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 School of Geography and the Environment

Forest Governance

Amazon Forest

The ECI Forest Governance Programme seeks to strengthen our understanding of how state and non-state institutions and actors shape decisions about the conservation and use of forest resources around the world. This research encompasses a wide diversity of governance institutions and networks, from intergovernmental processes, to government agencies, to forest and carbon certification schemes, to community-based and indigenous forest user groups. A core aim of our research is to better understand how governance systems organize and distribute decision-making authority across conflicting interests, from the local to global scale, and the resulting impacts of such systems on forests and people.

Core Research Fellows in the Forest Governance Programme:

  • Constance McDermott: Oxford Martin Senior Fellow in Forest Governance, Comparative Forest Policy, and Forest Certification
  • Lauren Coad: Oxford Martin Fellow in Forest Governance and Protected Areas

Below is a list of current projects grouped around five core themes: Multi-level governance; Protected Area Effectiveness; Bushmeat Hunting in Central Africa; Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation; and Operationalizing REDD+. For full publication lists, please visit the individual researcher’s page.

Theme 1: Multi-level forest governance

This theme examines the evolution and interaction of state and non-state forest governance from local to global levels. It draws on both case study work and large international comparisons to consider how various actors define the goals and shape the rules and incentives for environmental and social performance.

Trust and legitimacy are core sub-themes of this research. The emergence of a plurality of market-based instruments, including competing systems of forest certification, raises fundamental questions regarding the "appropriate" locus and nature of decision-making around forests. This thematic area explores the related but distinct concepts of "trust" and "legitimacy" as offering different theoretical lenses, and highlighting different possible pathways, to the determination of who decides the fate of the world's forests.

ECI Researcher:


Selected Publications:


MSc, DPhil and Visiting Scholar Projects:

  • Certified forest industry diversification in the Bolivian Northern Amazon: escaping the staple trap in the forest carbon era. - Rodrigo Acre, DPhil.
  • Avoiding deforestation and the geography of law in the Brazilian Amazon - Caroline A. Schmidt, DPhil.
  • Multi-stakeholders Partnerships for Common-Pool Resources Management: a case study of the Brazilian Eastern Amazon – Mariana Barbosa, MSc.
  • Investor perspectives on social safeguards in REDD+. Daniel Barron, MPhil.
  • REDD+ Biodiversity Safeguards: Strength in Diversity? - Sarah Fordham, MSc.
  • Distributing benefits of REDD: Exploring a flexible approach: A case study of the Juma Sustainable Development Reserve State of the Amazonas, Brazil - Maria Fernanda Gebara Abifadel, Visiting Scholar.
  • The Ghost Forest: A case study exploring how art engages the public with issues of environmental concern, with potential implications for encouraging pro-environmental behaviour - Bronwyn Tarr, MSc. See also the Ghost Forest website.
  • The influence of public procurement policies on forest certification schemes. – Yulia Stange, MSc.

Theme 2: Protected Area Effectiveness

Trees

Protected areas have long been recognised as an important tool for protecting biodiversity, and are now increasingly recognised for their role in protecting carbon; recent global analyses by UNEP-WCMC (2008) have shown that approximately 15% of the global carbon stock is currently found within protected areas. Carbon emissions from deforestation account for an estimated 20% of global carbon emissions (IPCC 2007).

In collaboration with the University of Copenhagen and the University of Queensland, we aim to measure protected area effectiveness, at a regional and national scale, using a landscape modelling approach. As part of this project we are working to update and analyse the Protected Areas Management Effectiveness (PAME) database, which is linked to the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), and holds information on the management and governance of over 6000 protected areas worldwide.

ECI Eesearcher:

Selected Publications:

  • Forrest, J.L., Bomhard, B., Budiman, A., Coad, L., Cox, N., Dinerstein, E., Huang, C., Huy, K., Lysenko, I., Magrath, W. (forthcoming) Land Management and Protected Area Management Effectiveness in the Tiger Range. Animal Conservation.
  • Schmitt, C.B., Burgess, N.D., Coad, L., Belokurov, A., Besancon, C., Boisrobert, L., Campbell, A., Fish, L., Gliddon, D., Humphries, K., Kapos, V., Loucks, C., Lysenko, I., Miles, L., Mills, C., Minnemeyer, S., Pistorius, T., Ravilious, C., Steininger, M. and Winkel, G. (2009) Global analysis of the protection status of the world's forests. Biological Conservation, 142(10): 2122-2130.
  • Coad, L., Burgess, N.D., Bomhard, B. and Besancon, C. (2009) Progress towards the Convention on Biological Diversity's 2010 and 2010 Targets for Protected Areas. A technical report for the IUCN international workshop "Looking to the Future of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas", Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, 14-17 September 2009.
  • Coad, L., Burgess, N.D., Loucks, C., Fish, L., Scharlemann, J.P.W., Duarte, L, and Besançon, B. (2009) The ecological representativeness of the global protected areas estate in 2009: progress towards the CBD 2010 target. UNEP-WCMC, WWF-US and ECI, University of Oxford.

MSc Projects:

  • Adia Bey (2009) Observations and perceptions of land use change: A case study on the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary and surrounding villages in Nigeria.
  • Anni Vuohelainen (2009) Evaluating the Effectiveness of State, Private and Community Protected Areas in Preventing Deforestation in Tambopata Province, Peru.
  • Kelly Ms Manus (2009) Under pressure: A spatial analysis of why indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon succeed or fail to inhibit fires.
  • Matea Osti (2009) Oil and Gas Exploration and Development, Biodiversity and the World Heritage Network: A Case Study of Sub Saharan Africa.
Bush Meat

Theme 3: Bushmeat Hunting in Central Africa

Bushmeat hunting is a crucial issue for both wildlife conservation and human well-being. Increases in human population density, commercial trade in bushmeat, and access to forests through logging concessions have led to bushmeat hunting becoming the most significant immediate threat to wildlife in many African and Asian countries. Unsustainable hunting threatens the survival of hunted species, the functioning of ecosystems, and the food security and livelihoods of the rural poor in these countries.

Research questions in this theme include:

  1. What are the main drivers of bushmeat hunting at the local level, and how is bushmeat used by rural households?
  2. How are hunting techniques and hunting impacts changing over time?
  3. How do hunters distribute trapping and gun hunting activity across the forest landscape? Can we predict hunting impact using spatial modelling?

Fieldwork for this project was carried out in 2005 and 2010 in two rural forest villages, Central Gabon, in collaboration with the Institute de Recherche en Ecologie Tropical (IRET),Gabon. Fieldwork was primarily funded by NERC, the British Ecological Society and the Oxford Martin School.

ECI Researcher:

Selected publications:

  • Henschel, P., Hunter, L., Coad, L., Abernethy, K. and Muhlenberg, M. (2011) Leopard prey choice in the Congo Basin rainforest reveals strong exploitative competition from human bushmeat hunters. Journal of Zoology
  • Abernethy, K., Coad, L., Ilambu, O., Makiloutila, F., Easton, J. and Akiak, J. (2010) Wildlife hunting, consumption and trade in the Oshwe sector of the Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape, DRC. WWF International.
  • Coad, L., Abernethy, K., Balmford, A., Manica, A. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2010) Distribution and use of income from bushmeat in a rural village, central Gabon. Conservation Biology.
  • Papworth, S.K., Rist, J., Coad, L., and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2008) Evidence for shifting baseline syndrome in conservation. Conservation Letters, 2(2): 93-100.

MSc Projects:

  • Judith Schleicher (2010). The sustainability of bushmeat hunting in two villages in Central Gabon

Theme 4: Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation

Women in Panye

This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of collaborators from universities (Southampton, Oxford, Rutgers and the Australian National University), a policy think-tank (Overseas Development Institute), regional research and training centres (RECOFTC and CATIE) and a regional NGO (Ugandan Coalition for Sustainable Development) to develop a conceptual framework that analyses the links between ecosystem services and sustainable poverty reduction, examining in particular how benefits derived from ecosystem services are distributed among different stakeholders, the factors underlying these processes and their potential impacts. This framework will contribute to the critical challenge of the equitable management of ecosystems in a manner that benefits poor people. In particular, it will help decision-makers in REDD and PES programmes minimise negative impacts on equity and maximise positive impacts on poverty alleviation.

ECI Researchers:

Project Collaborators:

Principle Investigators and Co-Investigators outside Oxford include: Kate Schrekenberg, University of Southampton and Melanie McDermott, Rutgers University, as well as investigators from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI, UK), The Centre for People and Forests (RECOFTC, SE Asia), and Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE, Latin America).

For further information, see the REDD-NET theme page.

Theme 5: Operationalizing REDD+: Actors, Interests and Ideas

Although REDD+ has become the central focus of deforestation policy and practice globally, there is no globally accepted implementation strategy. Instead, REDD+ is being shaped in a range of different arenas, from local level projects to international negotiations. The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of the wide range of actors, interests and ideas that are shaping REDD+.

Specifically, we seek to examine:

  • NGO Positions and Strategies on REDD+: Past and Present
  • Trust and Equity in REDD+: The design and verification of social safeguards
  • The Role of Protected Areas in REDD+
  • Negotiating the "+" in REDD+

Lead Researchers:

  • Lauren Coad: Oxford Martin Fellow in Forest Governance and Protected Areas
  • Constance McDermott: Oxford Martin Senior Fellow in Forest Governance, Comparative Forest Policy, and Forest Certification
  • Heike Schroeder: Collaborating researcher, UEA.