Search

This study attempted a holistic synthesis of the problems of Sustainable Development (SD) and Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) in the dry deciduous forests of south western Zambia. There are scale-based implications across the entire range of actions required for SFM and REDD+ implementation in tropical forests. Addressing scale mismatches in ecological, social and socio-ecological systems is essential and may help resolve epistemological differences in interdisciplinary research. The importance of local context to SD and SFM supported a case study approach to the social-ecological system. Leaf phenology shows regional variation in deciduousness and varies spatially on a local scale. This highlights the need for researching the eco-physiological source of this variation to assess the effects of climate change on forest phenology. Livelihood analysis in forest communities showed that high levels of social and natural capital confer community resilience to climate change. Land use change was mapped between 1975 and 2005. Zambezi Teak forests decreased in area by 54% between 1975 and 2005. However, changes in area weighted Above Ground Biomass (AGB) are negligible because Zambezi Teak forests are replaced by other woody vegetation. The differences in AGB between plot-based field measurements of AGB and published global biomass maps mean that these maps are not useful for REDD+ projects at the project scale (~10,000 ha). Governance arrangements for Zambezi Teak forests differ between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Although the forests in Zimbabwe have an age structure skewed towards smaller age classes than forests in Zambia, possibly indicating a recovery from logging, this study has not accounted for other covariates which determine forest condition. This research emphasises the importance of case studies for building a global database for inclusion in a meta-analysis, and for the contextual focus which a holistic approach brings to the action-based agenda at the heart of SD and SFM.

The goal of quantifying the woody cover and biomass of tropical savannas, woodlands and forests using satellite data is becoming increasingly important, but limitations in current scientific understanding reduce the utility of the considerable quantity of satellite data currently being collected. The work contained in this thesis reduces this knowledgegap, using new field data and analysis methods to quantify changes using optical, radar and LiDAR data. The first paper shows that high-resolution optical data (Landsat & ASTER) can be used to track changes in woody vegetation in the Mbam Djerem National Park in Cameroon. The method correlates a satellite-derived vegetation index with field-measured canopy cover, and the paper concludes that forest encroached rapidly into savanna in the region from 1986-2006. Using the same study area, but with radar remote sensing data from 1996 and 2007 (ALOS PALSAR & JERS-1), the second paper shows that radar backscatter correlates well with field-measured aboveground biomass (AGB). This dataset confirms the woody encroachment within the park; however, in a larger area around the park, deforestation dominates. The AGB-radar relationships described above are expanded in the next paper to include field plots from Budongo Forest (Uganda), the Niassa Reserve (north Mozambique), and the Nhambita Community Project (central Mozambique). A consistent AGB-radar relationship is found in the combined dataset, with the RMSE for predicted AGB values for a site increasing by <30 %, compared with a site-specific equation, when using an AGB-radar equation derived from the three other sites. The study of the Nhambita site is extended in the following paper to assess the ability of radar to detect change over short time periods in this environment, as will be needed for REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). Using radar mosaics from 2007 and 2009, areas known (from detailed ground data) to have been degraded decreased in AGB in the radar change detection, whereas areas of agroforestry and forest protection showed small increases.

In recent years, forestry carbon offset projects have been on the rise. While praised for their ability to offset emissions inexpensively, these programs are also criticized for their tendency to overlook other important social, environmental and economic processes. This thesis examines the site of a major carbon offset program in the western Amazon of Peru as a case study for multi-objective conservation planning. Using a recently released high resolution carbon dataset, this study first identifies areas of highest above ground carbon density. It then innovates by generating models for two additional conservation measures: forest connectivity and deforestation probability. While the forest connectivity model is informed by landscape ecology and is a more simple modification of least cost path, the deforestation model uses principles of economic rent to produce spatially explicit probabilities. By incorporating concepts of landscape ecology and economic rent, this work presents new models for the study area and adds to the theory surrounding multi-objective conservation planning. It also identifies if, how, and where three distinct conservation criteria can find commonalities. Unsurprisingly, the three criteria result in distinct spatial patterns. When all three are prioritized, less than 3% of the study area qualifies for priority. However, while this analysis highlights the difficulty of simultaneously prioritizing all three criteria, it also offers hope. Landscape-level analyses can help policymakers and conservation practitioners prioritize these limited areas while household-level and broader contextual information can help inform how initiatives are ultimately implemented. Given the limited area under all three criteria, stakeholders can strengthen efforts by encouraging connectivity-enhancing land use practices, incorporating areas where two criteria are met, or further facilitating nearby community involvement. As pressures to marry social, environmental and economic continue, incentive schemes will need to rethink these strategies and innovate, and further research should be conducted.

Abstract: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) has been brought forth by the global community as a strategy to positively impact the climate. Key costs in implementing REDD strategies are the payments to individuals and/or groups that provide emission abatement through forest maintenance. In this study, estimation of compensation levels for individual smallholders in Cameroon is derived through measuring their willingness to accept (WTA) land use restrictions. Through a stated preference approach, heads of households are asked to indicate the minimum amount that each would be WTA to maintain forested land based on a hypothetical contract that would limit their land or tree clearing activities for 10 years. Smallholder perceptions were also captured through responses to Likert-type statements. Compared to previous opportunity cost estimates, WTA results suggest that generally, smallholders require more compensation to participate in REDD than production-based opportunity cost approaches indicate.

Abstract: This thesis examines smallholders’ preferences for the design of hypothetical contracts to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) in Akok village, Cameroon. An attribute-based stated choice experiment survey was conducted to elicit smallholders’ preferences for various attributes and key stakeholders within the REDD value chain. A series of choice models, a latent class model and willingness-to-accept values were estimated. Results indicate substantial preference heterogeneity within the population, showing two distinct preference classes. The first class is very reluctant to enter into a REDD contract under any condition, and the second class is interested in participating if they are fairly compensated. In general, the attributes of the value chain did not influence the decisions to accept a REDD contract; rather, the decisions appear to be based on financial compensation for participation.

Currently, there is substantial concern over global warming, greenhouse gas emissions and their potential effects on society. Much research is concentrating on afforestation, reforestation and reducing deforestation and degradation to diminish atmospheric carbon emissions. My dissertation includes three essays that discuss land-use change in Ecuador, global leakage after implementing several carbon policies and the latest developments related to REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). Firstly, I will present a land-use change model for the country of Ecuador where I will estimate the effect of different site characteristics on the percentage of land used for farming (temporary and permanent crops), pasture, and forestry. With the results of this model, I will simulate the effects of several carbon sequestration scenarios to obtain land supply functions and the marginal costs of carbon sequestration. The second essay utilizes a forestry and land use model to compare the implications of different types of carbon policies on global leakage caused by timber price adjustments to a baseline (no-policy scenario) also established by the model. Finally, I define and evaluate the factors that affect REDD costs with a specific focus on its sensitivity to changes in some of its key components.

Few areas of law are as deeply implicated with science and technology as environmental law, yet we have only a cursory understanding of how science and technology shape the field. Environmental law, it seems, has lost sight of the constitutive role that science and technology play in fashioning the problems that it targets for regulation. Too often, the study and practice of environmental law and governance take the object of governance--be it climate change, water pollution, biodiversity, or deforestation--as self-evident, natural, and fully-formed without recognizing the significant scientific and technological investments that go into making such objects and the manner in which such investments shape the possibilities for response. This Article seeks to broaden environmental law's field of vision, replacing the tendency to naturalize environmental problems with an exploration of how particular scientific and technological knowledge practices make environmental problems into coherent objects of governance. Such knowledge practices, or ways of seeing, are instrumental in shaping regulatory possibilities and must be interrogated directly as key constituents of particular forms of governance. The argument is developed through a case study of how tropical deforestation, which accounts for some 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions but which was expressly excluded from the Kyoto Protocol, has recently become a viable object of climate governance, demonstrating the fundamental importance of conceptual advances in carbon cycle research, the synoptic view of global land cover change made possible by remote sensing, and new carbon accounting techniques in rendering the problem comprehensible for climate policy. Building on the case study, this Article identifies and elaborates on three general ways of seeing--kind-making, calculability, and equivalence--that operate through particular scientific and technical practices to shape and inform the substance of environmental law, with specific attention to the implications of the overall approach for a comprehensive theory of the field.

The 2009 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen has been widely viewed as a failure -a referendum in the eyes of many on the top-down, comprehensive approach to climate governance embodied in the Kyoto Protocol and carried forward in efforts to negotiate a successor regime. Despite a modest agreement on future work toward a new agreement, the most recent climate meeting in Cancún, Mexico reinforces this view, underscoring the conclusion that Copenhagen represents an important inflection point for international climate policy. Although much of the post-Copenhagen commentary has correctly identified various problems, even fatal flaws, with the process, very little has been particularly helpful in marking out a constructive way forward. This Article takes some steps in that direction, offering a partial re-conceptualization of the nature and possibilities of global climate governance in the post-Copenhagen era. It starts from the premise that any realistic approach to climate governance must begin with the facts of globalization, legal pluralism, and fragmentation rather than the view that climate change is a particular kind of global problem that can only be solved through a top-down, supra-national regime aimed at managing the Earth system. As argued here, this "Earth systems governance" approach to the climate change problem, which derives from radically enhanced scientific and technical ways of understanding global environmental change and a particularly narrow view of collective action, has become deeply embedded as a basic objective of climate policy. The resulting logic of global environmental managerialism, however, is very much at odds with the plural, fragmented nature of the international legal and political order - a fact well illustrated by the limited results coming out of the recent climate meetings in Copenhagen and Cancún as well as the near total disarray that marks the current climate policy discourse in the United States and other major emitting countries. In contrast, an alternative, post-Copenhagen approach to the problem of climate governance that starts with the facts of globalization and its implications for law and legal order trains attention to new and different, and much messier, ways of coordinating efforts across jurisdictions and building enabling environments for collective action. This Article maps several key elements of post-Copenhagen climate governance through an analysis of efforts to bring reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation ("REDD") into climate policy. Although deforestation, nearly all of which occurs in the tropics, accounts for some fifteen percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, it has only recently become a major focus of climate policy, emerging as one of the few areas of consensus in the international climate negotiations. As a new paradigm for land use that implicates multiple legal and institutional orders at multiple levels, the REDD experience illustrates both the opportunities and the challenges of constructing climate governance through the complex articulation between distinctively global projects and particular national and sub-national institutions. Approaching climate governance from this perspective provides a basis for some more general claims regarding the possibilities of global environmental law in the context of a plural, fragmented international legal order.