•Fire occurrences within forest reserves in the region have been on the rise in the past three years (2015 – 2017).•Fires occur in the forest reserves between October and March with the highest ...occurrences in December and January.•Major mode of monitoring and detection of fires in the forest reserves is by ‘smoke detection’.•No prescribed fire control systems for fire-fighting in the forest reserves within the region.
Forest fires may have beneficial effects ecologically, but can also be damaging to the overall health and diversity of flora and fauna and may also result in loss of farm produce and livelihood base of local communities living around the forest reserves. In order to minimize damage from fires to the forest vegetation, information on frequency, timing and control of fire events is needed for decision making at the district and regional management levels of the Forestry Commission. However, not much of such information exists, particularly for northern Ghana. Therefore, this research sought to ascertain occurrences of forest fires and how they are controlled in three (3) Forest Districts in the northern region of Ghana namely: the Tamale, Yendi and Walewale Forest Districts. Respondents comprised staff of Ghana Forestry commission, members of fringe communities and personnel from the Ghana National Fire Service. A mixed method research design involving structured interview schedule, in-depth interviews and quantitative review of secondary data was employed for data collection. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages while qualitative data was analyzed using simple narratives. The study revealed that detection by smoke was the dominant means of detecting fires within the forest reserves. December and January were the months with the most fire occurrences and periods between 2 and 4 h and greater than 8 h were the dominant timeframes within which fires were controlled. Inadequate firefighting equipment and lack of effective cooperation between regulatory institutions and community members were identified as major constraints to effective control of forest fires. Active collaboration between regulatory agencies and members of fringe communities among others are recommended for effective control of wildfires in forest reserves in northern region of Ghana.
Situating in the lap of the Bay of Bengal, the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, plays a significant role in the livelihood of more than three million people and provides shelter to an ...undetermined number of species. Unfortunately, this United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared world heritage site faces various threats to wildlife and biodiversity due to human interventions in the forest and animal habitats. The present study finds that despite having 150 forest policies to conserve the forest, the forest size is gradually shrinking across the country, particularly in the Sundarbans. However, National Forestry Policy 1979 (amended 2016) aims to protect forests and forest resources, and Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, 2012 (hereafter the Wildlife Act 2012) protects against wildlife crimes. Although National Forestry Policy 2016 endeavours to engage the local communities in the conservation process, no significant improvement was seen in the life of local communities and forest management. This paper assesses the role of international institutions that often support and cooperate with other countries for sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation, like the Sundarbans of Bangladesh.
Based on the review of relevant literature, this paper investigates how forest authority is produced or reproduced in the course of forest policy change, by drawing on the past four decades of ...participatory forest policy reform in Nepal. We analyze various waves of deliberative politics that emerged in different contexts related to the Himalayan crisis, the flow of international aid for conservation and development projects, civil conflict and democratic transition, and most recently the policy responses to climate change. The analysis shows how such deliberative politics contributed to the change or continuity of conventional authorities around forest policy and practice. It shows that despite notable participatory policy reform, the conventional authority has become further re-entrenched. Based on this analysis, we argue that efforts to understand forest policy change can be more meaningful if attention is paid to whether and how deliberative politics emerge to challenge the hegemonic claims to power and knowledge about resource governance practices. Such approach to policy analysis can open new possibilities for understanding democratic policy reform by explicating the nuances of deliberation and policy politics occurring at multiple scales.
•We examine how forest authority is (re)produced in the course of forest policy change.•We identify different waves of deliberative politics linked to various forms of forest authorities in Nepal, and explain how and to what extent deliberative politics leads to change or reproduction of forest authorities.•Despite promising participatory reform, the conventional forest authority has become further re-entrenched in Nepal in subtler way than in the past.•Analysis of how deliberative politics emerge enriches our understanding of deliberation and negotiation around policy landscape.
Large-scale cooperation between forest owners can have multiple benefits to both the forest owners and society. However, in most countries such cooperation is not widespread. The purpose of this ...paper is to explore the question why forest owners' cooperation is not a common practice. We do it by exploring the institutional barriers of cooperation. Based on an Estonian case example we find that the formal institutions reflect mainly the economic aspects of cooperation. The informal institutions, however, are more diverse and often do not relate to the formal ones. Therefore, a number of institutional barriers influences forest owners' decision-making towards cooperation. If policies and policy implementation fail to tackle these barriers then policy goals might not be met and cooperation might not be enhanced.
•Forest policy-makers are interested in developing forest owner associations.•We look at reasons why cooperation is not widely spread among private forest owners.•We identify several barriers to such cooperation.•Cooperation has a strong economic side so it does not address a wide range of owners.•Current forest policy implementation does not deal with these barriers sufficiently.
NGOs take many shapes and forms, operating at various governing scales and levels. As a categorical form, NGOs often emerged as benevolent philanthropists or as antagonistic actors. Relative to ...governments, NGOs are envisioned to fill a void of unmet public services, exposing shortcomings, or in extreme cases, gain notoriety by applying aggressive campaigns in confrontational ways. However, more recent manifestations of NGOs are maneuvering political strategies in more elegant and reflexive ways that do not always match their more classical categorizations. Notwithstanding the proliferation of literature indicating the evolving role of NGOs, the theorizing of existing definitions and the usage of NGO as a category in the scientific literature remain anachronistic, recalling a particular imaginary of a rather simplistic idea. Indeed, as a category of analysis, the academic literature and associated political commentary refer to NGOs in normative terms that invoke benevolent, independent, and non-profit agents striving for common goals to foster societal betterment. We argue that such normative definitions of NGOs no longer reflect the empirics, and indeed obscure the overall role that such actors perform. By more closely examining NGO activities and the strategies they employ to achieve political goals, we argue that NGOs, like other interest groups, are highly political actors that pursue self-interests in ways that we might not otherwise recognize.
•NGOs are often defined using normative descriptors and features.•Normative definitions of NGOs do not reflect the empirics.•Critical forest policy analysis needs new definitions and typologies of NGOs.•NGOs are organized interest groups that pursue self-interests.
Tropical dry deciduous forests provide numerous ecosystem services yet their contribution to agricultural production remains underexplored. We address this research gap by quantifying the broader ...suite of ecosystem services that support small holder farmers and identifying farmers' knowledge of storm hazard reduction benefits provided by forest fragments in Madagascar. We survey 240 households and interview eight key informants to identify household and community responses in two communities with contrasting forest cover trajectories. Using multivariate statistics, results show a heavy dependence on forests for food and raw materials and a majority of the respondents holding a positive view of hazard mitigation services provided by forest fragments. Education levels, earning an income from forest based tourism and honey production are the only predictors of participation in forest management. Positive view of the hazard reduction benefits derived from forests could be due to external influences or personal observations, and together with barriers to participation in forest management need to be further investigated to better link forest management to reduced hazards risks. These findings are significant for forest management policy, as local knowledge and rationale for decisions are instrumental in the success of decentralized forest management and maintenance of vital forest benefits to farmers.
•Dry forest fragments provide important services for agricultural livelihoods.•There is common local knowledge of the linkages between forests and hydrological processes.•Storm hazard mitigation benefits of forests are widely acknowledged by farmers.•However participation in forest management is determined only by income generating services.
Natura 2000, which is the core pillar of the European Union's biodiversity conservation policy, is an ambitious and complex venture that requires funding to be successful. A major challenge is said ...to be a lack of available funding, and a low uptake of allocated funds is also reported. However, in in-depth analysis has still not been produced to assess the approaches to funding, the reasons for these approaches and their impact regarding the achievement of the aims of Natura 2000. Thus, with this article, we intend to fill this gap. To accomplish this, a case study analysis was carried out in six selected EU Member States: Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.
In our study, we perceived different approaches which we sum up to two main types of approaches that were present in the Member States to different degrees. The first type was to find the funding necessary for the required activities, and the second was to delay the implementation of Natura 2000. The major reasons for the different approaches were related to domestic political power realities. The funding approaches impacted onto the attractiveness of EU co-financing instruments, and the sustainability of the schemes. Alternative approaches were either absent or declining in importance. The economic benefits were not perceived on the ground.
We conclude that neither a “one size fits all” approach to funding Natura 2000 will work nor will a universal claim for “more money”. Therefore, a successful funding strategy ultimately necessitates effective interventions at institutional levels, the business environment and the local level.
•Two different types of implementation approaches: 1) implement on time; 2) delay implementation.•A plethora of stakeholders is involved in the financing of Natura 2000 implementation.•Domestic power realities impact the availability of funds and their attractiveness.•Financing Natura 2000 has local, national and EU level aspects, short and long term.
While the partisan theory has already rendered initial insight on whether political parties can make a difference in environmental policy, only little is known about their influence on forest policy. ...This article attempts to reveal the role of green, left‐wing and right‐wing parties in the case of German Natura 2000 policy. By testing whether nature conservation or forest interests are strongly supported by the government policy outputs, we test the influence of the different parties that were part of 62 governments from 2004 to 2018 in 16 German Bundesländer. The results show that the German left‐wing parties take up the ideas of the nature conservation sector, while right‐wing parties foster typical forest interests. Furthermore, right‐wing parties very often maintain the policy status quo instead of making policy changes so that the implementation of the biodiversity goal of Natura 2000 often is postponed. The German Green party does not foster nature conservation interests more strongly than the SPD. Coalitions between right‐wing parties increase the chance for policy outputs that tend to favour forest interests.
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