| 1. |
- Aguilar Cabezas, Francisco X
(author)
-
Willingness-to-pay for restoration of water quality services across geo-political boundaries
- 2021
-
In: Current Research in Environmental Sustainability. - : Elsevier BV. - 2666-0490. ; 3
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Establishing the value attached to ecosystem services provides instrumental information in the planning of conservation initiatives to ensure forest ecosystem sustainability. This study fills a gap in the literature regarding the value associated with ecosystem services for which their direct use can be challenged by distance and geo-political boundaries. We estimated US residents' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the restoration of degraded temperate out-of-state and tropical out-of-the-country forested watersheds for improved water quality services under hypothetical payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs. Factors influencing WTP were estimated using a bivariate probit model and mean WTP values adjusted for self-reported certainty of responses. Transboundary economic value decay was reflected on lower households' annual WTP values for the restoration of the tropical out-of-the-country (US$ 124.15–238.30) than temperate out-of-state (US$ 131.70–256.79) forested watershed ecosystems. Bequest and existence were the non-use value motivations most strongly associated with WTP for temperate out-of-state and tropical international PES programs, respectively. Other salient explanatory variables included program cost to households, age, sex, income, household size, political party identification, attitudes towards PES, affiliation with environmental conservation group and direct experience with comparable natural resources. This study offers evidence of positive prospects for transboundary PES programs to restore geographically delimited ecosystem services driven by existence, option and bequest value motivations.
|
|
| 2. |
- Bastos Lima, Mairon G., et al.
(author)
-
Large-scale collective action to avoid an Amazon tipping point - key actors and interventions
- 2021
-
In: Current Research in Environmental Sustainability. - : Elsevier BV. - 2666-0490. ; 3
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The destruction of the Amazon is a major global environmental issue, not only because of greenhouse gas emissions or direct impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods, but also due to the forest's role as a tipping element in the Earth System. With nearly a fifth of the Amazon already lost, there are already signs of an imminent forest dieback process that risks transforming much of the rainforest into a drier ecosystem, with climatic implications across the globe. There is a large body of literature on the underlying drivers of Amazon deforestation. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the behavioral and institutional microfoundations of change. Fundamental issues concerning cooperation, as well as the mechanisms facilitating or hampering such actions, can play a much more central role in attempts to unravel and address Amazon deforestation. We thus present the issue of preventing the Amazon biome from crossing a biophysical tipping point as a large-scale collective action problem. Drawing from collective action theory, we apply a novel analytical framework on Amazon conservation, identifying six variables that synthesize relevant collective action stressors and facilitators: information, accountability, harmony of interests, horizontal trust, knowledge about consequences, and sense of responsibility. Drawing upon literature and data, we assess Amazon deforestation and conservation through our heuristic lens, showing that while growing transparency has made information availability a collective action facilitator, lack of accountability, distrust among actors, and little sense of responsibility for halting deforestation remain key stressors. We finalize by discussing interventions that can help break the gridlock.
|
|
| 3. |
- Fischer, Anke
(author)
-
Seasonal variability of resources: The unexplored adversary of biogas use in rural Ethiopia
- 2021
-
In: Current Research in Environmental Sustainability. - 2666-0490. ; 3
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Biogas digester programmes have been rolled out across many countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade with varying levels of success. In Ethiopia, reported success rates have been low, despite high levels of interaction between non-governmental organisations and various levels of government, plus the establishment of practical eligibility criteria. In Halaba, Ethiopia, we investigated physical and social factors affecting feedstock and water availability using a face-to-face questionnaire-based survey (n = 112) in four kebeles (local administration areas). We found that practices of fuel use and water collection were markedly different between seasons. Fuel use was almost entirely dependent on season, with wood being burned in the wet season and crop residues and cow dung being used instead in the dry season. A matched pair t-test found a significant difference between seasons in terms of water collection times (p = 7.4 × 10−16), with households spending more time and money obtaining clean drinking water in the dry season. Results indicate that seasonal differences in resource availability may reduce the proportion of households that meet the physical characteristics for maintaining a biogas digester by approximately 62% from wet season to dry season. Conversely, the greatest benefits of digester use would be gained in the dry season, when dung could be returned to the soil as a nutrient-rich bioslurry, instead of being combusted as a dirty and inefficient fuel. Seasonality is rarely considered in feasibility studies, so we recommend that these factors should be built into future analyses.
|
|
