Other Research Papers & Reports

TransLinks Research Papers & Reports Collection
Capital on the Move: The Changing Relation between Livestock and Labor in Mali, West Africa Capital on the Move: The Changing Relation between Livestock and Labor in Mali, West Africa

Capital on the Move: The Changing Relation between Livestock and Labor in Mali, West Africa. In dryland areas of Africa, livestock play important economic roles as commodities, wealth stores, producers of products, and agents of environmental change. Conventional depictions of livestock economies in this region have focused (in support or against) on the need for greater engagement of livestock producers with markets supplying meat to urban areas. This paper argues this singular focus has led analysts to ignore two important aspects of livestock economies: livestock as a preferred store of wealth across a wide range of social groups and the need for specialized labor to manage these livestock across open pastures to maintain their productive capacity and limit their negative environmental impacts. In the West African Sahel, the capital-like nature of livestock wealth has become more clear with a growing fraction of the region’s livestock owned by investors with little connection to livestock husbandry. Livestock investments are maintained on a day-to-day basis by hired herders who facilitate access to ephemeral pastures and water. A particular concern is the changing geographies of livestock ownership and the herding labor in relationship to regional pastures (to economic and environmental ends). This relationship will be explored using the case study of the Maasina region of central Mali – a historically important livestock region, which is now undergoing significant labor emigration. Building from a long-term ethnographic engagement with local livestock owners and herders, the results of ownership surveys of livestock herds across a 14- year period and interviews of urban-based emigrants from the study area about investment decisions will be used to analyze the changing geographies of livestock investment and herding labor in the Maasina.

Challenges to Establishing Payments for Ecosystem Services in Gabon: A Case study of the Mbé River Basin Challenges to Establishing Payments for Ecosystem Services in Gabon: A Case study of the Mbé River Basin

WCS is working with the Government of Gabon on a new Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiative to secure long-term protection of the high conservation value of the Mbé watershed in Gabon. The project is exploring ways to remunerate these upstream land managers for maintaining their land-use practices to secure the continued provision of a year round supply of high quality water. More broadly, the project also aims to address key barriers to developing sustainable PES mechanisms in Gabon and is being designed to maximize lesson learning and replicability.

Costs of Titling and Registration Projects Costs of Titling and Registration Projects

Neo-liberal economic theory is based on the foundation of private property and the market. Private property is the only to make sure that property ends up in the hands of the most efficient producers. And, a property system based on private and individual property rights makes the transactions of property and land (the land market) efficient. With this in mind, donor agencies since the 1980s have promoted and funded the creation of private property land markets in developing countries.

Ecosystem Marketplace-State of Watershed Payments Ecosystem Marketplace-State of Watershed Payments

A global research effort conducted by Ecosystem Marketplace identified a total of approximately 288 payments for watershed services (PWS) and water quality trading (WQT) programs in varying stages of activity over the past 30 years. In 2008, the baseline year, about 127 programs were actively receiving payments or transacting credits. The total transaction value from all programs actively engaged in 2008 is estimated at US$9.3 billion. Over the entire time span of recorded activity, total transaction value is estimated at slightly more than US$50 billion, impacting some 3.24 billion hectares. This report has 3 objectives, 1) to use project-level data to estimate the overall size and scope of the payments directed to protest or restore watershed services; 2) to account for the full spectrum of watershed services activities and track changes going forward, and 3) to look ahead at the opportunities and challenges based on the current level of transactions, experimentation, and lessons learned. Featured in News: USAID RM Portal Featured Stories, September 7, 2010.

Ecosystem Services for 2020 Ecosystem Services for 2020

Journal Article published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science Magazine, Vol. 330, 15 October 2010.

FY09 Programmatic Report to USAID TransLinks Program FY09 Programmatic Report to USAID TransLinks Program

In FY09, Forest Trends worked with USAID‘s Standing Forests Conservation Markets Initiative (SFCMI), through TransLinks, with the goal of increasing capacity in developing countries to protect biodiversity and carry out avoided deforestation activities through payments for ecosystem services (PES). The geographic focus has been on high-priority areas including: the Brazilian Amazon, the Andean region, Southeast Asia, as well as West and Central Africa. This report reviews FY09 accomplishments.

FY10 Programmatic Report to USAID-TransLinks Program and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) from Forest Trends FY10 Programmatic Report to USAID-TransLinks Program and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) from Forest Trends

This report reviews the FY10 accomplishments and work products related to: benefits and revenue sharing from PES analysis, legal analysis for PES in Peru, PES training modules, Katoomba - central Africa Planning, Katoomba - Marine meeting (February 2010), Katoomba - Mekong (June 2010), Katoomba - MAP event and USAID Brownbag on forest carbon (September 2010). Each work product is discussed in detail within the report.

