1,721,001 research outputs found
Evaluating carbon offsets from forestry and energy projects
Full text linkUnder the Kyoto Protocol, industrial countries accept caps on their emissions of greenhouse gases. They are permitted to acquire offsetting emissions reductions from developing countries - which do not have emissions limitations - to assist in complying with these caps. Because these emissions reductions are defined against a hypothetical baseline, practical issues arise in ensuring that the reductions are genuine. Forestry-related emissions reduction projects are often thought to present greater difficulties in measurement and implementation, than energy-related emissions reduction projects. The author discusses how project characteristics affect the process for determining compliance with each of the criteria for qualifying. Those criteria are: 1) Additionality. Would these emissions reductions not have taken place without the project? 2) Baseline and systems boundaries (leakage). What would business-as-usual emissions have been without the project? And in this comparison, how broad should spatial, and temporal system boundaries be? 3) Measurement (or sequestration). How accurately can we measure actual with-project emissions levels? 4) Duration or permanence. Will the project have an enduring mitigating effect? 5) Local impact. Will the project benefit its neighbors? For all the criteria except permanence, it is difficult to find generic distinctions between land use change and forestry and energy projects, since both categories comprise diverse project types. The important distinctions among projects have to do with such things as: a) The level and distribution of the project's direct financial benefits. b) How much the project is integrated with the larger system. c) The project components'internal homogeneity and geographic dispersion. d) The local replicability of project technologies. Permanence is an issue specific to land use and forestry projects. The author describes various approaches to ensure permanence, or adjust credits for duration: the ton-year approach (focusing on the benefits from deferring climatic damage, and rewarding longer deferral); the combination approach (bundling current land use change and forestry emissions reductions with future reductions in the buyer's allowed amount); a technology-acceleration approach; and an insurance approach.Montreal Protocol,Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Decentralization,Global Environment Facility,Environmental Economics&Policies,Energy and Environment,Carbon Policy and Trading,Montreal Protocol,Climate Change
The forest-hydrology-poverty nexus in Central America : An heuristic analysis
Full text linkA"forest-hydrology-poverty nexus"hypothesis asserts that deforestation in poor upland areas simultaneously threatens biodiversity and increases the incidence of flooding, sedimentation, and other damaging hydrological processes. The authors use rough heuristics to assess the applicability of this hypothesis to Central America. They do so by using a simple rule of thumb to identify watersheds at greater risk of hydrologically significant land use change: these are watersheds where there is a relatively large interface between agriculture and forest, and where this interface is on a steep slope. The authors compare the location of these watersheds with spatial maps of poverty and forests (for Guatemala and Honduras) and with maps of population and forests (for Central America at large). The analysis is performed for watersheds defined at different scales. The authors find plausible evidence for a forest-biodiversity-poverty connection in Guatemala, and to a lesser extent in Honduras. In the rest of Central America, there are relatively few areas where forest meets agriculture on steep slopes-either the forest or the slopes are lacking. And the ratio of these forest/agriculture/hillside interfaces to watershed area declines markedly as larger-scale watersheds are considered. This directs attention to relatively small watersheds for further investigation of the"nexus."Hydrology,Water Conservation,Agricultural Research,Wetlands,Environmental Economics&Policies,Wetlands,Forestry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Hydrology,Agricultural Research
Geographic patterns of land use and land intensity in the Brazilian Amazon
Full text linkUsing census data from the Censo Agropecuario 1995-96, the authors map indicators of current land use, and agricultural productivity across Brazil's Legal Amazon, These data permit geographical resolution about ten times finer than afforded by"municipio"data, used in previous studies. The authors focus on the extent, and productivity of pasture, the dominant land use in Amazonia today. Simple tabulations suggest that most agricultural land in Amazonia yields little private economic value. Nearly ninety percent of agricultural land is either devoted to pasture, or has been out of use for more than four years. About forty percent of the currently used pastureland, has a stocking ratio of less that 0.5 cattle per hectare. Tabulations also show a skewed distribution of land ownership: almost half of Amazonian farmland is located in the one percent of properties that contain more than two thousand hectares. Multivariate analyses relate forest conversion, and pasture productivity to precipitation, soil quality, infrastructure, and market access, proximity to past conversion, and protection status. The authors find precipitation to have a strong deterrent effect on agriculture. The probability that land is currently claimed, or used for agriculture, or intensively stocked with cattle, declines substantially with increasing precipitation levels, holding other factors (such as road access) constant. Proxies for land abandonment are also higher in high rainfall areas. Together these findings suggest that the wetter Western Amazon is inhospitable to exploitation for pasture, using current technologies. On the other hand, land conversion, and stocking rates are positively correlated with proximity to past clearing. This suggests that in the areas of active deforestation in eastern Amazonia, the frontier is not :hollow:, and land use intensifies over time. But this area remains a mosaic of lands with higher, and lower potential agricultural value.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Climate Change,Wetlands,Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Wetlands,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Forestry
