Tradeoffs or Win Wins?
Is it possible to improve both livelihoods AND carbon outcomes on community forests?
What is the role of community action in achieving improvements in carbon and livelihoods?
1. Carbon and livelihoods outcomes are not correlated. This means that win-win, tradeoffs, and lose-lose outcomes are all possible depending on policy action and context.
2. To secure Win-Win outcomes on carbon and livelihoods, it is necessary to ◦increase the size of individual community
forests under the control of communities◦increase community autonomy to manage
their forests
3. Where communities do not own the land for forests on which they rely, they need compensation to conserve biomass and carbon.
Extent and increase
80 Mill. Ha. increase 2002-08; 180 Mill. Ha. in 1980-2002RRI 2008
RRI 2008
Empirical Other Totals
Explicit measures and analysis 5 3 8Measures of outcomes and recognition of tradeoffs limited or absent
359 144 503
364 147 511
very little!!!
Looked at 511 published papers since 1980
Très peu
Nesten ingenting
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Hampir tidak
hyvin vähän
mycket lite
IFRI Data as of September 2008
020
4060
Basa
l Are
a (s
q.m
. per
hec
tare
)
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4D
ensi
ty
0 20 40 60Basal Area (sq.m. per hectare)
• Biomass measured as basal area per hectare
• Can be calculated from data in the plot form
• Averaged for all plots over the forest gives a measure of the basal area per hectare
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5D
ensi
ty
0 10 20 30 40 50div
Simpson’s Index – Draw two trees from the sample
What is the probability of the two being of the same species?
1 = No diversity
0 = Infinite diversity
• Log of the inverse of the Simpson’s index
0.1
.2.3
.4.5
Den
sity
0 1 2 3 4lndiv
-10
12
3Li
velih
ood
Inde
x
0.2
.4.6
Den
sity
-1 0 1 2 3Livelihood Index
Combination of contributions to food, fodder, fuelwood, biomass, and timber needs of the users
A weighted-average of contribution
Factor Analysis of the five livelihood dimensions
Provides a continuous measure for comparison
Examine outcomes one by one using several potential causal factors
Result 1: Almost no observed correlation among the three outcome measuresImplication: Tradeoffs as well as above average outcomes on two dimensions are possible, above average on all dimensions unlikely
We have evidence of trade-offs AND above average outcomes on two dimensions;BUT No above average outcomes on all three dimensions
Next step – What is the association with socio-economic, biophysical, institutional factors
To answer: How does community involvement make a difference to carbon and livelihoods outcomes?
Forest size related
to all outcomes
Other relationships
ambiguous
• A number of different relationships
Ownership of community forest land
Community autonomy to match rules to resources
For improvements in BOTH carbon sequestration and livelihoods contribution, the area of forest land controlled by communities must increase
Tenure reforms in favor of communities must not ghettoize community forests. It is incumbent upon governments to allocate large areas to communities to improve carbon and livelihoods outcomes.
Two sets of outcomes on carbon and livelihoods: Panel 1 Low carbon, low livelihoods
Panel 2: High carbon, high livelihoods
Two tradeoff outcomes on carbon and livelihoods Panel 3 Low carbon, high livelihoodsPanel 4: High carbon, low livelihoods
We statistically analyze all our data to show how
1)Community forest size, 2)Community autonomy in forest
management, and 3)Community forest land ownership
Affect the likelihood of win-win/lose-lose or tradeoffs for carbon and livelihoods
HOW?
Finding 1: Controlling for effects of other factors, as size of community forests increases,
Implication –If community rights are not recognized over larger forest areas, win-win outcomes for carbon and livelihoods are not very likely
the likelihood of below average outcomes on carbon and livelihoods becomes lower,
likelihoods of above average outcomes becomes greater.
Likelihood →
Forest size ↓
Probability of Community Forest being in Low-Low
Category
Probability of Community forest being in High-High
Category
100 hectares 0.57 .01
500 hectares 0.37 .07
2500 hectares 0.16 .30
(statistically significant at .01 level)
Finding 2: Controlling for effects of other factors, as communities have greater autonomy in managing their forests, below average outcomes on carbon and livelihoods less likely, and above average outcomes more likely.
The area under the blue and red curves is the area of win-win that greater local autonomy produces
Implication – policies givingmore autonomy to communities likely to yield Win-Win outcomes on carbon and livelihoods
Likelihood →
Forest size ↓
Change in probability of community
forest being in Low-Low Category
Change in probability of community
forest being in High-High Category
100 Hectares -0.26 +0.07
500 Hectares -0.21 +0.21
2,500 Hectares
-0.12 +0.35statistically significant at .05 level
Finding 3a: when community forest land is owned by the state, communities overuse
Finding 3b: When community forest land is owned by communities, communities conserve (and increase carbon sequestration)
Implication: Compensate communities for reducing use of state- owned forests so that they have incentives to conserve the biomass and carbon on such forests – Revisit incentive design. Overall, community ownership already provides better outcomesstat. sig. at .01 level
Community forests are one of the few classes of forests worldwide that simultaneously satisfy multiple management objectives
Major gains in carbon sequestration and livelihoods benefits can be achieved by increasing the area of individual community forests under community control
Similar substantial gains can be achieved through greater community autonomy in managing their forests forests
To increase carbon sequestration, it is necessary to compensate communities to reduce use of their forests