Forest Policy and Economics最新文献

{"title":"Does international climate finance contribute to the adoption of zero deforestation policies? Insights from Brazil and Indonesia","authors":"Heiner von Lüpke ,&nbsp;Bence Mármarosi ,&nbsp;Charlotte Aebischer ,&nbsp;Egor Trushin ,&nbsp;Martha Bolaños ,&nbsp;Thomas Webb ,&nbsp;Eros Nascimento ,&nbsp;Djoko Suroso ,&nbsp;Gustavo Breviglieri","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103480","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103480","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>International climate finance (ICF) is a critical mechanism for reducing deforestation and supporting global climate cooperation, yet its effectiveness is often questioned on account of scale and implementation challenges. This paper addresses the question whether ICF, implemented through Official Development Assistance (ODA), is catalysing policy adoption in the land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sectors of Brazil and Indonesia and henceforth contributes to global climate cooperation. We deploy a novel analytical framework, which assesses the role of ICF in transnational policy processes, and analyse how international and domestic factors influence its effectiveness in supporting LULUCF policy adoption. We find that ICF actors are caught in a dilemma between stated objectives of policy reform and ambitious transformational change while at the same time have their legitimacy questioned as participants in domestic policy processes. Ultimately, political access to decision making spheres on policy adoption for climate and land use are denied to them. In Brazil, competing coalitions debate the implementation of the national forest law, while in Indonesia, ICF is confined to technocratic policy spheres, leaving critical decisions to the political economy sphere. Our findings suggest that for ICF to be effective in catalysing policy adoption and global cooperation, it must address legitimacy concerns through political dialogue and shift from ODA approaches towards equitable cooperation, which involves donors' policy efforts as well. To be politically attractive, better alignment of ICF with national development objectives is also crucial, which could take the form of just transition for climate and land use.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 103480"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143800604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impact of agricultural employment, gross domestic product, informal economy, institutional quality on forest cover in Ecuador","authors":"Brayan Tillaguango ,&nbsp;Rafael Alvarado ,&nbsp;Munir Ahmad ,&nbsp;Abdul Rehman ,&nbsp;Cem Işık ,&nbsp;José Chamba","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103479","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103479","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Protecting watersheds and conserving life in terrestrial ecosystems is associated with the presence of native forests. Forest conservation is an urgent environmental objective that promotes countries' sustainable development. This study empirically examines the impact of agricultural employment, Gross Domestic Product per capita, the informal economy, and institutional quality on forest cover in Ecuador. The research covers the period from 1990 to 2022. We employ advanced time series data techniques, which can accommodate time and frequency to determine the trajectory of forest cover. We provide robust empirical evidence demonstrating that agricultural employment, Gross Domestic Product per capita, the informal economy, institutional quality, and forest cover cointegrate when structural breaks, time, and frequency are considered. In the long term, agricultural employment and institutional quality have a positive impact on forest cover, whereas Gross Domestic Product per capita and the informal economy have a negative impact. Furthermore, agricultural employment and institutional quality have a Fourier causality relationship with forest cover. Environmental policymakers in Ecuador should encourage the regulation of informal economic activities and actively promote forest conservation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 103479"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143768208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deforestation and economic dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa: Does electricity fluctuations matter on forest conversion?","authors":"Hassan Swedy Lunku ,&nbsp;Zaiyang Li ,&nbsp;Felix Exavery Tebo","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103478","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103478","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Electricity fluctuations and deforestation in tropical forests and developing countries are significant threats to the environment and climate change, influencing forest, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. The inconsistent energy supply such as electricity forces industries and households to rely heavily on expensive and polluting alternatives, especially in rural areas, further straining economic resources and contributing to deforestation. This study contributes to the existing literature by assessing different shapes of Environmental Kuznets Curves for deforestation (EKCd) on economic development and forest conversion in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region, dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) with homogeneity variance characteristic used with a balanced panel data from 2000 to 2020. The results show the presence of inverted U-, N-, and conventional M-EKCd, economic growth