Measuring the initial impacts on deforestation of Mato Grosso's program for environmental control
Full text linkAlthough private forest use in Brazil has been regulated at least since the Forest Code of 1965, cumulative deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached 653,000 km2 by 2003 (INPE 2004). Much of this deforestation is illegal. In 1999, the State Foundation of the Environment (FEMA) in Mato Grosso introduced an innovative licensing and enforcement system to increase compliance with land use regulations. If successful, the program would deter deforestation that contravenes those regulations, including deforestation of riverine and hillside forest (permanent preservation areas), and reduction of a property's forest cover below a specified limit (the legal forest reserve requirement). This study seeks to assess whether introduction of the program affected landholder behavior in the desired direction. Simple before/after comparisons are not suitable for this purpose, because there is considerable year to year variation in deforestation due to climatic and economic conditions. Nor is it valid to assess program impacts by comparing licensed and unlicensed landholders, even though the program focused its enforcement efforts on the former. This is because, first, landholders with no intention of deforesting may choose to become licensed; and second, unlicensed landholders may be deterred from deforestation by the mere existence of a serious program that aims for universal licensing. To meet these challenges, the study applies a difference-in-difference approach to geographically explicit data. It looks for, and confirms, post-program declines in deforestation in high-priority enforcement areas relative to other areas; in more easily observed areas relative to less easily observed areas; and in areas of low remaining forest cover (where further deforestation is probably illegal) relative to high remaining forest cover. Thus, even against a backdrop of higher aggregate deforestation (driven in part by higher agricultural prices), there is evidence that the program in its early stages (before 2002) did shift landholder behavior in a direction consistent with reduced illegal deforestation. (The legality of deforestation was not however directly observed). The study hypothesizes that this behavioral change resulted from an initial perception of increased likelihood of the detection and prosecution of illegal deforestation, following announcement of the program. The study does not assess Mato Grosso's new system for environmental regulation (SLAPR) impacts following the change of state administration in 2003.Energy and Environment,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Environmental Economics&Policies,Forestry,Ecosystems and Natural Habitats
The domestic benefits of tropical forests : a critical review emphasizing hydrological functions
Full text linkThe authors critically review the literature on the net domestic (within-country) economic benefits of protecting tropical forests, focusing on hydrological benefits and the production of nontimber forest products. (The review does not consider other important classes of benefits, including global benefits of all kinds, ecological benefits which do not have instrumental economic value, and the existence value of forests.) Their main conclusions: (1)The level of net domestic benefits from forest preservation is highly sensitive to the alternative land use and to local climatic, biological, geological, and economic circumstances. When the alternative use is agroforestry or certain types of tree crops, the preservation of natural forests may yield no instrumental domestic benefits. (2)The hydrological benefits from forest preservation are poorly understood and likely to be highly variable. They may also be fewer than popularly assumed: Deforestation has not been shown to be associated with large-scale flooding. Tropicaldeforestation is generally associated with higher, not lower, dry season flows. Although it is plausible that deforestation should affect local precipitation, the magnitude and even the direction of the effects are unknown, except in the special case of cloud forests that"harvest"passing moisture. The link between deforestation and downstream sediment damage is sensitive to the basic topography and geology. Where sediment transport is slow - as in large, low-gradient basins - downstream impacts may manifest themselves in the distant future, so that the net present value of damage is small. Steep basins near reservoirs or marine fisheries, on the other hand, can cause substantial damage if land cover is severely disturbed. But only a few pioneering studies have examined the economics of reservoir sedimentation, and improved models of both sediment transport and dam function are needed. (3) The most impressive point estimates of forest value based on nontimber forest products are often based on atypical cases of faulty analysis. Where domesticated or synthetic substitutes exist, the nontimber forest product-related rents for natural forests will usually be driven toward zero.Water Conservation,Roads&Highways,Wetlands,Hydrology,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water Resources Assessment,Forestry,Hydrology,Roads&Highways,Wetlands