Getting Started on REDD in Tanzania: A Scoping Study for the Katoomba Incubator Getting Started on REDD in Tanzania: A Scoping Study for the Katoomba Incubator

This "Incubator‟ Scoping Study was undertaken prior to more site-specific studies of potential Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) projects to be considered for support by the Katoomba Ecosystem Services Incubator. Analysis of a range of criteria, including key legal and institutional constraints to REDD projects, resulted in the identification of REDD project types with the best market potential as well as responding to the criteria of the Incubator, e.g., community benefits

Identifying a potential lion Panthera leo stronghold in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, and Parc National des Virunga, Democratic Republic of Congo Identifying a potential lion Panthera leo stronghold in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, and Parc National des Virunga, Democratic Republic of Congo

Confirming if threats to lions are severe or lion populations are disappearing requires extensive surveys on the ground because aerial detection of lions is inaccurate. Abstract Conservationists are raising concerns over high lion Panthera leo mortality and prey population declines in the area at the frontier between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Confirming if threats to lions are severe or lion populations are disappearing requires extensive surveys on the ground because aerial detection of lions is inaccurate. Yet, ground surveys over large areas are unsafe or infeasible in the war-torn study area. We used aerial surveys of medium- to large-bodied ungulate prey to estimate lion abundance in two adjoining parks: Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, and Parc National des Virunga, Democratic Republic of Congo. We validated two approaches to predict lion abundance using total counts of lions from Uganda. From this, we predict the two national parks together could have held 221 lions in 2004 and they have the potential to hold 905 lions if prey recover and lion-specific mortality is curbed. This makes the region a potential stronghold for the species in central Africa. However, a recent one third decline in lion numbers in the Ugandan Park and pervasive threats to the Congolese Park lead us to recommend immediate conservation intervention for lions and their prey. In Uganda, we recommend focused action to protect lions from poaching and retaliation, whereas in Congo, general enforcement of wildlife protection and a ground-based survey for lions are needed

Implications of the Legal and Policy Framework for Tree and Forest Carbon in Ghana: REDD Opportunities Scoping Exercise Implications of the Legal and Policy Framework for Tree and Forest Carbon in Ghana: REDD Opportunities Scoping Exercise

This report presents an analysis of the legal and policy framework for tree and forest carbon in Ghana in an effort to contribute to this process. It shows that the current legal and regulatory structure for forestry and lands in Ghana provides indications of how carbon rights and benefits might be managed and distributed. The report also argues that realizing the full ecological and economic potential of REDD+ will require meaningful legal reforms and innovative application of existing mechanisms so as to effectively address the real drivers of deforestation and ensure permanence in any REDD+ activities.

Improving Poultry Production for Sustainability in the Ruaha Landscape, Tanzania Improving Poultry Production for Sustainability in the Ruaha Landscape, Tanzania

Shortages in protein availability are a well-known problem in village economies, especially in Africa, and the neurological and nutritional importance of animal-source protein is increasingly being recognized. A Newcastle disease vaccination program for chickens was undertaken to increase livestock productivity and to preemptively rule out Newcastle disease so that highly-pathogenic avian influenza would be more readily detected. This intervention offered an opportunity to examine how chicken vaccination affects household economies, and to test whether increased livestock productivity could reduce illegal hunting for bushmeat. We found that vaccinations did increase chicken production and egg and meat consumption but did not reduce the frequency of bushmeat consumption at the household level and, furthermore, that bushmeat consumption was not related to food security. Our findings suggest that bushmeat likely supplements (rather than substitutes) domestic meat, and its supply is driven by hunters’ demand for cash rather than household demand for protein

Legal Frameworks for REDD - Design and Implementation at the National Level (IUCN Environmental Policy and Law Paper No. 77) Legal Frameworks for REDD - Design and Implementation at the National Level (IUCN Environmental Policy and Law Paper No. 77)

Supplementary material for Forest Trend's Payments for Ecosystem Services Training Modules and Resources. Paper written by John Costenbader (Ed.), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This paper provides a detailed overview of regulatory design and implementation options specifically for a non-lawyer audience. This paper is based on the findings from four case studies (Brazil, Cameroon, Guyana and Papua New Guinea), each representing varying geographies, forest cover and deforestation rates and stages of REDD preparation. The study questions whether legal clarity is an essential component for successful national REDD programs.

New Pastoral Development Paradigm: Engaging the Realities of Property Institutions and Livestock Mobility in Dryland Africa New Pastoral Development Paradigm: Engaging the Realities of Property Institutions and Livestock Mobility in Dryland Africa

Abstract - The confluence of new understandings of dryland ecology and common property resource management has arguably led to a “new pastoral development paradigm” -- a paradigm that incorporates a widespread acceptance of the ecological and economic importance of livestock mobility within the context of devolving greater rangeland management authority to local groups. Despite over a decade of interest and attention generated by this new paradigm, little progress has been achieved on the ground. A major premise of this paper is that this impasse results from persistent conceptual difficulties surrounding the relationship between livestock mobility, nonequilibrium ecology, and common property institutions. These difficulties are best resolved through work grounded in the social and ecological realities of particular regions. The promise of such engagements is illustrated through case material from the annual grasslands of Sahelian region of West Africa. The policy implications resulting from a reconceptualization of the relationship between property and dryland ecology are presented. Final version printed in Society & Natural Resources: An International Journal,Volume 24, Issue 5, 2011.

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