indicates to influence the forest transition proposition and increasing rural-urban accessibility of electricity, clean fuels, and technologies for cooking influence a reduction of forest conversion rates in the region. The study found significant impacts on the growing population, international trade, and agricultural area; hence, the current study suggested that enhanced environmental policy and collaboration with advancements in clean energy accessibility can reduce deforestation rates and pave the way for inclusive development and sustainable forest resource exploitation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 103478"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143768209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Innovating forest science education through problem-based learning: Insights from a public university in Brazil","authors":"Luiza Lucena ,&nbsp;Audrey Robeson ,&nbsp;Cassiano José Lages Marinho Falcão ,&nbsp;Lorena Paulina ,&nbsp;Ana Clara Santana ,&nbsp;Rodrigo Hakamada","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103476","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103476","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The evolving market's demand for forest science professionals with dynamic skills and interdisciplinary knowledge calls for an urgent and renewed look at forest science education methods to produce professionals ready to tackle ‘real world’ challenges and climate change issues. Integrating problem-based learning (PBL) in forest science education offers a promising avenue to align the current demand for dynamic forest science professionals and teaching approaches in forest science programs. However, while PBL has been extensively studied in various educational settings, limited research studies document its application in forest sciences education, particularly in the context of Brazilian public universities. This study explores the perceived learning outcomes of a group of forest engineering students exposed to PBL and the challenges associated with implementing it in a public university in Brazil. We developed a survey to assess the perceived learning outcomes of 32 students exposed to the PBL methodology. The survey instrument comprised nine questions designed to measure students' self-assessment of learning outcomes. Overall, we found that students reported the development of skills in field experience, technical knowledge, teamwork, communication, interpersonal relationship, and more. The findings from this study highlight the potential of PBL in forest science education and provide insights into how this approach can better prepare students to become dynamic forest science professionals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 103476"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143760462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Environmentality and the making of compliant subjects: Insights from collaborative forest management innovations in Southwestern Ghana","authors":"Ransford Sackey ,&nbsp;Lawrence Kwabena Brobbey ,&nbsp;Eric Mensah Kumeh ,&nbsp;Joana Akua Serwaa Ameyaw","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103475","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103475","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Shifting from a coercive to a collaborative approach that engenders equity in processes and outcomes from forest management remains an aspiration in forest governance in many countries. Whereas several studies have analyzed how national policy changes and international developments collectively influence this change, the nature of the subjects created by the transition remains an open question. Drawing on the literature on governmentality and environmentality, we develop a framework along a compliant-resistance axis to analyze the different subjects created by two collaborative forest management innovations in Ghana: the modified taungya system and community forest monitoring. Analyzing data from 37 key informant interviews and three focus groups in a priority biodiversity hotspot of the country, the Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve, we identified four main types of subjects emerging from both initiatives: participatory, transformative, opportunistic and passive. Opportunistic subjects embrace both initiatives as a legitimate cover to encroach upon and convert various forest reserve areas to farmlands. Transformative subjects, such as <em>environpreneurs</em>, leverage both initiatives to establish \"green businesses\" that support forest rehabilitation and provide non-forest products, reducing people's dependency on the protected area. However, the subjects we identified neither adequately question the power of the state or non-governmental organizations over forest management nor challenge the inequalities these actors create when they restrict forest-fringe communities' access to their local environment while simultaneously opening these spaces to timber contractors and foreign investors under various schemes. Understanding the conditions that enable forest-fringe communities to overcome this challenge is an area for further study. Such insights are essential for promoting equity in ways that repair relationships between power-differentiated actors and their local environment, ultimately enabling nature recovery.