Assessing the Role of Group Heterogeneity in Community Forest Concessions in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve

Fortmann, Lea; Sohngen, Brent; Southgate, Douglas

doi:10.3368/le.93.3.503

Cited by 30 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…We found evidence of both positive effects (Bowler et al, 2012;Fortmann, Sohngen, & Southgate, 2017;Pelletier, Gélinas, & Skutsch, 2016) and no effects (Heltberg, 2001;Pelletier et al, 2016;Rasolofoson, Ferraro, Jenkins, & Jones, 2015) of CFM on deforestation within the delineated forests, but no evidence of worsening deforestation ( Figure S4). If we only consider quasi-experimental studies (Study III evidence type, Table 1), the number of neutral outcomes exceeds the number of positive outcomes (Rasolofoson et al, 2015;Santika et al, 2017).…”

Section: Community Forest Managementmentioning

confidence: 89%

What works in tropical forest conservation, and what does not: Effectiveness of four strategies in terms of environmental, social, and economic outcomes

Buřivalová

Allnutt²,

Rademacher³

et al. 2019

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Tropical forests and their biodiversity are disappearing, despite decades of conservation efforts. Are we now in a position to understand whether some conservation strategies work better while others consistently fail in protecting tropical forests? We searched the literature to evaluate four mainstream strategies (forest certification and reduced impact logging, payments for ecosystem services, protected areas, community forest management) in terms of 35 environmental, social, and economic metrics. We evaluated whether applying the strategy improved, left unchanged, or worsened the conservation metrics and we created an interactive platform to view the data. We concluded that (a) the scientific literature on the effectiveness of conservation strategies in tropical forests is still vastly inadequate, due to poor design, lack of scope, and too few examples; (b) the effects of conservation on biodiversity and the economic outcomes of conservation are particularly understudied; and (c) all strategies fail at least some of the times, but all of them succeed at least some times. Our recommendation is that each new instance of implementing a given strategy should consider in detail, at the very least, the negative evidence on the given strategy, in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes. We introduce an interactive, dynamic platform to host various types of conservation effectiveness evidence.

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Section: Community Forest Managementmentioning

confidence: 89%

What works in tropical forest conservation, and what does not: Effectiveness of four strategies in terms of environmental, social, and economic outcomes

Buřivalová

Allnutt²,

Rademacher³

et al. 2019

Conservat Sci and Prac

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show abstract

“…Evaluation of policy outcomes where a single aggregate unit like a country is exposed to an intervention and the policy target is determined for the country as a whole is challenging, in part because it is difficult to decide what the comparative units are (i.e., counterfactuals; what would have occurred in the absence of the intervention). In many cases where projects to reduce deforestation are examined such as the establishment of protected areas, the control group is easier to determine, particularly if it is derived from within the same country (17,49,50). In our case, the policy target is the rate of forest loss for an entire country, Guyana, and we choose as the control group other countries that are similar to Guyana based on the underlying structural processes related to forest loss and forest cover (SI Appendix, 2).…”

Section: Construction Of the Counterfactual Time Series Using The Synmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence that a national REDD+ program reduces tree cover loss and carbon emissions in a high forest cover, low deforestation country

Roopsind

Sohngen

Brandt

2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a climate change mitigation policy in which rich countries provide payments to developing countries for protecting their forests. In 2009, the countries of Norway and Guyana entered into one of the first bilateral REDD+ programs, with Norway offering to pay US$250 million to Guyana if annual deforestation rates remained below 0.056% from 2010 to 2015. To quantify the impact of this national REDD+ program, we construct a counterfactual times-series trajectory of annual tree cover loss using synthetic matching. This analytical approach allows us to quantify tree cover loss that would have occurred in the absence of the Norway-Guyana REDD+ program. We found that the Norway-Guyana REDD+ program reduced tree cover loss by 35% during the implementation period (2010 to 2015), equivalent to 12.8 million tons of avoided CO2 emissions. Our analysis indicates that national REDD+ payments attenuated the effect of increases in gold prices, an internationally traded commodity that is the primary deforestation driver in Guyana. Overall, we found strong evidence that the program met the additionality criteria of REDD+. However, we found that tree cover loss increased after the payments ended, and therefore, our results suggest that without continued payments, forest protection is not guaranteed. On the issue of leakage, which is complex and difficult to quantify, a multinational REDD+ program for a region could address leakage that results from differences in forest policies between neighboring countries.

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“…Thus, it can create incentives for land to be kept as forest. For example, in the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) (Guatemala), FSC-certified forestry operations in communityheld and industrial concessions generate income that exceeds from agriculture and provides employment for ~25% of the population associated with the concession; in those areas, concession management was also effective in reducing deforestation (Bocci et al, 2018;Fortmann et al, 2017).…”

Section: Fsc Certification As a Way To Address Forest Land Tenure Ins...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These groups came together voluntarily to form a concession out of common interest in forest management, and many of the members had previous forestry experience. Additionally, the more successful groups also had stronger local and social ties, including two concession communities that have been long established in the Petén and have historically depended on the forests and its resources for their livelihoods (Gómez & Méndez, 2007;Fortmann et al, 2017). The concessions that have failed are primarily the recently inhabited concessions made up of members coming from predominantly agricultural backgrounds.…”

Section: Box 131 Case Study: Community Forest Concessions Of Guatemal...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the Traditional: Voluntary Market-Based Initiatives to Promote Land Tenure Security

Miteva

Fortmann

2022

Land Tenure Security and Sustainable Development

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Tropical forests in developing countries are important for the provision of global ecosystem services, but also tend to be characterized by weak formal governance, high dependence on natural resource use, and, hence, rapid depletion of natural resources. Depending on the context, informal institutions may be insufficient as well. Focusing on native forests and the Forest Stewardship Council forest management certification scheme, we examine the role of markets and global supply chains as a mechanism for overcoming institutional failures and legitimizing rights to natural resources by rural communities. We posit that, in the absence of effective local institutions, voluntary certification, under certain conditions, can be a viable mechanism for the fair delineation, monitoring, and enforcement of forest property rights in developing countries.

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Assessing the Role of Group Heterogeneity in Community Forest Concessions in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve

Cited by 30 publications

References 37 publications

What works in tropical forest conservation, and what does not: Effectiveness of four strategies in terms of environmental, social, and economic outcomes

What works in tropical forest conservation, and what does not: Effectiveness of four strategies in terms of environmental, social, and economic outcomes

Evidence that a national REDD+ program reduces tree cover loss and carbon emissions in a high forest cover, low deforestation country

Beyond the Traditional: Voluntary Market-Based Initiatives to Promote Land Tenure Security

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