Forest Ecology And Management

Spatial, temporal and economic constraints to the commercial extraction of a non-timber forest product: copaíba (Copaifera spp.) oleoresin in Amazonian reserves

by Pete Newton

Authors: Newton, P., Watkinson, A.R., Peres, C.A.
Journal: Economic Botany
DOI: 10.1007/s12231-012-9198-z

The increasing prevalence of government- and NGO-sponsored programs to encourage commercial non-timber forest product... more The increasing prevalence of government- and NGO-sponsored programs to encourage commercial non-timber forest product (NTFP) extractivism in the humid tropics has highlighted the need for ecological and socioeconomic appraisal of the viability of extractive industries. We adopted a novel, integrative approach to examining NTFP resource potential and produced credible landscape-scale estimates of the projected value of an economically important Amazonian NTFP, the medicinal oleoresin of Copaifera trees, within two large contiguous extractive reserves in Brazilian Amazonia. We integrated results derived from previous spatial ecology and harvesting studies with socioeconomic and market data, and mapped the distribution of communities within the reserves. We created anisotropic accessibility models which determined the spatial and temporal access to Copaifera trees in permanently unflooded (terra firme) and seasonally-flooded (várzea) forest. Just 64.9% of the total reserve area was accessible, emphasizing the distinction between the actual resource stock and that which is available to extractors. The density of productive tree species was higher in várzea forest but per tree productivity was greater in terra firme forest, resulting in similar estimates of oleoresin yield per unit area (64 – 67 ml ha–1) in both forest types. A greater area of várzea forest was accessible within shorter travel times of ≤250 min; longer travel times allowed access to increasingly greater volumes of oleoresin from terra firme forest. The estimated total volume of oleoresin accessible within the two reserves was 38,635 liters for an initial harvest, with projected offtake for a subsequent harvest falling to 8,274 liters. A household that extracted just two liters of oleoresin per month could generate 5% of its mean income; market data suggested that certification could increase the value of the resource five-fold. Our approach is valuable in that it incorporates a range of methodologies and quantitatively accounts for the numerous constraints to the commercial viability of NTFP extraction.

Reconciling Environment and Development In the Clean Development Mechanism

by Rohit Jindal

Published in Journal of Sustainable Forestry.
Co-authored with John Kerr, Chris Foley, and Kimberly Chung.

Providing a mechanism for financial transfers from the North to the South, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) aims... more Providing a mechanism for financial transfers from the North to the South, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) aims to fund afforestation projects resulting in both reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide and sustainable development. One attractive feature of the CDM is that unlike other emerging carbon trading schemes it offers a means to promote sustainable development, which in a poor country must include providing poor people with income-earning opportunities. In practice however, the CDM projects may fail to address four issues key to this possibility: ownership, price, transaction costs, and use rights. The failure to address these issues ultimately could lead the CDMto benefit elite landowners at the expense of the poor. However, recognition of this oversight provides opportunities to work with poor communities worldwide to facilitate the collective action required to make the CDM work for them. Such a focus holds the key to ensuring that the CDM achieves the twin objectives of environmental conservation and sustainable development.

Environmental Resource Consumption Pattern in Rural Arunachal Pradesh, Forest Policy and Economics, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 166-170 (2011)

by Deepak Kumar Mishra

Co-author: A Mitra

The paper attempts to study the impact of household-level heterogeneity on the degree and nature of forest dependency... more The paper attempts to study the impact of household-level heterogeneity on the degree and nature of forest dependency under conditions of declining forest cover and institutional diversity. Based on household-level primary data from twelve villages in five districts of Arunachal Pradesh, India, the study brings out the significance of forest resources as a source of livelihoods in the Eastern Himalayan region. The findings suggest that CPRs play a significant role in the livelihoods strategies of the rural poor. Household characteristics such as size of landholdings, education and distance from markets significantly affect forest dependency. Although the absolute amount of forest income derived by the rich is higher, in relative terms the poor depend more on CPRs like forest. It is not only that the extent of forest dependency varies across various income groups, with gradual commercialisation of the forest economy, the nature of dependency on forest across income groups has undergone significant changes as well. The rural rich extract more high-value, commercial forest products, while the poorer households depend on community forests for their basic survival needs. The diversity in the pattern of resource use is one of the key challenges before the local-level institutions governing access to the CPRs.

