Land Tenure Center
2010
Credible Conservation: Using biodiversity monitoring to support incentive programs that protect endangered wildlife
Tenure Brief, No. 13: October 2010 - Market-based, economic incentive programs reward land users for conserving environmental services, habitat, or biodiversity. Such programs can be instrumental in protecting endangered wild animals persisting on private lands. To ensure success, these programs must be accompanied by effective monitoring strategies that can reveal whether conservation is occurring or not.
Impacts of Payments for Ecosystem Services on Deforestation in Mexico: Preliminary Lessons for REDD
Tenure Brief, NO. 11: September 2010 - The brief summarizes an evaluation of the environmental effectiveness of Mexico’s national Payments for Hydrological Services program, which compensates rural landowners for avoided deforestation. The evaluation found that in an early year of implementation Mexico’s program had a small to moderate but significant effect in reducing deforestation, indicating that financial compensation policies can be effective in preventing environmental degradation. The research also suggests that some slippage of deforestation may have occurred, implying that avoided deforestation is best accounted for at a regional or national level.
How much does land titling cost?
Paper by Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Monitoring and Enforcing Payment for Ecosystem Services Programs: Lessons Learned
Tenure Brief, No, 14: October 2010 - Private landowners and other community members should be rewarded for protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity locally. To be sustainable, such incentive schemes must include training for community members to monitor and enforce compliance. An ongoing project in Ecuador is developing cost-effective, long-term monitoring strategies for a program aimed at protecting large and endangered animals. This brief summarizes the lessons learned.
Parks and Poverty: Lessons from a decade of forest loss and economic growth around Kibale National Park, Uganda
ABSTRACT: Field data linked to Landsat ETM and ASTER image analysis reveals the patterns and biodiversity impacts of deforestation in western Uganda between 1995 and 2006. Communal forest patches were reduced by nearly half during this period and we observed marked declines in species richness of both canopy level trees and primates. Deforestation was significantly slower within Kibale National Park where commercial forest extraction and agricultural clearing were prohibited. Yet a bad decade for the forest proved a prosperous one for most local residents. Longitudinal data for 252 households show substantial improvements in welfare indicators, with the greatest increases found among those with the highest initial assets; as a result wealth inequalities increased over time. Nearly a quarter of households sold land, an economic strategy of last resort in rural Uganda, and 10% lost their land altogether. The risk of land loss amongst the poor was inversely correlated with proximity to the park, initial farm size, and decline in communal forests. We conclude the current disproportionate presence of poor households at the edge of the park does not signal that the park is a poverty trap.
Knowledge Gap: Slippage Effects in Incentive-based Conservation Policies
Paper by the Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison
Soil Carbon and Land Use Change in the Tropics: an Updated Meta-Analysis
ABSTRACT: Soil carbon stocks are a vital component of ecosystem services, particularly in the tropics. Recent attention has focused effects of land-use change in the tropics on soil carbon stocks to better understand how human activities have influenced the release of carbon from soils. We conducted an updated meta-analysis of data from 144 studies that measured soil carbon under different land uses across the tropics. Mean soil carbon stocks vary between dry (55 MgC/ha, <1000 mm MAP), moist (67 MgC/ha, 1000-2500 mm MAP), and wet (85 MgC/ha, >2500 mm MAP) climates with wet climates having the highest mean stocks for each land use. Overall, grasslands (604 MgC/ha) and cultivated sites (594 MgC/ha) have statistically significant lower soil carbon stocks than pastures (684 MgC/ha), which do not differ significantly from unconverted forests (803 MgC/ha) and secondary forests (842 MgC/ha). Using a regression tree analysis, we show that soil type and climate are the most influential factors in determining the fate of soil carbon during conversion from one land use to another. Hence, understanding a site’s environment is crucial for predicting the loss or gain of soil carbon. Our soil carbon meta-analysis revealed a number of challenges for comparing soil carbon stocks across studies. These include comparing soil carbon concentrations when differences in bulk density are unknown, variation in sampling depths and replication, and incomplete knowledge of site land use history. Addressing these challenges will enhance our understanding of rates of soil carbon sequestration and factors contributing to the fate of soil carbon.
