Policies

Why bees are critical for achieving sustainable development

Background

Bees are the most dominant group of pollinators and they may hold a key to achieving the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They have a great potential for promoting agricultural success, providing people with crop pollination services. However bee populations are declining due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. Knowing the extent to which bees contribute to SDGs  and identifying their critical roles within SDGs is important for conservation targeting.

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Active restoration of secondary and degraded forests in the context of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Background

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A cautionary note for forest landscape restoration in drylands: cattle production systems in northwest Madagascar’s dry forests

BACKGROUND

It is evident that land tenure security is crucial for successful restoration. Unfortunately, in Madagascar, dry forests are considered unoccupied and unowned even when communities have long-established claims under customary tenure systems. The authors stated that collective tenure recognition efforts were underway in Madagascar, but limited knowledge of agropastoralist cattle production strategies impeded the efforts to develop tenure reforms. The authors examined how cattle raisers in the Boney Region in northwest Madagascar organize pastoral spaces and cattle production strategies in the area’s dry forest.

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

Background

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Why do foresters plant trees? Testing theories of bureaucratic decision-making in central India

Background

There is a long history of tree planting in India, and it continues to be favored by policy makers and bureaucrats at the state level. However, the author points out that the popularity of tree plantations is puzzling in the Indian case because firstly, it does not seem aligned with the goals of India’s forest policies which tend to emphasize ecosystem services rather than timber production and secondly, many degraded areas can regenerate naturally and do not require plantings to regenerate. This paper examines why tree plantations continue to be popular among state-level forest departments in India and how they are implemented in the field.

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

Background

Tree planting campaigns are promoted as a solution to climate change, because of the ability of trees to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. However, research from the social and natural sciences suggests that tree plantations could have potentially negative consequences for people and ecosystems. In addition to failing to meet ecological targets, plantations can also lead to land alienation and the loss of livelihoods for communities. This paper discusses misconceptions about tree plantations.

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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. 

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The Evolution of International Policy on REDD+

BACKGROUND

The article traces the background and history of REDD+ starting from gaps identified in the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol (i.e. the lack of projects to reduce emissions due to deforestation in developing countries), to the early beginning of RED or reduced emissions from deforestation, and finally to its evolution as embedded in the Paris Agreement of 2015 as REDD+ (Article 5).

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Adopt a carbon tax to protect tropical forests

Background

The authors states that the halting of deforestation is critical to addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, the investment in conservation is lacking. Thus, they call upon countries through out the tropics to adopt a carbon tax, which would serve as a disincentive for companies to continue deforestation.

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Money for Nothing? A Call for Empirical Evaluation of Biodiversity Conservation Investments

Background

The authors assert that while the ecological aspects of conservation efforts are highly investigated and supported by empirical evidence, the policy aspects are not. In response, they argue that conservation policy measures must adopt program evaluation methods that would allow one to determine if intervention would be viable. 

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