Organizers: Jinlong Liu (Renmin University of China), Wil de Jong (Kyoto University, Japan), Yeo-Chang Youn (Seoul National University, Republic of Korea) & De Lu (Asia-PaciÞ c Network on Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation, China)
Land tenure, agrarian change and forest cover: the case of Mexico. Bee, B. (East Carolina University, USA;
bethbee78@gmail.com), Skutsch, M., Gálvez, J.P., García, G.C., Mas, J., Gao, Y. (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico; mskutsch@ciga.unam.mx; jpanequegalvez@gmail.com; gcuevas@ciga.unam.mx; jfmas@ciga.unam.mx;
yangao98@gmail.com).
Common property scholars have long debated the relationship between property rights and natural resource management.
However, this debate has historically centered on the binary construction of property as either common-use or private, which ignores the broad range of institutional arrangements that govern resource access and management. In the case of Mexican forests, ejidos, the quasi-common property regime, are often regarded as models of sustainable forest management. Below the surface however, a mixture of institutional arrangements and layered land access and rights shape actual practices of land use and forest cover change. This study contributes to the growing body of scholarship that investigates the relationship between different land tenure types, management strategies and forest cover in Mexico. Specifi cally, we focus on the relationship between formal property regimes, forest cover and the mixture of institutional arrangements within ejidos which refl ect differing responses to policies designed to open ejido lands to privatization. Utilizing a multi-scale, multi-site, and multi-method approach, we seek to
understand how land use and forest cover change is conditioned by institutional arrangements that include both formal and informal rights and access. These results contribute to a greater understanding of the relationship between property regimes, local institutions, and land use change.
Transition to sustainable forest management and rehabilitation in the Philippines. Camacho, L., Carandang, A., Pulhin, J., Camacho, S., Paras, F., Del Rosario, P., Tesoro, F. (University of the Philippines Los Banos, Philippines; camachold@yahoo.com.
ph; papcarandang@yahoo.com; jpulhin@yahoo.com; sonny_camacho@yahoo.com; fdparas@gmail.com; peterdelrosario@gmail.
com; ftesoro927@yahoo.com).
The Philippines provide an interesting case for studying transition to sustainable forest management (SFM) in the tropical world.
There were four cases examined in this study that represent the actual situation of SFM in the country. These cases manifest the complexity of the forest management systems in the Philippines, cutting across various governance dimensions, from the social, political, institutional, economic and environmental aspects. This study shows that forest cover may have continued to increase over the last decade because of increased reforestation and forest restoration in the past two decades. Experiences presented from the Philippine cases exhibit that the transition to SFM is not a linear but a dynamic and complex process. It is infl uenced by a combination of socio-demographic, economic, politico-institutional, and environmental forces operating at local to global scales.
Viewed in the context of the identifi ed key elements of SFM, there are yet major transition gaps that need to be fi lled out to improve on. These gaps include among others: the need for enabling policies and incentive systems; capable institutions and stakeholders actively engaged and committed in the pursuit of SFM; appropriate systems, tools and guidelines for SFM; and the practice of good forest governance including effective law enforcement.
The indigenous roots of the 1996 Bolivian Forestry Law and implications for the decline in forestry certifi cation. Dockry, M. (U.S. Forest Service, USA; mdockry@fs.fed.us), Espinoza, O. (University of Minnesota, USA; espinoza@umn.edu), Langston, N. (Michigan Technological University, USA; nelangs3@mtu.edu).
Bolivia has been cited as one of the most successful cases of forestry certifi cation. During the 2000s Bolivia had more certifi ed acres than any other tropical country. Despite this success, the number of certifi ed acres has declined by about half. Stakeholders have indicated that the 1996 Bolivian Forestry Law was instrumental in the early success of forestry certifi cation in Bolivia. This paper will discuss the indigenous roots of the 1996 Bolivian Forestry Law and the implications for certifi cation’s decline. We use qualitative social science and historical research methods to analyze stakeholder interviews and historical data. We begin with an analysis of the indigenous demands for a Bolivian forestry law in the 1990s. We then analyze current trends of forestry certifi ca-tion and percepca-tions of the decline from interviews with industry, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizaca-tions, and indigenous communities. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of changing forest policy, stakeholder perspectives, and challenges for sustainable forest management and certifi cation in Bolivia. These results can inform policy makers and stakeholders about the need to incorporate community perspectives when designing sustainable forestry policy, projects, and support programs for Bolivia and other forest-rich countries.
