
Automating violence? The anti-politics of ‘smart technology’ in biodiversity conservationBackgroundBiodiversity conservation initiatives, such as the UN's post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (30x30), increasingly use smart technologies. Despite recognizing Indigenous and local rights for successful conservation, these initiatives often neglect customary rights and uses. Smart technologies, like AI, camera traps, and drones, enable new surveillance methods. State, private, and corporate actors, including big tech and BINGOs, actively adopt these tools to enhance data access and form smart governance networks. Open access copy available |
Governing the Global Commons: Linking Carbon Sequestration and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical ForestsBackgroundClimate change and biodiversity loss rank among the most urgent global environmental challenges, yet international frameworks often address them separately. Scientific evidence increasingly highlights the deep connections between these issues, particularly in tropical forests. Despite this overlap, carbon finance mechanisms—such as the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)—traditionally exclude efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation (REDD), instead prioritizing afforestation and reforestation. This article investigates how incentive-based mechanisms can better align carbon sequestration goals with biodiversity conservation, focusing especially on the role of tropical forests. Open access copy available |
Improving Sustainable Tropical Forest Management with Voluntary Carbon MarketsBackgroundTropical forests play a vital role in global carbon sequestration, absorbing around 1 petagram (Pg) of carbon annually—more than any other terrestrial ecosystem. However, deforestation and forest degradation weaken their ability to mitigate climate change. While reduced-impact logging and sustainable forest management (SFM) aim to minimize damage, many SFM plans overlook differences in tree growth rates, species characteristics, and local site conditions. As voluntary carbon markets grow, they create new opportunities to fund improved forest practices through “carbon-focused sustainable forest management” (SFM + C), which integrates carbon sequestration goals into existing frameworks. Open access copy available |
Could Payments for Forest Carbon Contribute to Improved Tropical Forest Management?BackgroundThis study addresses the ongoing debate over whether carbon finance can incentivize better logging practices, especially in areas where unregulated logging causes severe environmental degradation. Under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), industrialized countries finance carbon sequestration projects in developing nations to help meet their emissions reduction targets. However, this approach raises concerns that such mechanisms may let developed countries delay cutting their own fossil fuel emissions. The paper investigates whether forest carbon payments can support improved natural forest management (NFM) in tropical regions. Open access copy available |
