Livelihoods and land use change in highland Ethiopia

This dissertation investigates livelihood and land use change dynamics in a community at the farm-forest periphery in highland Ethiopia. I use interviews and livelihood assessment data to compare the strategies used by members of different wealth groups to negotiate and maintain access to forest resources, and integrate socioeconomic, bio-physical and spatially explicit data to examine changing land use and household vulnerability. This approach sheds new light on scalar aspects of poverty-environment relationships with implications for environmental justice and rural development policy. Chapter one provides an overview of the context and approach to this research. Chapter two illustrates the importance of scale in understanding household vulnerability. It uses diverse data to describe political, historic, biophysical and economic factors that shape vulnerability. Chapter three describes household livelihoods and increasing foreign investment pressure in Ethiopia's natural forests, with an emphasis on the history of forest management and access in the study site. It describes processes of forest boundary making and conflict in the study area. Chapter four outlines two scenarios to describe the amount of agricultural land required to replace forest incomes in the community under study. These scenarios, termed "fuelwood replacement" and "fuelwood replacement with agricultural intensification," use agricultural land as a proxy for fuelwood incomes, retaining the connection to physical space that is inherent to natural resources, rather than presenting abstracted monetary values that disassociate resources from power and access dynamics. Chapter five draws together unifying ideas, outlines policy recommendations and describes areas for future research

Household livelihoods and increasing foreign investment pressure in Ethiopia’s natural forests

Foreign investment in Ethiopia’s forestry sector is currently limited, but agricultural investments that affect forests — largely through forest clearing — are commonplace. We describe the nature of forest investments and outline the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing them. Given the key role forests play in rural livelihoods, new tenure arrangements will have significant implications for communities located at the forest–farm interface. We use evidence from a case study in the Arsi Forest area of Oromia Regional State to examine historic and contemporary forest benefit distributions and investigate the potential for conflict over competing forest access claims associated with new investments

An Experiential Learning Approach to Graduate Education

Prepared for the 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources, March 13 -15, 2008, Oregon State University.This paper assesses the promises and challenges associated with developing, conducting, and funding a rigorous, interdisciplinary, graduate field course with a strong experiential learning foundation. The course, Communities and Natural Resources, is designed to provide students from diverse backgrounds with an interdisciplinary, experiential learning opportunity. While the authors handle course logistics and provide students with relevant theoretical foundations from several disciplines, the actual instructors are county commissioners, health and education professionals, natural resource managers, ranchers, forest owners, tribal resource specialists, and other community leaders. Course objectives include; 1. To learn first hand from community leaders about current conditions and future prospects for rural, natural-resource - dependent communities. 2. To become familiar with the social science concepts of poverty, natural resource dependency, community well-being; social, human, economic and natural capital, land tenure, and sustainability. 3. To sharpen empathetic listening, analytical thinking, and effective communication skills. 4. To foster constructive dialogue between the university and rural communities. The course has been offered for the past three years, involving students from forestry, anthropology, public policy, public health, agricultural economics, and other disciplines. In this paper we reflect on the experience of these past three years from the perspectives of students, community participants, and academic faculty. We consider what values such a course might contribute to graduate education and to university – community relations, what pitfalls might be encountered, and how the challenge of funding such a course might be addressed. A panel of student and community participants will share their perspectives on this mode of graduate education

Sustainable Sourcing of Global Agricultural Raw Materials: Assessing Gaps in Key Impact and Vulnerability Issues and Indicators.

Understanding how to source agricultural raw materials sustainably is challenging in today's globalized food system given the variety of issues to be considered and the multitude of suggested indicators for representing these issues. Furthermore, stakeholders in the global food system both impact these issues and are themselves vulnerable to these issues, an important duality that is often implied but not explicitly described. The attention given to these issues and conceptual frameworks varies greatly--depending largely on the stakeholder perspective--as does the set of indicators developed to measure them. To better structure these complex relationships and assess any gaps, we collate a comprehensive list of sustainability issues and a database of sustainability indicators to represent them. To assure a breadth of inclusion, the issues are pulled from the following three perspectives: major global sustainability assessments, sustainability communications from global food companies, and conceptual frameworks of sustainable livelihoods from academic publications. These terms are integrated across perspectives using a common vocabulary, classified by their relevance to impacts and vulnerabilities, and categorized into groups by economic, environmental, physical, human, social, and political characteristics. These issues are then associated with over 2,000 sustainability indicators gathered from existing sources. A gap analysis is then performed to determine if particular issues and issue groups are over or underrepresented. This process results in 44 "integrated" issues--24 impact issues and 36 vulnerability issues--that are composed of 318 "component" issues. The gap analysis shows that although every integrated issue is mentioned at least 40% of the time across perspectives, no issue is mentioned more than 70% of the time. A few issues infrequently mentioned across perspectives also have relatively few indicators available to fully represent them. Issues in the impact framework generally have fewer gaps than those in the vulnerability framework

Farmers’ Strategies for Adapting to and Mitigating Climate Variability and Change through Agroforestry in Ethiopia and Kenya

Keywords: Kenya, East Africa, Ethiopia, farming, climate change, agroforestry, adaptation strategie

Understanding restoration and transaction costs in a payment for ecosystem service water quality market in Oregon, USA

En Orégon (États-Unis), la température de l'eau de nombreux ruisseaux et rivières est réglementée dans le cadre de certains contextes par l’approche de paiements pour services écosystémiques (PSE). Grâce à cette approche, les entités de régulation visées par la réglementation sont en mesure de compenser leurs déversements qui font dépasser la température de l'eau au-dessus des valeurs admissibles en payant pour la restauration de la forêt riveraine et les avantages de refroidissement qu’apporte son ombre. Ainsi elles peuvent faire valoir leur conformité réglementaire. Les activités obligatoires de surveillance et de rapport de la qualité de l'eau menées par les entités qui font des rejets de sources ponctuelles fournissent la base sur laquelle un service écosystémique (l'ombre de la forêt riveraine) est quantifié (en kilocalories/mi) et vendu (par crédit thermique). La station de traitement des eaux usées de la ville de Medford, dans le sud de l'Orégon (États-Unis) est la première entité de régulation de l'eau à adopter une approche PSE pour sa conformité réglementaire. Grâce à l'analyse des transactions vérifiées et de nombreux autres documents publics, les coûts moyens de transaction associés à ce programme sont estimés à 85 pourcent des coûts totaux. Malgré une littérature croissante sur les coûts de transaction dans les programmes de PSE, il y a peu de consensus ou de conseils sur ce qui est un pourcentage raisonnable des coûts totaux pour les programmes de PSE connus comme « efficaces ». Les régulateurs, les titulaires de permis et le public peuvent utiliser cette information pour examiner comment structurer les permis, quels types de coûts de transaction sont plus ou moins importants, et comment tirer parti des investissements pour les plus grands avantages sociaux, écologiques et économiques.In Oregon, USA, water temperature in many streams and rivers is a regulated condition that is being addressed in some contexts through a payment for ecosystem services (PES) approach. Through this approach, regulated utilities that discharge water into streams and rivers that is warmer than allowable are able to pay for riparian forest restoration and the cooling benefits that its shade brings in exchange for regulatory compliance. Mandatory water quality monitoring and reporting activities conducted by entities that make point source emissions provide the basis upon which an ecosystem service (riparian forest shade) is quantified (in kilocalories) and sold (per thermal credit). The City of Medford’s wastewater treatment facility in southern Oregon, USA, is the first regulated entity in Oregon to adopt a PES approach for regulatory compliance. Through analysis of verified trades and numerous other public documents, transaction costs associated with this program are estimated at 85 percent of total costs. Despite a growing literature on transaction costs in PES programs, there is little consensus or guidance on what is a reasonable percentage of total costs in order for PES programs to be deemed “efficient”. Regulators, permittees and the public can use this information to consider how to structure permits, what types of transaction costs are most or least important, and how to leverage investments for the greatest social, ecological and economic benefits

The Rapid Riparian Revegetation Approach

ABSTRACT Loss of native riparian vegetation and dominance of invasive species can have negative consequences for river and floodplain dynamics, trophic interactions, water quality, and riparian systems' ability to buffer some of the impacts of climate change. In response, restoration and enhancement efforts have increased in scope and scale in recent years, despite the fact that there is limited information on the effectiveness of techniques. This paper describes one approach to riparian restoration and enhancement, termed Rapid Riparian Revegetation (R3), which promotes rapid cover of woody plants in a composition designed to mimic reference site conditions. Limited peer-to-peer learning opportunities and the significant investment in time and resources required to document practices, monitor outcomes and disseminate findings hampers practitioners' ability to both systematically improve ecological restoration practices and to share lessons learned with broader audiences. This paper seeks to narrow this gap by describing in detail riparian revegetation project planning, management actions, and costs incurred within typical grant funded projects. Initial planting densities prescribed in this approach are typically in the range of 5,400 to 6,400 stems per hectare (approx. 2,200 to 2,600 per acre), with inter-planting in the second year at 1,300 to 1,600 stems per hectare (approx. 530 to 650 per acre)

