Titling community land to prevent deforestation: An evaluation of a best-case program in Morona-Santiago, Ecuador

Assigning land title to collective landholders is one of the primary policies land management agencies use to avoid deforestation worldwide. Such programs are designed to improve the ability of landholders to legally exclude competing users and thereby strengthen incentives to manage forests for long-term benefits. Despite the prevalence of this hypothesis, findings about the impacts of land titling programs on deforestation are mixed. Evidence is often unreliable because programs are targeted according to factors that independently influence the conversion of forests. We evaluate a donor-funded land titling and land management program for indigenous communities implemented in Morona-Santiago, Ecuador. This program offers a close to best case scenario for a land titling program to reduce deforestation because of colonization pressure, availability of payments when titled communities maintain forests, and limited opportunities for commercial agriculture. We match plots in program areas with similar plots outside program areas on covariates that influence the conversion of forests. Based on matched comparisons, we do not find evidence that land titling or community management plans reduced forest loss in the five years following legal recognition. The results call into question land titling as a direct deforestation strategy and suggests land titling is better viewed a precursor to other programs. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

Evaluating uncertainty in tropical forest loss between 1990 and 2010 : an inter-comparison of different data sets

Tropical forests are a lynchpin for environmental and social services, but are undergoing rapid deforestation. Despite the urgency of this issue, and despite rapid technological advances in monitoring tropical deforestation, and the existence of multiple studies of tropical forest loss over the last two decades, there is little certainty on the rates of tropical forest loss. We intercompared available pan-tropical forest change studies over the 1990-2010 period to examine: 1) differences in tropical forest loss during the 1990s, 2) differences in tropical forest loss in the 2000s, 3) differences in the rate of change of tropical forest loss from the 1990s to the 2000s, and 4) how these pan-tropical estimates compare to independent country/regional-level estimates of tropical forest loss. On balance, we conclude that tropical forest loss is decelerating between those decades. We also find that country reports from the Forest Resources Assessment of the Food and Agriculture Organization appear to be the least reliable; that satellite-based data appear the most reliable despite some persistent differences; and that there is higher agreement between forest loss estimates in Latin America. Our study improves current understanding of tropical forest loss in order to better inform policies to reduce deforestation, and in order to improve future tropical forest change analyses.Science, Faculty ofResources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute forGraduat

Replication data for: What Drives Deforestation and What Stops It? A Meta-Analysis of Spatially Explicit Econometric Studies

Data Set for "What Drives Deforestation and What Stops It?" The authors compile a comprehensive database of 117 spatially explicit econometric studies of deforestation and present a meta-analysis based on 59059 coefficients in 554 multivariate analyses with the aim of understanding what factors drive deforestation and what policies can effectively stop it

Alternative Approaches for Rating INDCs: a Comparative Analysis

The “Intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) communicated by both developing and developed countries represent a crucial element of the Paris agreement. This brief aims at analysing the INDCs submitted by Parties, through the different tools and approaches proposed by the research community. In particular, our analysis looks at the different ways to assess the effectiveness of the proposed emission reduction pledges, both in terms of aggregate and national efforts. However, we also consider other factors that will be critical in determining the success of the Paris talks, such as the coherence and fairness of single contributions

Identifying Forest Degradation and Restoration Opportunities in the Lancang-Mekong Region: A Tool to Determine Criteria and Indicators

Forest restoration is increasingly becoming a priority at international and national levels. Identifying forest degradation, however, is challenging because its drivers are underlying and site-specific. Existing frameworks and principles for identifying forest degradation are useful at larger scales, however, a framework that includes iterative input from local knowledge-holders would be useful at smaller scales. Here, we present a new mechanism; a framework for developing criteria and indicators that enables an approach for the identification of forest degradation and opportunities for restoration in landscapes that is free from failures that are often inherent to project cycles. The Degradation and Restoration Assessment Mechanism (DReAM) uses an iterative process that is based on local expertise and established regional knowledge to inform what is forest degradation and how to monitor restoration. We tested the mechanism’s utility at several sites in the Lancang-Mekong Region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam). The application of this mechanism rendered a suite of appropriate criteria and indicators for use in identifying degraded forests which can help inform detailed guidelines to develop rehabilitation approaches. The mechanism is designed to be utilized by any individual or group that is interested in degradation identification and/or rehabilitation assessment.Forestry, Faculty ofNon UBCReviewedFacultyResearche

Moving toward a Greener China: Is China’s National Park Pilot Program a Solution?

National parks have been adopted for over a century to enhance the protection of valued natural landscapes in countries worldwide. For decades, China has emphasized the importance of economic growth over ecological health to the detriment of its protected areas. After decades of environmental degradation, dramatic loss of biodiversity, and increasing pressure from the public to improve and protect natural landscapes, China’s central government recently proposed the establishment of a pilot national park system to address these issues. This study provides an overview of the development of selected conventional protected areas (CPAs) and the ten newly established pilot national parks (PNPs). A literature review was conducted to synthesize the significant findings from previous studies, and group workshops were conducted to integrate expert knowledge. A qualitative analysis was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot national park system. The results of this study reveal that the PNP system could be a potential solution to the two outstanding issues facing CPAs, namely the economic prioritization over social and ecological considerations that causes massive ecological degradation, and the conflicting, overlapping, and inconsistent administrative and institutional structures that result in serious inefficiencies and conflicts.Forestry, Faculty ofAlumniNon UBCReviewedFacultyResearche