“No chop um, no kill um, but keep um”: Moving Prunus africana from an endangered species to everyday tree in Cameroon? Ingram, V. (Wageningen University, Netherlands; verina.ingram@wur.nl).
Prunus africana is an Afromontane tree, locally used for fuel, timber and traditional medicine in Cameroon. The bark is also internationally traded as the principal ingredient in pharmaceuticals and health products. Growing international demand has led to concerns of overexploitation of wild stocks, its appearance on the IUCN Red List in 1998 and CITES trade restrictions in 2005.
Cameroon was the largest world exporter, but enacted a self-imposed moratorium from 2007 to 2010. High montane degradation and deforestation rates combined with the export suspension negatively affected the livelihoods of around 60 000 people depen-dent on the international trade but provided a conservation respite to 15 years of intense harvesting, and a chance to reassess the species status and its governance arrangements. In response to these challenges, a national management plan was collaboratively developed by chain actors. The actuality of its endangered status was assessed and routes to more sustainable international trade developed. The results of multi-disciplinary studies underpinning the plan are presented. Governance arrangements (statutory, customary, project, voluntary and market-based, corruption and involuntary international agreements) were found to strongly infl uence sustainable harvesting and livelihoods. The resumption of exports and continued paradoxical context in which this species is regulated, traded and used, the risks and opportunities of the new governance arrangements and implications for conservation and livelihoods are critically reviewed.
Indonesia’s forest management units as agents of social safeguards in REDD+ implementation. Kim, Y. (Northern Arizona University, USA; ysk@nau.edu), Bae, J. (Korea Forest Research Institute, Republic of Korea; forestory@forest.go.kr), Fisher, L.
(University of Arizona, USA; lafi sher@email.arizona.edu), Bakti, L. (Northern Arizona University, USA; lb699@nau.edu).
We will discuss how Indonesia’s emerging system of forest management units (Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan or KPHs) can be developed as an agent of social safeguards in REDD+ implementation. The KPH system is viewed as a key element of decentral-ization of forest governance reform for REDD+. National regulations outline the specifi c tasks charged to KPHs: forest inventory, forest management planning, and communication and coordination with local communities and indigenous peoples. For the KPHs to be effective, they will need stronger fi nancial, administrative and technical support from the national government, as well as administrative support from provincial and district-level governments. Expanding technical and leadership training for provincial and district governments to help them understand potential benefi ts of KPHs system would encourage integration of the system into the annual budget planning process. The national government can also connect KPHs and REDD+ project developers, so the development and implementation of REDD+ activities can support the KPHs in fulfi lling their basic functions as well as the role of social safeguards. To illustrate these points, we examine the KPH in West Lombok, praised as one of the most successful KPHs in Indonesia. We discuss the factors contributing to the KPH’s success and offer recommendations for achieving similar successes with other KPHs in Indonesia.
Forest transition in China and interprovincial fl ow of commodity, population and forestry investment. Li, L., Liu, J.
(Renmin University of China, China; ytlilingchao@126.com; liujinlong_jl@hotmail.com), Xu, L. (Agricultural Bank of China, China; newxiaogang_0414@163.com), Xue, H. (Renmin University of China, China; xuehuidanlinlin@126.com).
Forest transition depicts a picture of a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation, which played a signifi cant role in carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation. After a long history of forest clearing and degradation, China as a whole has experienced a signifi cant increase in forest cover and volume since the 1980s. Complex biophysical environments and rapid change of social and economic conditions has made China a perfect context in which various proximate forces and paths to forest transition could be assessed. Given the variety of socio-economic, political, and cultural contexts in Chinese provinces, we built a dataset through China’s variety of offi cial investigations at provincial level rather than the national scale since 1981, to try to map forest transition in China from the perspective of analyzing fl ow of commodity, people and public investment across provinces of mainland China, and provide a comprehensive and detailed picture of forest quantity and quality transition during the last three decades. We concluded that forest transition in China is not undergoing a specifi c pathway, but is a complex process that could only be fully portrayed by a combination of pathways, i.e., economic development, ecological security (forest scarcity) and trade.
Economic development, government intervention, and forest transition in China. Long, H., Liang, M., Liu, J. (Renmin University of China, China; longhx1986@163.com; alexliang2@126.com; liujinlong_jl@hotmail.com).
China has experienced forest transition since 1990s, but there is still controversy on whether an Environmental Kuznets curve exists at the province level, and what drives the forest transition rapidly in such a low per capita GDP level. Empirical results using panel data for 29 provinces during 1981–2008 suggest that the cube of per capita GDP has a positive but limited impact on the forest coverage, indicating S shaped, rather than U shaped relationship exists between forest coverage and per capita GDP.
Our results support that the forest transition in China was strongly driven by the increasingly off-farm employment, agricultural productivity, government forestry investments and timber import. The growing economy driven by demographic bonus has dramatically decreased the rural population press in land, promoting marginal farmland both in population infl ow and outfl ow provinces to turn into forest land rapidly, and made it possible for the government to increase the forestry investment on a large scale as well. We argue that the forest transition in China results from interaction of economic development, government intervention and globalization, rather than explained alone by the forest scarcity pathway, economic development pathway, and state forest policy pathway.
How do local communities interpret and shape forest policy intervention? –the case of collective forest tenure reform in China. Luo, Y. (Northwest A&F University, China; lyfcl@163.com), Liu, J. (Renmin University of China, China; liujinlong_jl@
hotmail.com).
The newly implemented collective forest tenure reform in China is a remarkable part of the global trend of forest management decentralization. This paper intends to illustrate how local communities respond to the reform and how different actors interpret it into action under local social-ecological condition at two case study villages selected in Wuyuan County of Jiangxi Province. We found that in the policy implementation of the collective forest tenure reform, various actors such as the local government, communities and households try to deconstruct the policy text with their own knowledge system. The traditional resource management system based on the social customs in the local communities is also effective to solve the collective action problem and contribute to effi cient resource utilization. Thus the complexity and robustness of forest tenure combinations may ensure fl exibility for sustainable forest management, and accommodated to change of the socioeconomic conditions. This study hopes to promote understanding of the local forest governance and policy transformations during the current process of forest reform in China.
The local level cooperation forms in forestry and their governance: Croatia and Serbia as case studies of southeast Europe. Miovska, M. (University of Padua, Italy; mmiovska@gmail.com), Gatto, P. (University of Padova, Italy; paola.gatto@
unipd.it), Nonic, D. (University of Belgrade, Serbia; dragan.nonic@sfb.bg.ac.rs), Posavec, S. (University of Zagreb, Croatia;
sposavec@sumfak.hr), Pettenella, D., Secco, L., Da Re, R. (University of Padova, Italy; davide.pettenella@unipd.it; laura.secco@
unipd.it; riccardo.dare@unipd.it).
The territorial and political restructuring and establishment of new independent countries within the region of southeast Europe resulted with processes of transition, decentralization and land restitution during this period of more than two decades. These processes brought changes in forestry with a signifi cant number of new forest owners of previously so-called “social good”
property, against high fragmentation of forest land and unfavorable forest management conditions. The paper analyses the forms of cooperation at small scale level by using a framework based on the concepts of Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) and of forest governance. The data presented have been collected through in-depth interviews with the cooperation forms’ members and with representatives of concerned stakeholders of selected case studies in Serbia and Croatia.
The results reveal that some of the forests depend on people organizing themselves to seek for better management and more sustainable use of forest benefi ts with respect to their small and scattered forest holdings. Internal governance is one of precondi-tions for good cooperation among the forest owners. However, they face problems such as insuffi cient extension services and complex procedures for felling approval to be respected, which try to collectively overcome cooperating at a local level.
Economic evaluation of forest management sustainability in Lithuania. Mizaraite, D., Mizaras, S. (Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Lithuania; ekonsk@mi.lt; stasys.mizaras@gmail.com).
Sustainable forest management is defi ned as the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains the forest’s biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfi ll, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at a local, national, and global levels and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems. Criteria and indicators are used to evaluate forest sustainability. These are tools designed to defi ne, assess and monitor periodic progress towards sustainable forest management in a given country or in a specifi ed forest area. They are
deployed over a defi ned period of time to demonstrate the individual features of sustainability. But there is defi ciency of general-ized economic indexes to evaluate the sustainability of forest management. This paper evaluates economic, ecologic and social functions and estimates of economic losses caused by development of protected areas in Lithuanian forest. Research is based on methodology of multi-criteria analysis of sustainable forest management, economical evaluation of forest multi-functionality, analysis of social preferences of citizens. Research is funded by the European Social Fund under Global Grant measure.
Forest common resources and sustainability: Van (forest) Panchayat and forest protection committee in Garhwal, India.
Nagahama, K., Saito, K. (University of Tokyo, Japan; kazuyona@zpost.plala.or.jp; kaoru@nenv.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp), Rakwal, R.