Stand structure and plant species diversity in managed and abandoned silver fir mature woodlands

by Tommaso Sitzia

Sitzia T., Trentanovi G., Dainese M., Gobbo G., Lingua E., Sommacal M. (2012) Forest Ecology and Management 270: 232-238

Although few undisturbed forests remain in Europe, forest reserves and deforested areas that are no longer profitable... more Although few undisturbed forests remain in Europe, forest reserves and deforested areas that are no longer profitable have the potential to develop stand structures similar to those which preceded human disturbances. The direct effects of management cessation on forest diversity are confounded by many factors that should be controlled when comparing managed and abandoned stands. In the European Alps, however, the high variability of habitats makes it nearly impossible to find comparable stands located within forests large enough to be independent from the surrounding land. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of mixed models to compare deadwood and plant diversity between matched managed and unmanaged pairs of forests, with the hypothesis that their differences were due to direct effect of abandonment. Two neighbouring watersheds that were large enough to be independent from the surrounding forests were chosen. These watersheds had a common history of use, but one was non-intensively managed, while the other was untouched since 1957. Ten plots were randomly selected from each forest. Mixed models confirmed their matched topography and stand structure, while a similarity index confirmed their assignment to the same plant community. The unmanaged stand had higher soil nitrogen, higher Fagus sylvatica dendrological composition, higher tree species richness, higher dead logs and a different composition of the tree and understory layers. These results suggest that silver fir woodlands abandoned for more than 50years change spontaneously and that this approach may be an effective means for studying other forest communities.

Integrating Ecological and Socioeconomic Monitoring of Working Forests

by Rachel Neugarten

Neugarten, R. A., S. A. Wolf, R. C. Stedman, and T. H. Tear. 2011. Integrating Ecological and Socioeconomic Monitoring of Working Forests. BioScience 61:631–637.

Large-scale sell-offs of industrial timberlands in the United States have prompted public and private investments in a... more Large-scale sell-offs of industrial timberlands in the United States have prompted public and private investments in a new class of “working forest” land deals, notable for their large size and complex divisions of property rights. These transactions have been pitched as “win-win-win” deals that provide social, economic, and ecological benefits. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars invested in these transactions, we found a paucity of evidence that their supposed benefits are being realized. Monitoring programs necessary to gather such evidence tend to be underfunded, short term, and focused on a limited set of indicators. The few projects with more comprehensive monitoring programs had long-term funding sources, formal mechanisms for incorporating data into subsequent management decisions, and combined multidisciplinary monitoring techniques. We propose that a relatively modest allocation of funds to monitoring could help assess—and hopefully improve—the effectiveness of current and future transactions, to see if the promise of “win-win-win” is actually delivered.

Can native tree species regenerate in Pinus radiata plantations in Chile?:: Evidence from field and laboratory experiments

by Pablo Guerrero

Evolução Recente da Fileira Florestal: Parte I

by Elsa de Morais Sarmento

Boletim Mensal de Economia Portuguesa
Ministério da Economia e do Emprego e Ministério das Finanças
Dezembro de 2011
Com Vanda Dores e Elsa Oliveira.

Este estudo procura demonstrar a importância da Fileira Florestal para a economia nacional, a nível mais agregado,... more Este estudo procura demonstrar a importância da Fileira Florestal para a economia nacional, a nível mais agregado, através da criação valor e geração de emprego, mas também a nível das suas componentes sectoriais, complementando o trabalho de outros atores, e as reflexões expressas em documentos de definição de políticas públicas sobre o espaço florestal e as suas produções (Associação para a Competitividade da Indústria da Fileira Florestal, 2010; Associação Empresarial de Portugal, 2008; Ministério da Agricultura, Desenvolvimento e Pescas, 2007; Direção-Geral dos Recursos Florestais, 2006).
Esta análise corresponde à primeira parte de um trabalho mais abrangente de caracterização da Fileira Florestal, que contém outras dimensões de análise da sua performance económica, como a inovação, a internacionalização e o contexto das políticas públicas, seguindo uma abordagem metodológica própria, que define a Fileira Florestal em função dos seus produtos finais e intermédios, a montante e a jusante, numa perspetiva integradora.

