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  Siberia - Asia's great wilderness »

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  ECO-ED: rhetoric or progress? »

  The World Congress for Education and Communication on Environment and Development (ECO-ED), which took place in Toronto, Canada, 17-21 October 1992, was multisectoral in scope, accommodating individuals and groups from business, aid agencies, the NGO community, government, the media, UN agencies (UNEP/UNESCO), educators and education associations.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Protecting the future: carbon, forest, protected areas and local livelihoods »

  Protected areas can act as a case study for REDD: lessons can be learnt from their success or otherwise in reducing deforestation and supporting local livelihoods. Further research into the most effective management and governance frameworks for acheiving goals on carbon emissions, biodiversity and communities, and the extent to which protected areas reduce (or merely displace) deforestation within national boundaries would be useful in informing REDD implementation.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  CITES and the livelihoods of the poor »

  Recent CITES decisions that accepted an obligation to take into account the impacts of CITES listings on the livelihoods of the poor, have some affinities with the ‘Do no harm’ approach to the livelihoods of the poor. The process will produce guidelines and rapid assessment tools. If these guidelines and tools are to be effective they will need to take account of the context-specific nature of solutions in this area. The CITES case provides lessons for other international conservation institutions whose activities affect the livelihoods of the poor at the local level.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Measuring social impacts in conservation: experience in using the most significant change method »

  Here we describe a method for standardizing the collection and analysis of stories of change that originated in, and is commonly employed by, the development sector. Trials of the use of the Most Significant Change method in a range of Fauna & Flora International's partnership projects revealed not only its value as a monitoring tool alongside more familiar surveys and quantitative data collection but also as a participatory management tool that improved staff capacity and project adaptive management and responsiveness.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Synthesis of Effects in Four Arctic Subregions »

  An assessment of impacts on Arctic terrestrial ecosystems has emphasized geographical variability in responses of species and ecosystems to environmental change. This variability is usually associated with north-south gradients in climate, biodiversity, vegetation zones, and ecosystem structure and function. It is clear, however, that significant east-west variability in environment, ecosystem structure and function, environmental history, and recent climate variability is also important.Some areas have cooled while others have become warmer.

  Overall, the subregional synthesis demonstrates the difficulty of generalizing projections of responses of ecosystem structure and function, species loss, and biospheric feedbacks to the climate system for the whole Arctic region and implies a need for a far greater understanding of the spatial variability in the responses of terrestrial arctic ecosystems to climate change.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Commercialisation of non-timber forest products: first steps in analysing the factors influencing success »

  Although trade in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) has been widely promoted as an approach to rural development, recent research has indicated that NTFP commercialisation is often not successful. Analysis of the factors influencing success of NTFP commercialisation has been hindered by the lack of an appropriate analytical approach for comparison of case studies. We tested and further developed a methodology recently developed by CIFOR, by examining 16 NTFP case studies in two workshops held in Mexico and Bolivia involving a variety of stakeholders involved in NTFP commercialisation.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Disentangling the links between conservation and poverty reduction in practice »

  Biodiversity conservation is increasingly expected to reduce poverty where the two coincide. Yet conservation and poverty are multifaceted concepts and the linkages between them are complex and variable; whether and how conservation contributes to poverty reduction in practice will depend on the specific nature of those linkages.
  To unravel this complexity we explored the portfolio of Fauna & Flora International, an international conservation organization operating in some of the poorest countries and regions. We examined reports from 88 projects and categorized the rationales, approaches and outcomes of a sample of 34 livelihoods-focused projects.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Use of a Bayesian Belief Network to Predict the Impacts of Commercializing Non-timber Forest Products on Livelihoods »

  Commercialization of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) has been widely promoted as a means of sustainably developing tropical forest resources, in a way that promotes forest conservation while supporting rural livelihoods. However, in practice, NTFP commercialization has often failed to deliver the expected benefits. Progress in analyzing the causes of such failure has been hindered by the lack of a suitable framework for the analysis of NTFP case studies, and by the lack of predictive theory.

  We address these needs by developing a probabilistic model based on a livelihood framework, enabling the impact of NTFP commercialization on livelihoods to be predicted.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Entrepreneurship in value chains of non-timber forest products »

  Entrepreneurship and innovation by actors in the market for non-timber forest products (NTFPs) cannot be fully understood without a proper understanding of the position and behaviour of actors in the value chain of NTFPs. This paper places the market for NTFPs in the emerging literature on value chains which has, so far, lacked a detailed analysis of NTFPs. Our analysis reveals that certain key entrepreneurs are a driving force of success throughout several NTFP value chains in both Bolivia and Mexico. Where market information is scarce, e.g. where producers are distant from consumers, key entrepreneurs often govern entire value chains.

  Rather than criticising the monopolistic position of individuals, it is important to understand how the activity of key entrepreneurs can be supported in spreading successful commercialisation further and where necessary control negative impacts of their role. Our analysis indicates that policies to support commercialisation of the case study NTFPs would also need to be tailored to each value chain.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers