Forest Policy and Economics最新文献

In this article, we explore how “commoning” plays a pivotal role in the collaborative and democratic management of forests to promote sustainable rural livelihoods. Commoning entails the everyday practices and social relations that enable people to come together, share, and act collectively. While existing literature offers insights into the institutional designs that underpin long-term collaborative management systems, less is known about the process of commoning. We seek to address this gap by asking, what social practices and relational arrangements contribute to the commoning of forests? And, how do these social practices and relational arrangements influence the creation of governance mechanisms that support forest livelihoods? To tackle these questions, we analyze the case studies of forest collectives called gram sabha federations in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India. Through our case studies, we demonstrate how social relationships facilitate key processes of experimentation, adaptation, autonomy, and inclusiveness. These processes enable collectives to explore innovative and unconventional networks to navigate uncertainties. Our findings reveal that by leveraging their social relations, communities enhance their autonomy while reducing their reliance on the traditional colonialist and capitalist practices of the state and the market. In doing so, they forge a path towards sustainable rural livelihoods grounded in collective empowerment and democratic decision-making.

Many land managers throughout the Intermountain West practice periodic thinning of woody biomass to reduce forest stand density and thereby reduce the risk of high severity wildfire. Pyrolyzing biomass wastes, such as slash from thinning, into biochar can help sequester carbon to mitigate climate change and improve soil health. However, there are insufficient biochar facilities to process the amount of woody biomass available from thinning throughout the Intermountain West. By presenting a case of New Mexico, this study provides a spatially explicit framework, which explains relationships among variables based on their spatial dimension, to utilize a variety of factors such as biomass availability, wildfire risks, markets, soil conditions, and road networks to identify optimal location(s) for new biochar production facilities. Several locations suitable for biochar production facilities have been identified, but the number needed depends on facility capacity and feedstock hauling distances. Findings from this study can help establish several medium-size or a single centralized biochar production facility(ies) in the region. Furthermore, establishment of biochar production facilities can incentivize forestry contractors and landowners to expedite thinning operations in densely overstocked forests of New Mexico. Finally, it can serve as a model that other regions in the Intermountain West can use to facilitate scaling of biochar facilities and production.

This study provided an insight into the projected short-term (<10 years) and long-term (next 10 to 30 years) effects of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine on global forest products trade and associated markets. The assessment was conducted by comparing the projected outcomes from the Global Forest Products Market (GFPM) model for a business-as-usual reference (no invasion) scenario and an alternate scenario representing the current trade sanctions for Russian wood products trade by several major partner countries, and the potential trade disruption in Ukraine due to their military operations, during the 2021–2025 period, and no such trade restrictions thereafter assuming the Russian invasion ends by that time. Results indicate a considerable projected short-term disruption in the Russian, Ukrainian, and the global wood products sector in terms of higher prices of industrial roundwood and finished wood products (up to 3%) and altered production, consumption and trade displacement for wood products. However, in the long run, a lower overall disruption is projected as Russian markets for industrial roundwood and sawnwood start to recover and the global markets begin to converge to pre-invasion levels. The analysis also projects that Russian markets for wood-based panels and paper and paperboard and Ukrainian markets for paper and paperboard do not recover within the next 30 years, suggesting a likely permanent structural change in markets of these wood product groups. These findings suggest several economic and environmental implications for the forest products sector in Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the world in the near- and long-term.

The United States is the world's largest producer and consumer of forest products, but due to industry aggregation and data suppression for privacy reasons, we have limited knowledge of determinants of wood products manufacturing establishments' locations. We use restricted-access microdata to explore location determinants of several disaggregated employer wood products industry groups and compare results to the aggregated employer and non-employer categories in the wood products subsector. Results suggest important but differing relationships between restricted access variables and establishment counts at the local level. While trucking employment is consistently important, the significance and sign of clustering variables, electricity costs, and production wages vary depending on the specific activity. More specifically, Sawmills and Other Wood Products both exhibit within- and across-industry group externalities of agglomeration. However, not all wood product industry groups interact with one another in the same way. Veneer, Plywood, and Engineered Wood establishments show evidence of only benefiting from locating near downstream manufacturers while Other Mill Work establishments benefit from clustering near other similar establishments. The results should be useful to policy makers as they formulate ways to best position natural resources to contribute sustainable jobs to the local region and prevent future industry bottlenecks.

Forest carbon program opportunities continue to expand for nonindustrial private landowners. We propose a novel forest harvest deferral-based program that would offer a stream of payments (a subsidy) for landowners in exchange for a rotation deferral. We analytically derive a representative landowner's marginal costs and marginal benefits associated with the deferred forest rotation and calculate the minimum payment necessary to incentivize a landowner to choose the socially optimal rotation instead of the private solution. At the socially optimal rotation age, the benefits to society from harvest deferral stem from the additional CO₂ sequestered through biomass production and storage of CO₂ for the longer periods inherent in sawtimber products. A simulation is used to assess how sensitive the socially optimal rotation age is to different site productivity levels and other assumptions. We show that more productive sites mean shorter forest rotation extension periods and demand higher payments due to the higher land and capital opportunity costs involved with deferred harvests. We also show that a longer sawtimber lifespan increases the socially optimal rotation time. All scenarios explored suggest that rotation extensions should be greater than one and shorter than twenty years. The methodology we propose is the only one that we are aware of that objectively determines the optimal forest harvest deferral time for different scenarios while aligning private landowner and societal objectives.

Emerging from the conflict and gridlock that characterized forest management in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s–1990s, community-based forest management offered a path forward. As forest collaboratives have gained in number and prominence, a shift towards social forestry, network governance consisting of collaborative processes that drive or influence U.S. Forest Service decision-making has taken root. In this era of social forestry, and as decentralization of natural resource management continues to increase, it has become increasingly important to understand the ways that power dynamics and decision-making processes have shifted. This qualitative, embedded case study research assesses the power dynamics between forest collaboratives and the Forest Service, and how these power dynamics impact the policy outcomes of the collaboratives. Our research reveals that forest collaboratives bring an added layer of institutionalization and public engagement in the decision-making process with their own suite of power dynamics. These findings suggest an increasing importance of non-state actors in forest management where collaboratives are providing increased access to knowledge and financial resources while also lending increased legitimacy and public trust to the Forest Service.

Extensive research in forestry decentralization has been carried out to date. However, what is missing from these accounts is the constructions of meaning and interpretations of decentralization policies across time and space. Drawing upon the policy arrangement approach's four dimensions – rules, discourse, actors and power, we analyse the evolution of forest policies in Kenya and their implications on management of mangroves – a forest type that has received little research attention to date. Data were collected using a desk review of policy documents, archival and peer reviewed information complimented with 33 semi-structured interviews. The findings show that the shift to decentralized forest management has faced opposing discourses – inexhaustibility of mangroves, forest protection through restricted access, commercialization ostensibly to support resource conservation and use of technical arguments (such as requirement for communities to develop management plan before accessing use rights). Guided by these discourses central actors designed and implemented rules that promoted commercial harvesting of mangroves, marginalized local communities while entrenching state domination and control over mangrove forests. Our findings suggest that decentralized forest governance capacity can be improved by increasing the ‘common’ understanding of participatory forest management. This can be achieved by changing from a top-down system of creating rules to a negotiated system involving local communities and other stakeholders. There is also need to change the discourses surrounding mangroves within agencies charged with forest management such as KFS and empowering local communities to manage mangrove resources. This work can provide insights useful in designing mangrove management policies.

The quest for happiness is a fundamental human goal, recognized by the United Nations (UN). Understanding the importance of happiness, our study aims to examine the impact of economic, environment, social and political factors in influencing happiness among sixty economies observed over eleven years. Using Generalised method of moments (GMM) and Panel quantile regression (PQR) methodology, our results show that forest cover, GDP per capita, inflation, unemployment, freedom to make life choices, social support and perception of corruption play a significant role in determining happiness. We find that GDP per capita, freedom to make life choices and social support have direct and positive association with happiness while unemployment rate, inflation and perception of corruption negatively influence happiness. However, while using PQR technique in the case of forest cover, we found mixed results; forest cover is significantly and positively related with happiness at 10%, 50% and 75% quantiles whereas negatively related with happiness at 25% and 90% quantiles. We also observe that social support is a major determinant of happiness. The current study identifies objective and subjective indicators to determine overall happiness and recommends hedonic wellbeing policymaking.

Natural resources are inextricably linked to development processes and socio-economic growth of populations. In sub-Saharan Africa, forest resources are essential to the economic performance of the local communities, many of whom still live-in rural areas. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) have the potential to contribute to conservation efforts by reducing pressure on forests. However, despite the extension of the market system to others regions, low appreciation of the socio-economic potential by local people makes NTFPs unattractive as a main source of income. The aim of this study was to identify the main socio-economic factors justifying main NTFP gathering in the vicinity of the Boumba Bek and Nki National Parks, Southeast Cameroon. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 50 households in 14 villages inhabited by Baka and Bantu. The socio-economic determinants gathering of five main NTFPs, namely Ricinodendron heudelotii, Irvingia gabonensis, Aframomum melegueta, Afrostyrax lepidophyllus and Monodora myristica, were assessed using univariate statistics and logistic regression analysis. For both ethnic groups, NTFPs are harvested for their income-generating potential and availability. Baka gather more NTFPs than the Bantu, but sell their products at a lower price. Bantu, even when producing small quantities, sell their products at high prices. Disparity in production and income between these two ethnic groups reflects their contrasting lifestyles, despite living in the same environment. Income from NTFP gathering is the cosmopolitan variable that explains the quantities collected. In addition, the collectors' age, ethnicity and whether or not they have received training in NTFP collection are also determining variables that explain NTFPs quantities collected. This research shows that species such as I. gabonensis and R. heudelotii should be promoted because of their high economic potential. There is also an urgent need to build the capacity of local populations in NTFP gathering practices and domestication.