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103475"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143675653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does gender really matter? How demographics and site characteristics influence behavior and attitudes of German small-scale private forest owners","authors":"Peter Hansen ,&nbsp;Malin Tiebel ,&nbsp;Tobias Plieninger ,&nbsp;Andreas Mölder","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103427","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103427","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When analyzing management behaviors of small-scale private forest owners, demographic variables such as income, age, or profession, and land characteristics such as forest holding size often emerge as important drivers. However, gender is frequently used in targeted outreach, even though the other variables regularly show higher predictive power. To shed light on this discussion, we examined the influences of a broad set of predictors including both land characteristics and sociodemographic factors such as gender on management activities, owner goals, perceived obstacles, and conservation attitudes as response variables. We used a questionnaire survey to collect quantitative data from 1268 small-scale private forest owners in northwestern Germany. Random forest models were used to predict the responses and to rank the predictors according to their variable importance. We found that the size of forest holdings often had a strong influence on economic activities, while the amount of broadleaf forest was important for conservation-oriented management decisions. While gender-specific outreach is a strong tool to empower formerly marginalized forest owner groups, gender was not found to be an important predictor of forest management activities in our analyses. We advocate considering other characteristics when conceiving communication with forest owners. In order to design carefully targeted policy instruments and outreach to forest owners, we propose a set of easily accessible owner parameters and land characteristics. These factors can guide more individualized conservation outreach strategies in small-scale private forests that are embedded in the overall livelihood systems of their owners.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103427"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143637592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainability performance of community forest enterprises (CFES) in Cameroon: Pathways to viable business models","authors":"Serge Mandiefe Piabuo ,&nbsp;Marjanke Hoogstra-Klein ,&nbsp;Verina Ingram ,&nbsp;Hens Runhaar ,&nbsp;Serge Mandiefe Piabuo ,&nbsp;Marjanke Hoogstra-Klein ,&nbsp;Verina Ingram ,&nbsp;Divine Foundjem-Tita ,&nbsp;Peter A. Minang ,&nbsp;Lalisa Duguma ,&nbsp;Hens Runhaar","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103470","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103470","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Community forestry has evolved from devolved forest management to the valorisation of forest resources for community development. Community forest enterprises (CFEs) now apply business approaches to enhance economic, social, and environmental outcomes. However, limited research has evaluated CFE performance in tropical countries across these dimensions. This paper proposes a contextualized multi-dimensional framework to evaluate CFEs' performance and applies it to nine CFEs in Cameroon. Data were collected from income and expenditure statements, forest land-use transects, satellite image analysis, and focus group discussions. The study evaluates the performance of Community Forest Enterprises (CFEs) in Cameroon using a multi-dimensional framework. The majority (66.67 %) are intermediate performers, with scores between 2.5 and 3. However, they score poorly on the economic dimension, making them intermediate but skewed performers with better scores on social and environmental dimensions. Only 11.11 % CFE is classified as an effective performer, with scores of three or above on all dimensions. The study found that CFEs face significant challenges in effectively allocating resources to trade in forest products and generating profits, resulting in poor economic performance. However, they perform better in investing in social projects, employing community members, and reducing illegal logging and agricultural expansion. Financial and technical support, policy coordination, and institutional collaboration are needed to improve performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103470"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143637593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Restorative effects of highway roadside urban forests: A simulated approach","authors":"Qunyue Liu ,&nbsp;Kunneng Jiang ,&nbsp;Ziming Wang ,&nbsp;Yumeng Wang ,&nbsp;Huiting Zhang ,&nbsp;Qingju Wang ,&nbsp;Hangqing Chen ,&nbsp;Donghuang Lin ,&nbsp;Ulrika K. Stigsdotter ,&nbsp;Yuxiang Lan","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103473","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103473","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The health benefits of urban forests have been extensively explored with participants walking or viewing them, while this topic has rarely been investigated with participants driving. Additionally, research in this area has rarely explored the specific context of highway roadside urban forest. Simulated driving was employed to study the impact of six highway roadside landscapes on drivers' perceived restorativeness and physiological responses. These landscapes included one barren landscape (as a comparative baseline) and five urban forest types, namely shrub-sides, shrub-regular, shrub-random, tree-regular, and tree-random settings, each characterized by varying greenness and complexity. A sample of 38 participants took part in six 10-min simulated driving tasks in random order. Perceived restorative potential and driving fatigue restoration were measured using a questionnaire. Physiological indicators, including heart rate variability and skin conductance level, were measured using Wireless Photo Plethysmograph and Electrodermal Activity Sensors. The results indicated significant differences in drivers' perceived restorativeness and physiological reactions to the six types of landscapes. The tree-random condition was associated with a relatively more favorable perceived restorativeness and physiological state, while the barren condition resulted in the least desirable outcomes. Moreover, higher greenness was associated with better perceived restorativeness and physiological status for drivers. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in perceived restorativeness and physiological status between landscapes with high greenness and high complexity, and those with high greenness and moderate complexity. The study highlights the perceived restorative and physiological benefits of highway roadside urban forest landscape and provides valuable guidance for their design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103473"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143600511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Participatory mapping of degradation and restoration processes in the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem","authors":"Md. Abul Bashar Polas ,&nbsp;Ronju Ahammad ,&nbsp;Emmeline Topp ,&nbsp;Tobias Plieninger","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103460","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103460","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mangrove degradation is common in many (sub)tropical coastal areas, driven by anthropogenic activities such as overharvesting of natural resources. Additional pressures, such as increasing population, and sea level rise associated with climate change, are affecting the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem in Bangladesh. The protection and restoration of the Sundarbans is important to maintain social-ecological benefits for millions of people living in this critically vulnerable coastal forest region. Ecosystem degradation and restoration strategies have so far rarely been assessed through the perspectives of local communities. Our study aimed to explore degradation processes and opportunities for social-ecological restoration among local people in the Sundarbans. We combined the DPSIR framework with a Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) approach, involving 251 local individuals among four livelihood groups (tertiary sector, forest-dependent, aquaculture, and agriculture), to capture their spatial understanding of mangrove degradation and restoration dynamics. A total of 1297 geolocations for degradation and restoration response measures were mapped. Respondents mapped drivers of degradation across the national reserve forest, while restoration responses were perceived to be clustered in the western region. Overharvesting of resources was considered as an important degradation driver, and mangrove loss and water pollution as dominant pressures. People with forest-dependent livelihoods placed greater importance on drivers, pressures and impacts of mangrove degradation than those in the agriculture, aquaculture and tertiary sectors. Future research should focus on integrated approaches that enable forest managers to spatially assess degradation and promote socially acceptable and locally-led ecosystem restoration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103460"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143600510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainable forestry logistics: Using modified A-star algorithm for efficient timber transportation route optimization","authors":"Omid Veisi ,&nbsp;Mohammad Amin Moradi ,&nbsp;Beheshteh Gharaei ,&nbsp;Farid Jabbari Maleki ,&nbsp;Morteza Rahbar","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103456","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103456","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The use of brown, recyclable wood resources has significant importance in a country like Canada, given their abundant availability. Nevertheless, the conveyance of these timber resources to wood recycling facilities offers many economic and environmental benefits to pertinent entities. One potential drawback is that the forest ecosystem could endure substantial harm and ultimately disappear if every road were utilized as access points for timber-transporting vehicles. The main aim of this project is to collect the maximum amount of recycled wood using a minimum forest road network to achieve smart logistics systems. An additional objective of this research is to ascertain the optimal search radius and blocks of area for conducting woodland searches at each station, taking into consideration the quantity of collected wood. The methodology employed in this study involves the application of geometric networking integration techniques in Geographic Information Systems to generate integrated maps using the forest route data, and a modified A-Star algorithm is utilized to efficiently determine the optimal wood recycling forest road. The study's results suggest that using the Modified A-Star algorithm enables a recycling rate between 50 % and 70 % for the collection of all wood items while utilizing just 10 % of the road network. This approach and technique might be used in future research conducted in countries with similar forest coverage levels.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103456"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143609264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}