Estimating carbon stock in secondary forests: Decisions and uncertainties associated with allometric biomass models

by Michiel van Breugel

Authors: Michiel van Breugel, Johannes Ransijn, Dylan Craven, Frans Bongers & Jefferson S. Hall

Secondary forests are a major terrestrial carbon sink and reliable estimates of their carbon stocks are pivotal for... more Secondary forests are a major terrestrial carbon sink and reliable estimates of their carbon stocks are pivotal for understanding the global carbon balance and initiatives to mitigate CO2 emissions through forest management and reforestation. A common method to quantify carbon stocks in forests is the use of allometric regression models to convert forest inventory data to estimates of aboveground biomass (AGB). The use of allometric models implies decisions on the selection of extant models or the development of a local model, the predictor variables included in the selected model, and the number of trees and species for destructive biomass measurements. We assess uncertainties associated with these decisions using data from 94 secondary forest plots in central Panama and 244 harvested trees belonging to 26 locally abundant species. AGB estimates from species-specific models were used to assess relative errors of estimates from multispecies models. To reduce uncertainty in the estimation of plot AGB, including wood specific gravity (WSG) in the model was more important than the number of trees used for model fitting. However, decreasing the number of trees increased uncertainty of landscape-level AGB estimates substantially, while including WSG had limited effects on the accuracy of the landscape-level estimates. Predictions of stand and landscape AGB varied strongly among models, making model choice an important source of uncertainty. Local models provided more accurate AGB estimates than foreign models, but high variability in carbon stocks across the landscape implies that developing local models is only justified when landscape sampling is sufficiently intensive.

Power, Science, and Nature in The Great Bear Rainforest: An Actor-Network Analysis of an Integrated Natural Resource Management Project

by Justin Page

This dissertation explores the potential contribution of actor-network theory to the investigation of power and... more This dissertation explores the potential contribution of actor-network theory to the investigation of power and hierarchy, science and politics, and the relationship between nature and society in integrated natural resource management (INRM) projects. INRM consists of natural resource management approaches that seek to devolve power and authority from governments and experts to stakeholders, take account of people as part of ecosystems, and directly link conservation and development. While INRM projects represent an important evolution in resource management, they come with particular sets of problems. Specifically, (1) the devolution of decision-making authority to communities provokes issues of power and hierarchy as groups vie to ensure that their interests are adequately taken into account, (2) critiques of expert-led processes shift responsibility for knowledge production to stakeholder groups, thus raising questions about the relationship between science and politics, and (3) attempts to link ecology and economy require a difficult re-conceptualization of the link between nature and society. Actor-network theory (ANT) avoids presuppositions about power, science, nature, and society in order to study how they are produced as effects of networks, thus offering unique conceptual tools to study INRM as a complex, contingent, and innovative network-building process. A qualitative case study of the “Great Bear Rainforest” agreement on British Columbia’s west coast is undertaken to explore these issues in INRM. Analysis of interviews with 34 individuals from environmental organizations, forestry companies, First Nations, consultancies and local and provincial governments, as well as analysis of textual material, reveals how environmentalists (1) generated power by building a network of activists, bears, forest products customers and forestry companies, (2) simultaneously deployed science and politics in their network-building activities and (3) moved away from attempts to purify networks into “nature” and “society,” working instead to directly link ecosystem integrity and human well-being in a new, common “collective” of humans and nonhumans. The research provides significant detail and analysis of a particular case of INRM that will be of use to INRM practitioners, advocates and activists. Additionally, the research demonstrates the applicability of ANT to the investigation of power, science, and nature in INRM projects.