Strategic tradeoffs for wildlife-friendly eco-labels
Article published in The Ecological Society of America. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Issue No 9, Vol 8, November 2010, 491–498 (published online 2 Sep 2010) - ABSTRACT: Labels on products are meant to influence consumer behavior. Consumers buying products labeled as ecofriendly may hope to help conserve the environment, but eco-labels vary in their claims and credibility. We define three types of wildlife-friendly eco-labels, according to their potential to conserve wildlife, and describe barriers to convincing consumers of their claims. Eco-labels we term “Supportive” donate revenues to conservation organizations and are, at best, indirect interventions, opaque to consumer scrutiny. “Persuasive” eco-labels certify manufacturing/collection practices, under the assumption that wildlife will benefit as a result. “Protective” eco-labels certify wildlife conservation, which can gain the highest level of credibility, but require the greatest verification effort. Proving that producers conserved wildlife is costly, time-consuming, and technically challenging, because wild animals ignore property boundaries and experience mortality and dispersal irrespective of people, but their population dynamics often obscure the role of human activities and economic practices. Nevertheless, wild animals are among the most inspiring and marketable components of the environment.
Whom to pay? Key Concepts and Terms Regarding Tenure and Property Rights in Payment-based Forest Ecosystem Conservation
Tenure Brief, No. 15: December 2010 - We define key tenure terms related to forests and highlight concepts likely to be encountered in the design, implementation or evaluation of incentive-based conservation programs—such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). Additionally, we discuss policy options that can clarify property rights and strengthen tenure security.
Tropical Land Use Change and Soil Carbon: Implications for REDD Policies
Tenure Brief, No. 12, October 2010 - The release of soil carbon due to changes in land use can be a major source of greenhouse gases. This brief illustrates the distribution and scale of soil carbon in the humid tropics, an area with high concentrations of carbon soil stocks. The brief further analysis the impact that various land use changes have on these stocks, and the implications for climate change.
Forest Conservation and Slippage: Evidence from Mexico's National Payments for Ecosystem Services Program (Presentation)
Presentation by Land Tenure Center
Land tenure issues in tropical forests: whom to pay for biodiversity conservation? (Presentation)
Presentation given by Land Tenure Center at ICREI Conference on Biodiversity, June 17-18, 2010 in Aix-en-Provence, France
Tropical Land Use Change and Soil Carbon: Implications for REDD (Presentation)
Presentation given by Land Tenure Center at USAID Biodiversity & Forestry Seminar Series on June 16, 2010
Bear Calendar
Wildlife Friendly Enterprises Bear Calendar
Community engagement and training parabiologists - Midterm Report
Midterm Report for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service International Programs, August 18, 2010
Research on land tenure, forest governance, and land use change in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon
OVERVIEW: As part of our overall engagement with partners in Ecuador, we are performing research in the provinces of Sucumbios and Orellana, in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon, referred to locally as the “Oriente”. We explore the relationship between land tenure and land use change in this region, looking specifically at land tenure security, deforestation, and the varying impacts of different forms of forest management and land tenure on forest cover outcomes. Our two main studies, along with information on our partners, are outlined below. A primary objective of this overall body of research is to help inform the ongoing implementation, monitoring, and amplification of Ecuador’s national PES program, SocioBosque.
Land tenure and deforestation research update
Report
Participatory Planning of Interventions to Mitigate Human-Wildlife Conflicts
ABSTRACT: Conservation of wildlife is especially challenging when the targeted species damage crops or livestock, attack humans, or take fish or game. Affected communities may retaliate and destroy wildlife or their habitats. We summarize recommendations from the literature for 13 distinct types of interventions to mitigate these human–wildlife conflicts. We classified eight types as direct (reducing the severity or frequency of encounters with wildlife) and five as indirect (raising human tolerance for encounters with wildlife) interventions. We analyzed general cause-and-effect relationships underlying human–wildlife conflicts to clarify the focal point of intervention for each type. To organize the recommendations on interventions we used three standard criteria for feasibility: cost-effective design, wildlife specificity and selectivity, and sociopolitical acceptability. The literature review and the feasibility criteria were integrated as decision support tools in three multi-stakeholder workshops. The workshops validated and refined our criteria and helped the participants select interventions. Our approach to planning interventions is systematic, uses standard criteria, and optimizes the participation of experts, policy makers, and affected communities. We argue that conservation action generally will be more effective if the relative merits of alternative interventions are evaluated in an explicit, systematic, and participatory manner.
Security in land tenure and incentives for forest conservation
ECOLEX Report (in Spanish). Title: Seguridad en la tenencia de la tierra e incentivos para la conservación de bosques)
