Community Capacity for Implementing Clean Development Mechanism Projects Within Community Forests in Cameroon

There is a growing assumption that payments for environmental services including carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emission reduction provide an opportunity for poverty reduction and the enhancement of sustainable development within integrated natural resource management approaches. Yet in experiential terms, community-based natural resource management implementation falls short of expectations in many cases. In this paper, we investigate the asymmetry between community capacity and the Land Use Land Use Change Forestry (LULUCF) provisions of the Clean Development Mechanism within community forests in Cameroon. We use relevant aspects of the Clean Development Mechanism criteria and notions of “community capacity” to elucidate determinants of community capacity needed for CDM implementation within community forests. The main requirements are for community capacity to handle issues of additionality, acceptability, externalities, certification, and community organisation. These community capacity requirements are further used to interpret empirically derived insights on two community forestry cases in Cameroon. While local variations were observed for capacity requirements in each case, community capacity was generally found to be insufficient for meaningful uptake and implementation of Clean Development Mechanism projects. Implications for understanding factors that could inhibit or enhance community capacity for project development are discussed. We also include recommendations for the wider Clean Development Mechanism/Kyoto capacity building framework

Competencies for food graduate careers: developing a language tool

Unlike many other graduate career pathways in the UK, the food industry does not have a cohesive competency framework to support employers, students and degree providers. Food sciences-based technical graduates are a significant proportion of the industry’s graduate intake; this study aims to provide such a framework. Initial work involving a sample of representative stakeholders has created a list of typical attributes and associated definitions that may be desirable in food sciences graduates. Material was gathered by semi-structured qualitative interviews and analysed by thematic analysis followed by a modified Delphi technique. The resulting framework is tailored to needs and terminology prevalent in food industry employment. The process employed could be utilised for building other vocational graduate competency frameworks. Further plans include using the framework to ascertain the important elements for typical graduate entry roles, better informing students about desirable qualities and supporting future competency-based curriculum review

Industrial SO2 pollution and agricultural losses in China: evidence from heavy air polluters

This paper aims to assess the agricultural losses caused by the 2069 state-monitored heavily air polluting enterprises located in 899 Chinese counties. We examine the correlation between per capita number of state-monitored enterprises and other socio-economic indices to show the negative impacts of sulphur dioxide (SO2) industrial air pollution on agricultural development in the regions. Despite these enterprises being the main drivers of economic development in China’s counties, surrounding agricultural land continues to be degraded because of the associated SO2 emissions. The cost of agricultural losses due to pollution is estimated at US$ 1.43 billion, representing 0.66% of the total agricultural value added of the 899 Chinese counties. The findings highlight the importance of cleaner production and have policy implications for dealing with industrial air pollution