Forest versus Farm Livelihoods: Labor, Revenue and Food Security in Southwest China

by Brian E Robinson

with Bill Provencher and David Lewis, working paper

To promote local incentives for conservation of forest-based ecosystem services and to enhance rural livelihoods, we... more To promote local incentives for conservation of forest-based ecosystem services and to enhance rural livelihoods, we must understand factors that influence forest-based livelihoods. Using a dataset on the harvest of wild-grown matsutake mushrooms from forests in Himalayan southwestern China, this study empirically investigates factors that influence the revenues from forest resources and labor exerted towards harvests. Using an instrumental variables approach to control for endogeneity between profits from forest products and community harvest pressure, we provide evidence that resource rents dissipate with increased community harvest labor. Forest labor is most impacted by off-farm opportunity costs, but does not seem to be significantly affected by competitive pressure or the opportunity cost of farming. Therefore, a hypothesized tradeoff between food security and increased reliance on the sale of forest products is not supported. This could be due to limited farm land and missing markets for off-farm wage-earning opportunities in this rural mountainous region.

Does Secure Land Tenure save Forests? A Review of the Relationship between Land Tenure and Tropical Deforestation

by Brian E Robinson

with Margaret Holland and Lisa Naughton-Treves, CCAFS working paper

Deforestation and degradation are tied to a complex array of socioeconomic and political factors. As noted in studies... more Deforestation and degradation are tied to a complex array of socioeconomic and political factors. As noted in studies focusing on large-scale policy interventions such as REDD+ and payment for ecosystem services programs, among the most important of these factors is land tenure and land tenure security. This paper reviews past literature connecting forest outcomes and land tenure to better understand broad relationships between land tenure form, land tenure security and forest outcomes. From a theoretical perspective, clear and secure forest tenure can have either a positive or negative impact on forested land, depending on political and economic conditions. We review over 100 empirical cases of forest outcomes under specific land tenure conditions and find that and tenure security is associated with less deforestation, regardless of the form of tenure. State-owned protected forests are associated with more positive forest outcomes relative to private, communal and public land. We discuss consistency and identification issues in the current literature around deforestation and land tenure, and provide suggestions for future studies and implementation issues for policymakers.

N2 fixation and cycling in Alnus glutinosa, Betula pendula and Fagus sylvatica woodland exposed to free air CO2 enrichment.

by Jonathan Millett

Millett J, Godbold D, Smith AR and Grant H (2012). Oecologia. DOI: 10.1007/s00442-011-2197-4

We measured the effect of elevated atmospheric CO2 on atmospheric nitrogen (N2) fixation for the tree species Alnus... more We measured the effect of elevated atmospheric CO2 on atmospheric nitrogen (N2) fixation for the tree species Alnus glutinosa growing in monoculture or in mixture with the non-N2-fixing tree species Betula pendula and Fagus sylvatica. We addressed the hypotheses that 1: N2 fixation in A. glutinosa will increase in response to increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, when growing in monoculture, 2: the impact of elevated CO2 on N2 fixation in A. glutinosa is the same in mixture and in monoculture and 3: the impacts of elevated CO2 on N cycling will be evident in a decrease in leaf δ15N and in the soil-leaf enrichment factor (EF), and that these impacts will not differ between mixed and single species stands. Trees were grown in a forest plantation on former agricultural fields for 4 growing seasons, after which the trees were on average 3.8 m tall and canopy closure had occurred. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations were maintained at either ambient or elevated (by 200 ppm) concentrations using a free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) system. Leaf δ15N was measured and used to estimate the amount (Ndfa) and proportion (%Ndfa) of N derived from atmospheric fixation. On average 62% of the N in A. glutinosa leaves was from fixation. %Ndfa and Ndfa for A. glutinosa trees in monoculture did not increase under elevated CO2, despite higher growth rates. However, N2 fixation did increase for trees growing in mixture, despite the absence of significant growth stimulation. There was evidence that fixed N2 was transferred from A. glutinosa to F. sylvatica and B. pendula, but no evidence that this affected their CO2 response. This study shows that N2 fixation in A. glutinosa may be higher in a future elevated CO2 world, but that this effect will only occur where the trees are growing in mixed species stands.

