| 1. |
- Krause, Torsten, et al.
(author)
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Benefit distribution and equity in Ecuador's Socio Bosque Program
- 2013
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In: Society & Natural Resources. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0894-1920 .- 1521-0723. ; 26:10, s. 1170-1184
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article we analyze the equity and distribution of financial incentives in Ecuador's Programa Socio Bosque (PSB). PSB aims to conserve native ecosystems on privately owned lands while reducing rural poverty. Based on the analysis of 1,563 conservation contracts, representing nearly 900,000ha of land in Ecuador and more than 90,000 beneficiaries, we scrutinize the regional distribution of benefits among three regions (the Coast, the Andes, and the Amazon) and two contract types: land under individual ownership and land under collective ownership. We compare incentive distribution before and after a substantial change in the incentive scale, differentiating collective and individual landowners as well as forests and paramo ecosystems. Although PSB is a mechanism that incentivizes conservation stewardship, its distributional equity and ability to reduce rural poverty remain questionable, because poverty levels and population density in collective contracts are not sufficiently considered in the incentive scale.
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| 2. |
- Loos, Jacqueline, et al.
(author)
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An environmental justice perspective on ecosystem services
- 2023
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In: Ambio: a Journal of Human Environment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447. ; 52, s. 477-488
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Mainstreaming of ecosystem service approaches has been proposed as one path toward sustainable development. Meanwhile, critics of ecosystem services question if the approach can account for the multiple values of ecosystems to diverse groups of people, or for aspects of inter- and intra-generational justice. In particular, an ecosystem service approach often overlooks power dimensions and capabilities that are core to environmental justice. This article addresses the need for greater guidance on incorporating justice into ecosystem services research and practice. We point to the importance of deep engagement with stakeholders and rights holders to disentangle contextual factors that moderate justice outcomes on ecosystem service attribution and appropriation in socio-political interventions. Such a holistic perspective enables the integration of values and knowledge plurality for enhancing justice in ecosystem services research. This broadened perspective paves a way for transformative ecosystem service assessments, management, and research, which can help inform and design governance structures that nourish human agency to sustainably identify, manage, and enjoy ecosystem services for human wellbeing.
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| 3. |
- Primmer, Eeva, et al.
(author)
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Mapping Europe's institutional landscape for forest ecosystem service provision, innovations and governance
- 2021
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In: Ecosystem Services. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-0416. ; 47
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- There has been a strong quest for mapping and assessing ecosystem services (ES) to support governance. Yet, the institutional landscape that governs ES provision across multiple contexts has received less attention. We fill this research gap by developing and operationalising a framework for the analysis of policy documents that address European forest ES provision. By coding and analysing references to forest ES as well as innovations and governance mechanisms addressing these ES in national strategies on forest, biodiversity and bioeconomy, we map the institutional landscape of forest ES provision in Europe. We further analyse how biophysical supply of forest ES is connected to policies paying attention to ES and identifying innovations and governance for their provision. Innovations identified in policies centre around value chains of wood and bioenergy or biodiversity conservation, while non-wood forest products, cultural heritage, and recreation receive little attention. Biophysical supply of provisioning ES is connected to policies emphasising many innovations, while little supply of regulating ES could trigger service innovations and several new governance mechanisms. As forest ecosystems have received much attention in global, European and national sustainability policies, our institutional mapping illustrates that there is room for more use of innovations in promoting ES provision.
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| 4. |
- Sattler, Claudia, et al.
(author)
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Participatory research in times of COVID-19 and beyond: Adjusting your methodological toolkits
- 2022
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In: One Earth. - : Elsevier BV. - 2590-3330 .- 2590-3322. ; 5:1, s. 62-73
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Solving grand environmental societal challenges calls for transdisciplinary and participatory methods in social- ecological research. These methods enable co-designing the research, co-producing the results, and co-creating the impacts together with concerned stakeholders. COVID-19 has had serious impacts on thechoice of research methods, but reflections on recent experiences of ‘‘moving online’’ are still rare. In this perspective, we focus on the challenge of adjusting different participatory methods to online formats used in five transdisciplinary social-ecological research projects. The key added value of our research is the lessons learned from a comparison of the pros and cons of adjusting a broader set ofmethods to online formats. We conclude that combining the adjusted online approaches with well-established face-to-face formats intomore inclusive hybrid approaches can enrich and diversify the pool of available methods for postpandemic research. Furthermore, a more diverse group of participants can be engaged in the research process.
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| 5. |
- Varumo, Liisa, et al.
(author)
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D 2.2 Mapping of forest ecosystem services and institutional frameworks : Final report
- 2019
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Promoting or upscaling governance and business innovations requires an understanding about the conditions and contexts that support a particular innovation. Indeed, context can importantly condition the emergence of new ideas as well as their stabilization and system-level uptake. Ecosystems and the services they provide can be considered this kind of context for innovations because they vary across the landscape. Furthermore, the ways in which ecosystem services (ES) are governed can importantly condition the emergence and up-take of new ideas. These institutional, structural and procedural conditions vary across different administrative units, for example countries or regions. As both ecological and institutional context matters for innovations in the forest sector, we capture these variations and provide a basis for a more context-relevant analysis of innovation evolution, which potentially supports replication and upscaling of innovations. In general, there is a good spatial understanding of Europe’s forest ecosystem services (FES) but ecosystem service supply and demand have been matched only as rough estimates of scarcity. What is missing so far is a thorough analysis of the societal demand for FES, as expressed in policy, and the combination of biophysical and institutional mapping. We propose that societal demand can be derived from formal goals and argumentation in public strategies and laws, as these are the results of processes engaging societal actors and expertise. In the past years, several European policies have gradually taken up the notion of ES, and the European Forest Strategy fares well in its reference and integration of ES. However, what is missing is an analysis of the extent and the ways in which national forest related policies recognise FES and how this recognition coincides with ecosystem service supply at the spatial scale. By analysing how different EU, national and regional policies address forest ecosystem service relevant innovations, governance mechanisms and actors, we develop a deeper understanding of the biophysical-institutional landscape that can condition innovation in the forest sector. Based on our biophysical and institutional mapping, InnoForESt can identify niche innovations and their transferability, upscaling and further co-learning in comparable high potential context regions. This report describes the justification for mapping specific FES and policies and reports the methods applied in conducting the biophysical and institutional mapping as well as the findings. The report is supplemented by a coarse level map interface that can be used to visually analyse the coincidence of biophysical FES supply and institutional FES demand, innovations and governance, as expressed in forest strategies. The biophysical mapping of FES conducted for this report focused on the supply of ES and relied on simple mapping methods. The mapping process followed four main steps: 1) Identification of FES; 2) Definition of the indicators to map the selected FES; 3) Production of Pan-European maps of selected FES, 4) analysis of hotspots, synergies and trade-offs and spatial bundles of FES. Given the European focus of the study, the identification of FES and definition of related indicators built on the CICES classification and the set of MAES indicators. Indicators were then refined based on the availability of adequate spatially-explicit data at the European level. A total of 13 indicators were eventually defined and maps produced for each of these. As maps of FES showed ES supply on a per unit area basis, the potential of a region or a country to provide a given FES requires considering the actual extent of forests in that region or country. The analysis of hotspots, synergies and trade-offs and bundles of FES, which was carried out on a subset of eight FES, allows policy makers to get further insights about FES concentrations and coincidence. Deliverable 2.2 InnoForESt 6 The institutional mapping was carried out to identify current and future policy demand for ES. The policy demand was analysed through detailed policy document analysis, for which a protocol and database were developed and iterated among the team. The initial document analysis conducted in 2018 covered the most relevant national or regional forest, biodiversity and bio-economy strategies in the InnoForESt case study areas and at the EU level, altogether 31 policy documents. The document analysis was reported through an online survey that was used to produce a database, with both quantitative grading of weight in the document and qualitative text examples. The document analysis focused on ten FES: wood, bioenergy, non-wood forest products, game, biodiversity conservation, erosion and water protection, climate regulation, resilience, cultural heritage, recreation. Additionally, the analysis considered innovation type and stage, actor responsibilities and rights as well as new governance mechanisms, for all these ten FES. Our analysis illustrates that both the biophysical distribution of FES and the policy targeting FES differ across Europe. The analysis of biophysical FES supply through bundles shows that biophysical FES tend to be related to the climatic-ecological gradient, with cultural-agricultural FES being concentrated in the Mediterranean area, wood and water FES in the central area, soil carbon FES in the northernmost area and a mix of all FES in the north-eastern area. In terms of demand for FES, our analysis shows that countries do differ in how much weight they place on different FES in their strategies. Wood and bioenergy stand out as the focal FES for both forest and bio-economy policies, while biodiversity conservation is the only FES that is in some form mentioned in all analysed policy documents. The documents identify innovations, actor roles and governance mechanisms in detail for those ecosystem services that they directly address. The analysis of policies shows that biodiversity conservation is supported with innovations. New product ideas are about wood and biomass, sometimes recognising a long value chain. Also networking innovations and market-based rearrangements centre on procurement of raw material, recognising the responsibilities and rights of industry and land-owners. With our analysis combining data on FES provision across the European landscape and document analysis of European forest, biodiversity and bio-economy policies, we show that there is a slight tendency in policies to address and detail innovations and governance for scarce forest ecosystem services. By analysing how different EU, national and regional policies address different forest relevant innovations, governance mechanisms and actors our analysis provides a deeper understanding of the biophysical-institutional landscape that can condition innovation in the forest sector, and ideally, identify opportunities for transferring and upscaling innovations.
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| 6. |
- Wong, Grace Yee, et al.
(author)
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An Assessment Framework for Benefit Sharing Mechanisms to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation within a Forest Policy Mix
- 2017
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In: Environmental Policy and Governance. - : Wiley. - 1756-932X .- 1756-9338. ; 27:5, s. 436-452
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Policy instruments for implementing the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) mechanism operate within an orchestra of policy mixes that affect the forest and other land sectors. How will policymakers choose between the myriad of options for distributing REDD+ benefits, and be able to evaluate its potential effectiveness, efficiency and equity (3Es)? This is a pressing issue given the results-based aspect of REDD+. We present here a three-element assessment framework for evaluating the outcomes and performance of REDD+ benefit sharing mechanisms, using the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency and equity: (1) the structures (objective and policies) of a REDD+ benefit sharing mechanism; (2) the broader institutional and policy contexts underlying forest governance; (3) outcomes of REDD+ including emission reductions, ecosystem service provision and poverty alleviation. A strength of the assessment framework is its flexible design to incorporate indicators relevant to different contexts; this helps to generate a shared working understanding of what is to be evaluated in the different REDD+ benefit sharing mechanisms (BSMs) across complex socio-political contexts. In applying the framework to case studies, the assessment highlights trade-offs among the 3Es, and the need to better manage access to information, monitoring and evaluation, consideration of local perceptions of equity and inclusive decisionmaking processes. The framework does not aim to simplify complexity, but rather serves to identify actionable ways forward towards a more efficient, effective and equitable implementation and re-evaluation of REDD+ BSMs as part of reflexive policymaking.
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| 7. |
- Wong, Grace Yee, et al.
(author)
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Narratives in REDD plus benefit sharing : examining evidence within and beyond the forest sector
- 2019
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In: Climate Policy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1469-3062 .- 1752-7457. ; 19:8, s. 1038-1051
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- REDD+ was designed globally as a results-based instrument to incentivize emissions reduction from deforestation and forest degradation. Over 50 countries have developed strategies for REDD+, implemented pilot activities and/or set up forest monitoring and reporting structures, safeguard systems and benefit sharing mechanisms (BSMs), offering lessons on how particular ideas guide policy design. The implementation of REDD+ at national, sub-national and local levels required payments to filter through multiple governance structures and priorities. REDD+ was variously interpreted by different actors in different contexts to create legitimacy for certain policy agendas. Using an adapted 3E (effectiveness, efficiency, equity and legitimacy) lens, we examine four common narratives underlying REDD+ BSMs: (1) that results-based payment (RBP) is an effective and transparent approach to reducing deforestation and forest degradation; (2) that emphasis on co-benefits risks diluting carbon outcomes; (3) that directing REDD+ benefits predominantly to poor smallholders, forest communities and marginalized groups helps address equity; and (4) that social equity and gender concerns can be addressed by well-designed safeguards. This paper presents a structured examination of eleven BSMs from within and beyond the forest sector and analyses the evidence to variably support and challenge these narratives and their underlying assumptions to provide lessons for REDD+ BSM design. Our findings suggest that contextualizing the design of BSMs, and a reflexive approach to examining the underlying narratives justifying particular design features, is critical for achieving effectiveness, equity and legitimacy. Key policy insights A results-based payment approach does not guarantee an effective REDD+; the contexts in which results are defined and agreed, along with conditions enabling social and political acceptance, are critical. A flexible and reflexive approach to designing a benefit-sharing mechanism that delivers emissions reductions at the same time as co-benefits can increase perceptions of equity and participation. Targeting REDD+ to smallholder communities is not by default equitable, if wider rights and responsibilities are not taken into account Safeguards cannot protect communities or society without addressing underlying power and gendered relations. The narratives and their underlying generic assumptions, if not critically examined, can lead to repeated failure of REDD+ policies and practices.
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