Forest certification raised a significant amount of interest around the world and it is now increasingly hailed as an incentive to improve community forest management and poverty reduction since it is associated with local economic, social and environmental impacts. We analyzed the impacts found after certification of Kalobhir and Lahare community forest user groups respectively of Dolakha and Bajhang districts of Nepal and assessed the implications for local forest and livelihood management. The subject forest user groups were sorted out and studied following stakeholders and key informants consultations, field observations and literature review. Forest certification found a vehicle for local value addition, income generation and it helped abate negative environmental consequences. Associate positive changes included sustainable collection of forest products and maintenance of transparency, accountability, and equitable benefit sharing. Local enterprises and entrepreneurship were emerged. The revised forest operational plans were in consistent with forest certification indicators resulting in maintenance of inventory of major traded non-timber forest products with management prescriptions, identification of major biodiversity threats and their management plans, provision of general environmental impacts assessment, and wise-use management objectives. However, forest certification is in the growing phase, and it takes some time to accommodate a large number of CFUGs, to be competent and to access the international market for acquiring and sharing benefits among all.

The EU Timber Regulation bans illegal timber in Europe and requires due diligence on imported wood. Given the recent ratification of the EU-Indonesia Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), the Timber Regulation raises questions about the role that Indonesia's timber legality certification scheme—the SVLK—plays in securing access for Indonesian timber to the European market. Certified timber automatically qualifies for export to Europe under the VPA, but the SVLK has weaknesses which the VPA may be unable to address. The Timber Regulation might have helped, but it explicitly excludes VPA timber from its due diligence requirements. Critically, though, it continues to apply to Indonesian timber entering the EU via third countries. Whether it can address the SVLK's shortcomings as regards this timber depends on: (1) whether the SVLK meets the Regulation's certification scheme reliability criteria; and (2) whether the EUTR considers certification sufficient proof of legality to satisfy due diligence requirements.

This is the first study on carbon stock estimation in the tropical evergreen broadleaf forests in Central Highland, Vietnam. As result of selective logging and shifting cultivation, remaining forests are silviculturally classified to five categories by governmental standard basing on standing volume (V), including very poor forest (V ≤ 10 m³/ha), poor forest (10 < V ≤ 100 m³/ha), medium forest (100 < V ≤ 200 m³/ha), rich (200 < V ≤ 300 m³/ha), and very rich forest (V > 300 m³/ha). Carbon stock of four pools including big trees (diameter at breast height/dbh ≥ 5 cm), short vegetation layer (dbh < 5 cm), necromass, and soil was measured by using 150 plots of 50 m × 50 m each. Soil carbon stock was assessed from soil samples taken to 30 cm depth. The results indicated total carbon stock increased from 75 tons C/ha in very poor forest to 199 tons C/ha in medium forest, and to 255 tons C/ha in very rich forest. Carbon stock in necromass was significant different (ANOVA; F_(4,145) = 61.70, p < 0.001) among forest categories (from 4 to 8 tons C/ha). Meanwhile, there were no differences of carbon stock in soil and short vegetation layer among forest categories, which ranged 59–64 tons C/ha and 3–4 tons C/ha, respectively. There was a linear positive relationship between carbon in big trees and that in necromass (R₍₁₄₉₎ = 0.61, p < 0.01). It is concluded that the degree of human disturbance had significant impacts on carbon sink in the present study forests.

Forestry is one of Europe's largest land uses, for which adaptation to climate change will require coordinated action among multiple actors. However, so far, adaptation has been less placed in focus than has mitigation, and adaptation in the forest sector has mainly been reactive. This paper explores and reviews the integration of forestry in the development of planned adaptation policy in different countries. Sweden, Germany and France are taken as examples of countries with different developments of their adaptation policies as well as different requirements of their forest systems and actors. Italy is utilised as an example of how adaptation actions for forestry have been defined in a country where no national adaptation policy currently exists; in general, the results illustrate the seemingly large role of extreme events in driving adaptation policy forward in different policy systems.

Researchers and practitioners have amply discussed the potential of REDD to help or harm forest-based communities, but less attention has been paid to its gender dimensions. Safeguard policies are aimed at ensuring that REDD does not harm women, but interventions that do not seek to address imbalances at the outset may be doomed to perpetuate them. Based on research by the Center for International Forestry Research in 77 villages in 20 REDD sites across six countries, this article finds that women — even where they use forests as much or more — have been less involved in REDD initiative design decisions and processes than men, a situation with potentially significant implications for implementation and future outcomes. This article uses the research findings to argue that “participation”, while a central demand of indigenous and other local communities more generally, is only a partial solution to addressing women's strategic needs in ways that could strengthen their position in REDD . Rather, gender-responsive analyses are needed to understand real and perceived gender differences and anticipate risks.

Establishing forest reference emission levels (RELs) and/or forest reference levels (RLs) is an important task for developing country parties considering taking part in the REDD scheme under the UNFCCC, especially for those countries experiencing corresponding economic development with land use changes. In this research, Cambodia's forest areas and forest carbon stocks from 2011 to 2018 were forecasted, which can be used as a reference for establishing forest RELs in Cambodia. Conditional to the assumptions of population growth, the growth in agricultural gross value added, and the level of economic land concession implementations, the forecasts by panel data analysis to provincial-level data showed that the forest area in Cambodia will decrease to 9.94 million ha in 2014 and 9.51 million ha in 2018 from 10.36 million ha in 2010 and that forest carbon stocks will decrease to 1.22 PgC in 2014 and 1.17 PgC in 2018 from 1.28 PgC in 2010.

The present study explores the institutional design of Forest Management Units (FMUs) and its actual implementation in a locality where conflicts with local people or companies over state forests have been evident. The author reviewed related government regulations and conducted a field survey in Lampung province of an Indonesia's outer island of Sumatra. At the institutional level, establishment of FMUs and their management areas was mostly interpreted as a technical issue, and little provision for right settlements with local people was confirmed. Prescriptions of clear and adequate authority for FMUs to monitor and supervise company operations were also lacking. Accordingly, substantive measures to address the existing conflicts had not been implemented at the local level. If the government truly intends FMUs to function as part of governance processes at the local level, first of all, clear and adequate institutional provisions enabling them to function substantively should be prepared.

Indonesia, which contains the third-largest area of tropical forest in the world, is currently exploring policy options for the effective implementation of REDD , the global initiative to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. This article analyses the major questions regarding the effective distribution of benefits on the basis of three village case studies in Kutai Barat district in the province of East Kalimantan. The case studies demonstrate that companies are unlikely to take up compensation payments for stopping large-scale activities that cause deforestation and forest degradation, due to high opportunity costs. REDD finance may be more effectively used to reward small-scale dispersed activities that enhance carbon stocks, such as those already happening under Indonesia's community nursery programme. The analysis indicates the necessity for forest tenure reform, and in particular recognition of customary forest tenure through communal titles, which is more advantageous than the transfer of individual titles to households.

The growing economies in the South, market globalization, population growth, social conflicts and climate change increase the strain on land and forest resources, and require a cost effective and ecologically sound production of goods and services to meet public needs. Based on global assessment data, four country level (Ethiopia, China, Vietnam, Sweden) and six local case studies and using a multi-scale approach, this paper examines trends and drivers in household based plantation forestry and reviews how policies affecting forest plantation and land use are interpreted and implemented at the local level. It discusses how sustainable forestry systems and policies can be developed which provide industrial supplies, promote environmental objectives and support the livelihoods of people. Besides reflecting characteristics and diversity of current trends in plantation forestry, the paper illustrates that local landscape studies could help in explaining trends revealed by national inventories in a way relevant to policy and research.