Community Monitoring of Carbon Stocks for REDD+: Does Accuracy and Cost Change over Time?

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+) is a potentially powerful international policy mechanism that many tropical countries are working towards implementing. Thus far, limited practical consideration has been paid to local rights to forests and forest resources in REDD+ readiness programs, beyond noting the importance of these issues. Previous studies have shown that community members can reliably and cost-effectively monitor forest biomass. At the same time, this can improve local ownership and forge important links between monitoring activities and local decision-making. Existing studies have, however, been static assessments of biomass at one point in time. REDD+ programs will require repeated surveys of biomass over extended time frames. Here, we examine trends in accuracy and costs of local forest monitoring over time. We analyse repeated measurements by community members and professional foresters of 289 plots over two years in four countries in Southeast Asia. This shows, for the first time, that with repeated measurements community members’ biomass measurements become increasingly accurate and costs decline. These findings provide additional support to available evidence that community members can play a strong role in monitoring forest biomass in the local implementation of REDD+

Tropical and subtropical Asia's valued tree species under threat

Tree diversity in Asia's tropical and subtropical forests is central to nature-based solutions. Species vulnerability to multiple threats, which affects the provision of ecosystem services, is poorly understood. We conducted a region-wide, spatially explicit vulnerability assessment (including overexploitation, fire, overgrazing, habitat conversion, and climate change) of 63 socio-economically important tree species selected from national priority lists and validated by an expert network representing 20 countries. Overall, 74% of the most important areas for conservation of these trees fall outside of protected areas, with species severely threatened across 47% of their native ranges. The most imminent threats are overexploitation and habitat conversion, with populations being severely threatened in an average of 24% and 16% of their distribution areas. Optimistically, our results predict relatively limited overall climate change impacts, however, some of the study species are likely to lose more than 15% of their habitat by 2050 because of climate change. We pinpoint specific natural forest areas in Malaysia and Indonesia (Borneo) as hotspots for on-site conservation of forest genetic resources, more than 82% of which do not currently fall within designated protected areas. We also identify degraded lands in Indonesia (Sumatra) as priorities for restoration where planting or assisted natural regeneration will help maintain these species into the future, while croplands in Southern India are highlighted as potentially important agroforestry options. Our study highlights the need for regionally coordinated action for effective conservation and restoration

New species and names in Ecuadorian grasses (Poaceae)

Volume: 8Start Page: 23End Page: 3

Biogeography of ecuadorian grasses

Volume: 6Start Page: 185End Page: 19

Spaces of Tolerance: Changing Geographies and Philosophies of Religion in Today\u2019s Europe

This book offers interdisciplinary and cross-national perspectives on the challenges of negotiating the contours of religious tolerance in Europe. In today\u2019s Europe, religions and religious individuals are increasingly framed as both an internal and external security threat. This is evident in controls over the activities of foreign preachers but also, more broadly, in EU states\u2019 management of migration flows, marked by questions regarding the religious background of migrating non-European Others. This book addresses such shifts directly by examining how understandings of religious freedom touch down in actual contexts, places and practices across Europe, offering multidisciplinary insights from leading thinkers in from political theory, political philosophy, anthropology and geography. The volume thus aims to ground ideal liberal democratic theory and, at the same time, to bring normative reflection to grounded, ethnographic analyses of religious practices. Such \u2018grounded\u2019 understandings matter, for they speak to how religions and religious difference are encountered in specific places. They especially matter in a European context where religion and religious difference are increasingly not just securitized but made the object of violent attacks. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, geography, religious studies, and the sociology and anthropology of religion

Understanding the evolutionary history of a high Andean endemic: the Ecuadorian hillstar ( Oreotrochilus chimborazo

Geographic isolation has been proposed as the factor driving subspecific diversity of the Ecuadorian hillstar (Oreotrochilus chimborazo), a highland species restricted to the naturally fragmented paramos of Ecuador and southern Colombia. Current taxonomy recognizes three subspecies: O. c. chimborazo (from the Chimborazo volcano), O. c. soderstromi (from the Quilotoa volcano), and O. c. jamesonii (along the paramos of Ecuador and southern Colombia). To understand the origin of this morphological diversity, we explored the genetic variation along the species range based on analyses of two mitochondrial genes (ND2 and ND4), and one nuclear intron (MUSK). Subspecies O. c. soderstromi was not included in the analysis, as it was not registered at or around its type locality, the Quilotoa volcano. Instead, only O. c. jamesonii was encountered in that area. We found no evidence of genetic structure corresponding to subspecies or physiographic units, aside from some inconclusive evidence in putatively isolated populations. Ecological niche modeling predicted continuous and homogeneous environmental space between the two volcanos, and field expeditions showed evidence of a potential contact zone between O. c. jamesonii and O. c. chimborazo. Also, our data suggest that the only specimen described as O. c. soderstromi may have been an intergrade. We discuss our results in the light of possible range shifts in the past, resulting from climatic fluctuations around the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. © 2016, © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis