At Loggerheads? Bank, World; Buys, Piet
2006, 10-23-2006, 2007, 2006-11-28, 20070101
eBook, Book
Open access
Despite the vast number of books and reports on tropical deforestation, there's confusion about the causes of forest loss and forest poverty, and the effectiveness of policy responses. At Loggerheads ...seeks to describe ways to reconciles pressures for agricultural expansion in the tropics with the urgent needs for both forest conservation and poverty alleviation. It diagnoses the causes and impacts of forest loss and the reasons for the association of forests and poverty. It looks at how policies - modulated by local conditions - act simultaneously on deforestation and poverty, creating tradeoffs or complementarities, depending on the situation. The report brings to the surface problems that impede adoption of favourable policies, describing institutional and technological innovations that might help overcome these impediments.
Instituting nature Mathews, Andrew S
2011, 20111104, 2011-11-04, 2013-06-26, 20110101
eBook, Book
A study of how encounters between forestry bureaucrats and indigenous forest managers in Mexico produced official knowledge about forests and the state.
The Amazon basin is a key component of the global carbon cycle. The old-growth rainforests in the basin represent storage of ~ 120 petagrams of carbon (Pg C) in their biomass. Annually, these ...tropical forests process approximately 18 Pg C through respiration and photosynthesis. This is more than twice the rate of global anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions. The basin is also the largest global repository of biodiversity and produces about 20 percent of the world's flow of fresh water into the oceans. Despite the large carbon dioxide (CO2) efflux from recent deforestation, the Amazon rainforest ecosystem is still considered to be a net carbon sinks of 0.8-1.1 Pg C per year because growth on average exceeds mortality (Phillips et al. 2008). However, current climate trends and human-induced deforestation may be transforming forest structure and behavior (Phillips et al. 2009). Increasing temperatures may accelerate respiration rates and thus carbon emissions from soils (Malhi and Grace 2000). High probabilities for modification in rainfall patterns (Malhi et al. 2008) and prolonged drought stress may lead to reductions in biomass density. Resulting changes in evapo-transpiration and therefore convective precipitation could further accelerate drought conditions and destabilize the tropical ecosystem as a whole, causing a reduction in its biomass carrying capacity or dieback. In turn, changes in the structure of the Amazon and its associated water cycle will have implications for the many endemic species it contains and result in changes at a continental scale. Clearly, with much at stake, if climate-induced damage alters the state of the Amazon ecosystem, there is a need to better understand its risk, process, and dynamics. The objective of this study is to assist in understanding the risk, process, and dynamics of potential Amazon dieback and its implications.
Fashioning Australia's forests Dargavel, J. (Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra (Australia))
1995
Book
National Forest Inventories Tomppo, Erkki; Gschwantner, Thomas; Lawrence, Mark
2010, 20091010, 2010-04-15
eBook
Traditionally the purpose of National Forest Inventories (NFIs) has been to provide continuously updated information regarding the state of a given nation's forest resources, including their timber ...volumes, species composition and sustainable development. But with increased international reporting requirements to the FAO, the ITTO, the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Ministerial Conference Protecting Forest in Europe and other international bodies the potential role of how NFIs can accurately respond to these requirements has received some considerable attention. Addressing the issue of how well countries are able to respond to current international reporting requirements, this book discusses the importance of comparable reporting, and the possible approaches for achieving comparability across Europe and globally. It includes country status reports from 37 countries, worldwide, and it discusses methodologies and techniques for a common reporting system. With its collection of inventories and detailed discussions on the current status and future needs of NFIs, this book provides an invaluable resource for anyone involved in developing, managing, monitoring or contributing to forest inventories, as well as to those who are researching or practising forest resource management.
Past and present pressures on forest resources have led to a drastic decrease in the surface area of unmanaged forests in Europe. Changes in forest structure, composition, and dynamics inevitably ...lead to changes in the biodiversity of forest-dwelling species. The possible biodiversity gains and losses due to forest management (i.e., anthropogenic pressures related to direct forest resource use), however, have never been assessed at a pan-European scale. We used meta-analysis to review 49 published papers containing 120 individual comparisons of species richness between unmanaged and managed forests throughout Europe. We explored the response of different taxonomic groups and the variability of their response with respect to time since abandonment and intensity of forest management. Species richness was slightly higher in unmanaged than in managed forests. Species dependent on forest cover continuity, deadwood, and large trees (bryophytes, lichens, fungi, saproxylic beetles) and carabids were negatively affected by forest management. In contrast, vascular plant species were favored. The response for birds was heterogeneous and probably depended more on factors such as landscape patterns. The global difference in species richness between unmanaged and managed forests increased with time since abandonment and indicated a gradual recovery of biodiversity. Clearcut forests in which the composition of tree species changed had the strongest effect on species richness, but the effects of different types of management on taxa could not be assessed in a robust way because of low numbers of replications in the management-intensity classes. Our results show that some taxa are more affected by forestry than others, but there is a need for research into poorly studied species groups in Europe and in particular locations. Our meta-analysis supports the need for a coordinated European research network to study and monitor the biodiversity of different taxa in managed and unmanaged forests.
Protecting the unique plants and animals that live on Madagascar while fueling economic growth has been a priority for the Malagasy state, international donors, and conservation NGOs since the late ...1980s. Forest and Labor in Madagascar shows how poor rural workers who must make a living from the forest balance their needs with the desire of the state to earn foreign revenue from ecotourism and forest-based enterprises. Genese Marie Sodikoff examines how the appreciation and protection of Madagascar's biodiversity depend on manual labor. She exposes the moral dilemmas workers face as both conservation representatives and peasant farmers by pointing to the hidden costs of ecological conservation.
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