More than just trees: Assessing reforestation success in tropical developing countries

Rural communities in many parts of the tropics are dependent of forests for their livelihoods and for environmental services. Forest resources in the tropics have declined rapidly over the past century and therefore many developing countries in the tropics have reforestation programs. Although reforestation is a long-term process with long-term benefits, existing evaluations of the success of these programs tends to focus on short-term establishment success indicators. This paper presents a review of reforestation assessment that highlights the need to not only consider short-term establishment success, but also longer-term growth and maturation success, environmental success and socio-economic success. In addition, we argue that reforestation assessment should not be based on success indicators alone, but should incorporate the drivers of success, which encompasses an array of biophysical, socio-economic, institutional and project characteristics. This is needed in order to understand the reasons why reforestation projects succeed or fail and therefore to design more successful projects in future. The paper presents a conceptual model for reforestation success assessment that links key groups of success indicators and drivers. This conceptual model provides the basis for a more comprehensive evaluation of reforestation success and the basis for the development of predictive systems-based assessment models. These models will be needed to better guide reforestation project planning and policy design and therefore assist rural communities in tropical developing countries to alleviate poverty and achieve a better quality of life

The spouse as a kidney donor: Ethically sound?

A shortage of cadaver donor organs requires transplant units to examine all possible alternatives. Transplantation from living donors accounts for only ~10% of kidney transplants in the UK. Recent studies have shown that the results of kidney transplantation between spouses are at least as good as those of well-matched cadaver organs, but very few transplants of this type have been performed in this country so far. As part of the assessment process, the proposed donor and recipient are required to provide written statements about the issues. We reproduce here the personal statements made by one of our patients and his wife: we believe that the statements support our contention that spousal transplantation is ethically justifiable and should be more widely available. We report our early experience in Bristol with seven kidney transplants from spousal donors and we encourage other renal units in this country and elsewhere to consider this method of improving the prospects of kidney transplantation for their patients.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

'The spouse as a kidney donor: Ethically sound?'(multiple letters) [1]

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