Long-Term Successional Forest Dynamics: Species and Community Responses to Climatic Variability

by Paul Kardol

Question: Are trees sensitive to climatic variability, and do tree species differ in their responses to climatic... more Question: Are trees sensitive to climatic variability, and do tree species differ in their responses to climatic variability? Does sensitivity of forest communities to climatic variability depend on stand composition?
Location: Mixed young forest at Walker Branch Watershed near Oak Ridge, East Tennessee, USA.
Methods: Using a long-term dataset (1967–2006), we analyzed temporal forest dynamics at the tree and species level, and community dynamics for forest stands that differed in initial species composition (i.e., chestnut oak, oak–hickory, pine, and yellow
poplar stands). Using summer drought and growing season temperature as defined climate drivers, we evaluated relationships between forest dynamics and climate across levels of organization.
Results: Over the four-decade study period, forest communities underwent successional change and substantially increased in biomass. Variation in summer drought and growing season temperature contributed to temporal biomass dynamics for some
tree species, but not for others. Stand-level responses to climatic variability were related to the responses of component species, except in pine stands. Pinus echinata, the dominant species in pine
stands, decreased over time due to periodic outbreaks of pine bark beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). These outbreaks at Walker Branch could not be directly related to climatic conditions.
Conclusions: The results indicate that sensitivity of developing forests to climatic variability is stand type-dependent, and hence is a function of species composition. However, in the long term, direct
effects of climatic variability on forest dynamics may be small relative to autogenic successional processes or climate-related insect outbreaks. Empirical studies testing for interactions between forest succession and climatic variability are needed.

Changing Governance of World’s Forests

by Ashwini Chhatre

Co-authored with Arun Agrawal and Rebecca Hardin, published in Science

Major features of contemporary forest governance include decentralization of forest management, logging concessions in... more Major features of contemporary forest governance include decentralization of forest management, logging concessions in publicly owned commercially valuable forests, and timber certification, primarily in temperate forests. Although a majority of forests continue to be owned formally by governments, the effectiveness of forest governance is increasingly independent of formal ownership. Growing and competing demands for food, biofuels, timber, and environmental services will pose severe challenges to effective forest governance in the future, especially in conjunction with the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. A greater role for community and market actors in forest governance and deeper attention to the factors that lead to effective governance, beyond ownership patterns, is necessary to address future forest governance challenges.

Synergies and Trade-offs between Carbon Storage and Livelihood Benefits from Forest Commons

by Ashwini Chhatre

Co-authored with Arun Agrawal, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Forests provide multiple benefits at local to global scales. These include the global public good of carbon... more Forests provide multiple benefits at local to global scales. These include the global public good of carbon sequestration and local and national level contributions to livelihoods for more than half a billion users. Forest commons are a particularly important class of forests generating these multiple benefits. Institutional arrangements to govern forest commons are believed to substantially influence carbon storage and livelihood contributions, especially when they incorporate local knowledge and decentralized decision making. However, hypothesized relationships between institutional factors and multiple benefits have never been tested on data from multiple countries. By using original data on 80 forest commons in 10 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we show that larger forest size and greater rule-making autonomy at the local level are associated with high carbon storage and livelihood benefits; differences in ownership of forest commons are associated with trade-offs between livelihood benefits and carbon storage. We argue that local communities restrict their consumption of forest products when they own forest commons, thereby increasing carbon storage. In showing rule-making autonomy and ownership as distinct and important institutional influences on forest outcomes, our results are directly relevant to international climate change mitigation initiatives such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and avoided deforestation. Transfer of ownership over larger forest commons patches to local communities, coupled with payments for improved carbon storage can contribute to climate change mitigation withoutadversely affecting local livelihoods.

Forest structure and roe deer abundance predict tick-borne encephalitis risk in Italy

by Markus Neteler

Rizzoli A, Hauffe HC, Tagliapietra V, Neteler M, Rosà R, 2009 Forest Structure and Roe Deer Abundance Predict Tick-Borne Encephalitis Risk in Italy. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4336. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004336

Background

The Western Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus often causes devastating or lethal disease. In... more Background

The Western Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus often causes devastating or lethal disease. In Europe, the number of human TBE cases has increased dramatically over the last decade, risk areas are expanding and new foci are being discovered every year. The early localisation of new TBE foci and the identification of the main risk factors associated with disease emergence represent a priority for the public health community. Although a number of socio-economic parameters have been suggested to explain TBE upsurges in eastern Europe, the principal driving factors in relatively stable western European countries have not been identified.