Roads, lands, markets, and deforestation : a spatial model of land use in Belize
Full text linkRural roads promote economic development but also facilitate deforestation. To explore the tradeoffs between development and environmental damage posed by road building, the authors develop and estimate a spatially explicit model of land use. This model takes into account location and land characteristics and predicts land use at each point on the landscape. They find that: (a) market access and distance to roads strongly affect the probability of agricultural use, especially for commercial agriculture; (b) high slopes, poor drainage, and low soil fertility discourage both commercial and semi subsistence agriculture; and (c) semi-subsistence agriculture is especially sensitive to soil acidity and lack nitrogen (confirming anthropological findings that subsistence farmers are shrewd judges of soil). Spatially explicit models are analytically powerful because they exploit rich spatial variation in causal variables, including the precise siting of roads. They are useful for policy because they can pinpoint threats to particular critical habitats and watersheds. This model is a descendant of the venerable von Thunen model. It assumes that land will tend to be devoted to its highest-value use, taking into account tenure and other constraints. The value of a plot for a particular use depends on the land's physical productivity for that use and the farmgate prices of relevant inputs and outputs. A reduced-form, multinomial logit specification of this model calculates implicit values of land in alternative uses as a function of land location and characteristics. The resulting equations can then be used for prediction or analysis. The model was applied to cross-sectional data for 1989-92 for Belize, a forested country currently experiencing rapid expansion of both subsistence and commercial agriculture. A geographic information system was used to manage the spatial data and extract variables based on the three kilometer sample grid. Three land uses were distinguished:"natural"vegetation, comprising forests, woodlands, wetlands, and savanna; semi-subsistence agriculture, comprising traditional milpa (slash-and-burn) cultivation and other nonmechanized cultivation of annual crops; and commercial agriculture, consisting mainly of sugarcane, pasture, citrus, and mechanized production of corn and kidney beans. Two dimensions of distance to market were distinguished: the distance from each sample point to the road, and on-road travel time to the nearest town. Data on a wide variety of land and soil characteristics were also used.Wetlands,Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Land Use and Policies,Forestry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Energy and Environment,Wetlands
Evaluating Carbon Offsets from Forestry and Energy Projects : How Do They Compare?
No full textUnder the Kyoto Protocol, industrial
countries accept caps on their emissions of greenhouse
gases. They are permitted to acquire offsetting emissions
reductions from developing countries - which do not have
emissions limitations - to assist in complying with these
caps. Because these emissions reductions are defined against
a hypothetical baseline, practical issues arise in ensuring
that the reductions are genuine. Forestry-related emissions
reduction projects are often thought to present greater
difficulties in measurement and implementation, than
energy-related emissions reduction projects. The author
discusses how project characteristics affect the process for
determining compliance with each of the criteria for
qualifying. Those criteria are: 1) Additionality. Would
these emissions reductions not have taken place without the
project? 2) Baseline and systems boundaries (leakage). What
would business-as-usual emissions have been without the
project? And in this comparison, how broad should spatial,
and temporal system boundaries be? 3) Measurement (or
sequestration). How accurately can we measure actual
with-project emissions levels? 4) Duration or permanence.
Will the project have an enduring mitigating effect? 5)
Local impact. Will the project benefit its neighbors? For
all the criteria except permanence, it is difficult to find
generic distinctions between land use change and forestry
and energy projects, since both categories comprise diverse
project types. The important distinctions among projects
have to do with such things as: a) The level and
distribution of the project's direct financial
benefits. b) How much the project is integrated with the
larger system. c) The project components' internal
homogeneity and geographic dispersion. d) The local
replicability of project technologies. Permanence is an
issue specific to land use and forestry projects. The author
describes various approaches to ensure permanence, or adjust
credits for duration: the ton-year approach (focusing on the
benefits from deferring climatic damage, and rewarding
longer deferral); the combination approach (bundling current
land use change and forestry emissions reductions with
future reductions in the buyer's allowed amount); a
technology-acceleration approach; and an insurance approach
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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