This paper examines local views and experiences of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD ) in Nepal, using a mixed-method political ecology approach in three community forest user groups across Nepal's diverse forest ecoregions with varying levels of REDD experience. The study finds positive expectations of REDD to varying degrees, paired with key concerns arising throughout REDD implementation. In particular, forest products needed for livelihood practices cannot be fully replaced by monetary benefits of REDD for forest harvesting restrictions. Further, increased elite capture, corruption, and power shift away from the community through the alliance of local elites with external actors in response to increased upward accountability for carbon increments. The findings urge that REDD should scrutinize and mitigate local adverse effects on existing community governance, and its goals need to be carefully reconciled with the local non-monetary livelihood needs.

Criteria for assessing success or failure of forest co-management programmes may vary among different participating actors. Local people are important actors in co-management, thus understanding their perceived criteria is important in evaluating forest co-management programmes. We interviewed 134 ordinary community members and 21 committee members participating in a forest co-management programme in Zomba and Ntchisi, Malawi in order to understand how local actors understand and define criteria for assessing forest co-management programme. Respondents identified five criteria including forest conservation, access to forest resources, participation in decision making, infrastructure development and improved livelihoods. Ordinary community members highlighted access to forest resources and improved livelihoods as important success criteria, whilst committee members identified forest conservation as an important criterion, and the difference was significant in both Zomba (χ² = 11.79. p = 0.036) and Ntchisi (χ² = 8.97, p = 0.042). Furthermore, perceived criteria were influenced by household socio-economic characteristics including gender, wealth status and level of education. Thus, evaluation studies should be designed to capture perspectives and experiences across social strata within a community.

The Chinese government has carried out ambitious reforms in the country's collective forest sector since 2003. Based on two case studies from Yunnan Province, this paper examines the effects of China's Collective Forest Tenure Reform with regard to villagers' participation in their implementation of the reform, their effects on formal tenure rights and the changes to actual tenure rights on the basis of two case studies from Yunnan. The case studies show that higher levels of participation by villagers can lead to changes in formal and actual tenure rights that bring these rights more into line with national objectives. Thus, decentralization may be a critical precondition for successful forest tenure reform in China and beyond.

Forest-Based Micro and Small Enterprises (FMSEs) are a major source of income for both rural and urban areas of most developing countries, and Nepal is no exception. Though not given enough priority compared to large scale enterprises, FMSEs have contributed substantially to supporting livelihoods of marginalized and low income people by generating employment opportunities throughout the developing world. FMSEs provide employment to a large number of rural people in Nepal who have limited access to other off-farm employment opportunities, however, they are not growing well due to the ineffectiveness of enterprise promotion activities. Different enterprise promotion approaches are being implemented in Nepal by External Development Agencies (EDAs) in collaboration with local Community Based Organizations (CBOs). In this review, we analyzed the effectiveness of existing FMSEs' intervention approaches followed by EDAs, current status and constraints, and possible scopes of FMSEs in Nepal with reference to other developing countries. Five implementing approaches that are currently adopted by EDAs in Nepal have succeeded in the promotion of FMSEs to some extent. However, those approaches do still need to be improved in order to fully suit local contexts. In this respect, we suggest Integrated FMSEs Development approach for Nepal and other developing countries coupled with some recommendations.

The Chinese government has launched a new wave of reform of collective forestland tenure, with a series of matching reform measures since 2003. The overall goals of these reforms were to increase peasants' income while enhancing sustainable forest resource management. Using a unique large-scale household dataset gathered over eight years, we examine the effects of the new collective forest reforms on peasants' income, labour input and investment for forestry purposes and forest resource management. After examining in detail a number of determinants, we find that the effects of these reforms are varied. Rural households have benefited from the reforms with increased income from forestry, at the expense of a greater degree of forest fragmentation. The NRCFT and the MRMs have not encouraged rural households to invest more for forestry purposes, due to a lack of institutionalized financial support to peasants. Well-designed mechanisms to forest investment in sustainable forest management are called for.

In the future the forest-based sector could play a central role in the sustainable economic growth of the European Union through reducing dependence on non-renewable resources and managing natural resources sustainably. In order to define a national forestry strategy it is fundamental that all relevant stakeholders are consulted in an open and transparent manner. This study focuses on the analysis of the stakeholders' opinions on different actions to enhance forest-based sector. The stakeholders' opinions were analyzed statistically to identify the best strategy in order to improve the economic conditions of the forest sector in a case study in Italy. Data were collected through a questionnaire submitted to 99 stakeholders. The following two considerations can be highlighted as resulting from the analysis of the questionnaires: promoting forest certification and improving environmental and cultural forest values (e.g., eco-tourism, environmental education).

New policies have the potential to enhance the role of specific public administrations in relation to other agencies active in a particular field. This is especially true for international interventions, which are often used by domestic actors to increase their power capabilities. International, donor driven initiatives on community forestry (CF) is a timely example forest policy. Before this background, this study aims to (i) analyse the distributive effects of international and domestic community forestry policies on the power capabilities of relevant public agencies in Bangladesh, and (ii) identify the bureaucracies, which, relative to their competing agencies, gain most power capabilities over time. The analytical framework combines concepts derived from power theory and bureaucratic politics to explain increases in an organisation’s power, based on a full survey of domestic public and foreign donor-induced CF policies (n = 68) from 1992–2014. Policy-derived tasks assigned to specific bureaucracies are used as indicators of power capability gains. The results indicate that forest bureaucracies, as well as others, such as planning and finance ministries, gain substantial power from CF policies, as do foreign donor agencies. The study concludes that influential bureaucracies set limits and directions for national CF policy development.

This study explores the use of TerraSAR-X (X-Band) and Sentinel-1 (C-Band) SAR data for detecting degraded forests and deforestation in the Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, Ecuador. The study area shows a complex topography and permanent cloud cover, which complicates forest monitoring from optical remote sensing. Thresholds of canopy cover for degraded forest were identified by field data. Then a straightforward object-based approach was applied. Statistics on SAR backscatter were estimated from the objects and used as input to a random forest classification to map forest and non-forest areas. Finally, forest degradation was assessed using a moving window procedure applying the earlier identified thresholds on the forest / non-forest map. The SAR data were found adequate to map deforestation (overall accuracy of 81% for forest/non forest maps) but less accurate to fully assess forest degradation. However, multi-temporal SAR data can be useful to construct baseline data of the forest extent. Polarization and interferometric information could enhance the presented results for classifying forest / non forest areas and mapping forest degradation.

The development of underplanted forest products (UFPs) is one of the forest-related policies arising from the recent Collective Forest Tenure reforms in China. This study aimed to understand what might affect farmers' incomes from UFPs, the difficulties and barriers farmers face in developing UFPs, and the influence of the UFPs policy. A semi-structured questionnaire study and two qualitative interview studies with local households and local forest authority directors were administered in Guangxi and Hunan Provinces, China. A lack of related knowledge and market information was the major barrier to cultivating UFPs. The UFPs policy has had negligible influence in encouraging the development of UFPs. According to participants, the main difference between households that were and were not cultivating UFPs was related to improved market access and information. Interviewees felt that cooperation and support from the government and from UFP processors would enhance their interests in the cultivation of UFPs.