Methodology/Principal Findings

In this paper, we analyse the correlation between the upsurge of TBE in 17 alpine provinces in northern Italy from 1992 to 2006 with climatic variables, forest structure (as a proxy for small mammal reservoir host abundance), and abundance of the principal large vertebrate tick host (roe deer), using datasets available for the last 40 years. No significant differences between the pattern of changes in climatic variables in provinces where TBE has emerged compared to provinces were no clinical TBE cases have been observed to date. Instead, the best model for explaining the increase in TBE incidence in humans in this area include changes in forest structure, in particular the ratio of coppice to high stand forest, and the density of roe deer.

Conclusion/Significance

Substantial changes in vegetation structure that improve habitat suitability for the main TBE reservoir hosts (small mammals), as well as an increase in roe deer abundance due to changes in land and wildlife management practices, are likely to be among the most crucial factors affecting the circulation potential of Western TBE virus and, consequently, the risk of TBE emergence in humans in western Europe. We believe our approach will be useful in predicting TBE risk on a wider scale.

Nitrogen immobilization by wood-chip application: Protecting water quality in a northern hardwood forest

by Peter Homyak

Predictive modelling of coniferous forest age using statistical and artificial neural network approaches applied to remote sensor data

by Minhe Ji

Age is a powerful variable that can be of significant value when modelling the health of forest-dominated ecosystem.... more Age is a powerful variable that can be of significant value when modelling the health of forest-dominated ecosystem. Traditional investigations have attempted to extract age information fromremotely sensed data by regressing the spectral values with in situ derived age data. Traditional statistical approaches assume (a) normally distributed remote sensing and in situ data, (b) no collinearity among variables, and (c) linear data relationships. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are not bound by such assumptions and may yield improved predictive modelling of forest stand biophysical parameters if properly utilized. This study investigated traditional statistical and ANNapproaches to perform the predictive modelling of the age of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) for large stands in southern Brazil using Thematic Mapper (TM) data. An extensive comparison of pattern associator and back-propagation ANNs versus both linear and nonlinear regression analysis was conducted. Various neural network architectures were investi-gated to determine the optimal configuration for this particular dataset. Certain back-propagation ANNs modelled stand age significantly better than traditional statistical approaches because of their ability to take into account nonlinear, non-normally distributed data. The results suggest that ANN analysis may be of significant value when using remote sensing data tomodel certain forest variables.

Measuring mangrove biomass via remote sensing subpixel analysis

by Minhe Ji

Co-authored with Jia Hu, Jing Feng

The method of “subpixel analysis” is explored to decompose mixed pixels of mangrove for biomass quantification. The... more The method of “subpixel analysis” is explored to decompose mixed pixels of mangrove for biomass quantification. The basic idea is to treat the non-mangrove spectra of a mixed pixel as the background noise and iteratively remove them from further processing, so that the residual radiance can be matched to the characteristics of, and labeled as, the sampled mangrove spectra. This method requires spectral training only on the targeted cover type (i.e. mangrove in this study), thus it may drastically reduce the amount of human interference and minimize subjective bias in the analytic process. In addition, it can deal with complex and diverse spectra of the same target for better results. A DigitalGlobe’s Quickbird multispectral image of Beilun Estuary was used as a test dataset to demonstrate this approach, with mangrove cover of the region being quantified into eight standardized biomass levels. The verification of the model results was performed using Quickbird panchromatic data from the same acquisition. An overall accuracy of 86.1% (Kappa=0.844) was reached, demonstrating the application potential of the subpixel analysis method in the forest ecosystem research and management.

Forest Law in the Palestine Mandate: Colonial Conservation in a Unique Context

by David Schorr

forthcoming in MANAGING THE UNKNOWN (Uwe Luebken & Frank Uekötter eds.)