Understanding restoration and transaction costs in a payment for ecosystem service water quality market in Oregon, USA

In Oregon, USA, water temperature in many streams and rivers is a regulated condition that is being addressed in some contexts through a payment for ecosystem services (PES) approach. Through this approach, regulated utilities that discharge water into streams and rivers that is warmer than allowable are able to pay for riparian forest restoration and the cooling benefits that its shade brings in exchange for regulatory compliance. Mandatory water quality monitoring and reporting activities conducted by entities that make point source emissions provide the basis upon which an ecosystem service (riparian forest shade) is quantified (in kilocalories) and sold (per thermal credit). The City of Medford’s wastewater treatment facility in southern Oregon, USA, is the first regulated entity in Oregon to adopt a PES approach for regulatory compliance. Through analysis of verified trades and numerous other public documents, transaction costs associated with this program are estimated at 85 percent of total costs. Despite a growing literature on transaction costs in PES programs, there is little consensus or guidance on what is a reasonable percentage of total costs in order for PES programs to be deemed “efficient”. Regulators, permittees and the public can use this information to consider how to structure permits, what types of transaction costs are most or least important, and how to leverage investments for the greatest social, ecological and economic benefits

An Experiential Learning Approach to Graduate Education

This paper assesses the promises and challenges associated with developing, conducting, and funding a rigorous, interdisciplinary, graduate field course with a strong experiential learning foundation. The course, Communities and Natural Resources, provides students from diverse backgrounds with an interdisciplinary, experiential learning opportunity. While the authors handle course logistics and provide students with relevant theoretical foundations from several disciplines, the actual instructors are county commissioners, health and education professionals, natural resource managers, ranchers, forest owners, tribal resource specialists, and other community leaders. Course objectives include; 1. To learn first hand from community leaders about current conditions and future prospects for rural, natural-resource - dependent communities. 2. To become familiar with the social science concepts of poverty, natural resource dependency, community well-being; social, human, economic and natural capital, land tenure, and sustainability. 3. To sharpen empathetic listening, analytical thinking, and effective communication skills. 4. To foster constructive dialogue between the university and rural communities. The course has been offered for three years, involving students from forestry, anthropology, public policy, public health, agricultural economics, and other disciplines. In this paper we reflect on the experience of these past three years from the perspectives of students, community participants, and academic faculty. We consider what values such a course might contribute to graduate education and to university – community relations, what pitfalls might be encountered, and how the challenge of funding such a course might be addressed. A panel of student and community participants will share their perspectives on this mode of graduate education

Examining Private Landowners’ Knowledge Systems for an Invasive Species

Shared ecological knowledge about the impacts of biological invasions can facilitate the collective action necessary to achieve desired management outcomes. Since its introduction to an island archipelago in South America, the North American beaver has caused major changes to the ecosystem. We examined landowners’ mental models of how beavers impact ecosystem services in riparian areas to understand the potential to implement a large-scale eradication program. We used ethnographic interviews to characterize individual landowners’ perceptions about beaver-caused changes to ecosystems and landowners’ wellbeing, and examined the degree to which they are shared. While the eradication initiative focuses on ecosystem integrity, landowners considered impacts on provisioning services to be most salient. Landowners did not have a highly shared causal model of beaver impacts, which indicates a diverse knowledge system. This lack of consensus on how beavers impact riparian areas provides some optimism for garnering support for eradication, and also offers insights into challenges with mental modeling methodologies.Fil: Santo, Anna R.. Virginia Tech University; Estados UnidosFil: Guillozet, Kathleen. Virginia Tech University; Estados UnidosFil: Sorice, Michael G.. Virginia Tech University; Estados UnidosFil: Baird, Timothy D.. Virginia Tech University; Estados UnidosFil: Gray, Steven. Michigan State University; Estados UnidosFil: Donlan, C. Josh. Ong Advanced Conservation Strategies; Estados UnidosFil: Anderson, Christopher Brian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentin