Avoided Deforestation and Agriculture: Insights from Cambodia into a Complex Relationship

• RECENT POLICY research on avoided deforestation has focused on encouraging policy makers to adopt a landscape perspective. Central in this is the advice to incorporate forest management policy into integrated land use planning including agricultural policy (Scherr, Wallace, Hatcher, & White, 2011). This policy brief reinforces that general message and makes three specific points in relation to it: 1. Communities do not need to be heavily forest-dependent to be effective stewards of forests. 2. Proximity to forest, and crucially, frequency of journeys through forests on non-forest related business may be crucial to effective forest management. 3. People with insecure access to agricultural land present a greater threat to forests than people with secure access to agricultural land. The brief also reinforces another long-established truth, namely that forest management issues can never be only local or only technical, but must be addressed in their wider political and economic context.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

Keyword

avoided deforestation

agriculture

climate change

Cambodia

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

art (subject category)