(Tsukuba University, Japan; plantproteomics@gmail.com).
The idea of establishing Van (Forest) Panchayats originated in confl icts between people and the state government for control of resources at the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, there was a steady decline in the practice, and a quantitative and qualitative decline of the once dense and well-managed forests in the Kumaon. This study pays attention to new Van Panchayats in Garhwal via the question: to what extent have local institutions achieved sustainable forest management successfully? The intention of this study is to clarify actual forest management and utilization, and analyze the perceptions within forestry in relation to the protection committee.To achieve our goal, fi eld surveys were conducted in August 2011, 2012 and October of 2013. Result of interviews revealed the requirements or revision of the micro-plan, and (1) no change in most of the protection committee members during the last seven years, (2) unfair selection of the protection committee members and chairperson, and (3) proper utilization of forest products. In the case of the third point, for example, villagers consumed fi rewood daily and did not shift to using liquefi ed petroleum gas provided by the government under various schemes to increase access to modern amenities;
this is also necessary for forest conservation.
Exploring the future of timber resources in the high forest zone of Ghana. Oduro, K. (Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Ghana; kwameoduro@gmail.com), Arts, B., Mohren, G. (Wageningen University, Netherlands; bas.arts@wur.nl; frits.mohren@
wur.nl), Kyereh, B. (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana; kyerehb@gmail.com), Hoogstra-Klein, M.
(Wageningen University, Netherlands; Marjanke.Hoogstra@wur.nl).
Ghana’s forests, particularly the timber resources, face an uncertain future, because of high deforestation rate, a rapidly declining timber resource base, rapid population growth and increasing demand for timber. This paper explores the future development of timber resources in Ghana by constructing scenarios and considering options policy-makers could take to ensure sustainable future development of the timber resource. Data was collected by reviewing the literature and consulting experts. The scenarios follow the deductive approach, exploring the potential interactions among key driving forces as selected by experts. The two most important driving forces for the future of timber resources selected by the experts were forest governance and resource depen-dency. Four plausible scenarios were developed: legal forestry scenario with emphasis on maintaining the resource base to meet high demand; forest degradation, a business-as-usual scenario; forest transition, with emphasis on expanding the resource base;
and timber substitution scenario seeking to provide wood substitutes to conserve the resource base. The scenarios provide insights for policy making and strategic planning for forest resource management in Ghana. To ensure a sustainable future for timber resources, policy reform is needed, focusing on land and tree tenure, revenue capture, benefi t-sharing schemes and satisfying the domestic demand for timber.
Public participation in forest restoration and urban forest management in South Korea. Park, M., Yeo-Chang, Y.
(Seoul National University, Republic of Korea; mpark@snu.ac.kr; youn@snu.ac.kr).
South Korea has experienced successful forest restoration and oriented sustainable forest management since forest transition.
South Korean forests are managed not only by strong state policy but also by participation by private actors. This paper is aimed at identifying social actors participating in the forest restoration and management activities and analyzing policy on forest cooperation between public and private sectors. It attempts to interpret social factors in Korea forest restoration depending on the theory of public participation. Through document analysis and interviews, two types of public participation in forest management were investigated. The one is ‘Sanlimgye’ as a social organization for community forest management, which took part in the national forest restoration programme, was examined in the period of the First and Second National Forest Development Plans (1973–1987). The other is partnership between citizens and local government in urban forest design and management since the 1990s. Two types of public participation do contribute to a better understanding of how the community could play a principal role of forest management over time. We think the Korean experiences could be informative to other countries in designing forest restoration and management policy.
Transition to sustainable forestry management and rehabilitation in Japan. Tachibana, S. (University of Tsukuba, Japan;
tachibana.satoshi.gn@u.tsukuba.ac.jp), Shiga, K. (University of Tokyo, Japan; shiga@anesc.u-tokyo.ac.jp), Ota, M. (Embassy of Japan in Indonesia, Japan; masohta80@hotmail.com).
According to Forestry Agency (1971), forest area (forest and tree cover) in Japan changed from 17.7 million ha in 1886, 25.2 million ha in 1890, 22.2 million ha in 1915, 23.5 million ha in 1939, 19.6 million ha in 1945, to 25.6 million ha in 1960, and has
According to Forestry Agency (1971), forest area (forest and tree cover) in Japan changed from 17.7 million ha in 1886, 25.2 million ha in 1890, 22.2 million ha in 1915, 23.5 million ha in 1939, 19.6 million ha in 1945, to 25.6 million ha in 1960, and has