Perceived Injustices in Forest Policy Interventions are Causes of Forest Resources Degradation and Loss in Ghana: A Review

Forests provide diverse co-benefits, including livelihoods enhancement, poverty alleviation, and biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services such as climate mitigation. Consequently, Ghana has embraced several global, regional, national, and local forest policy interventions to safeguard its forest resources’ sustainable management. However, the forest policy interventions have not adequately addressed the co-benefits issues of forest resources leading to several forest illegalities that drive forest resources degradation and loss. These forest policies and interventions on the ground primarily favour carbon stocks enhancement and sequestration activities for carbon mitigation purposes compared to the benefits, access and rights that forest-dependent people and communities are supposed to derive from forest resources. These perceived injustices in the access and distribution of forest resources have culminated into all forms of forest illegalities driving Ghana’s forest resources into massive degradation and loss. Currently, Ghana is experiencing a 2% rate of annual deforestation and forest degradation, which translates into approximately 135,000 ha/year of forest cover loss due to anthropogenic causes. Our review is based on relevant and critical forest documents, and scientific peer-reviewed papers on Ghana’s forest policy interventions and dynamics recently published. The information gathered enabled us to highlight the perceived injustices in the forest policy interventions and their effects on forest resources. Unjust forest resources sharing and distribution are critical drivers of forest resources degradation and loss. We thus offer lessons for remedying the unfair distribution and injustices to promote equitable forest resources rights and benefit access to local forest-dependent people. It is expected that this review will offer and assist forest policy, intervention spatial and other planners and designers to find a possible way forward to avoid nature degradation, including biodiversity loss, to resolve perceived injustices in the forestry sector, to use adequate all ecosystem services provided by forests as well as to promote local livelihood and sustainability.

Policy implications for community-managed forestry in Cambodia from experts＇ assessments and case studies of community forestry practice

Over the last 40 years, it has been shown at the global level that sustainable forestry can be achieved through comprehensive forest management,with the decentralized institutional arrangements of community-managed forestry coordinated by effective policy implementation. However, there is still a shortage of evidence regarding whether communitybased forestry is well characterized by forest policies,assessing what action is most needed and how best to address the challenges faced by community-based forestry in halting deforestation and promoting rural livelihoods. The study analyzed experts' assessments of the characteristics and success of communitymanaged forestry in Cambodia and explored three case studies of community-managed forestry practice to identify priorities for addressing forest policy implementation inadequacies in halting deforestation and promoting rural livelihoods. There were two methods of data collection. Firstly, this study used a survey of 27 experts to analyze perceptions about how far forest policy supported community-managed forestry effectively, the major challenges faced by the national community-managed forestry program, and the community-managed forestry contribution to halting deforestation and reducing rural poverty.Secondly, data was collected by content analysis of three case studies to explore the knowledge and practical experience of local experts about community-managed forestry practice at local level.The study employed Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance to analyze the level of concordance of experts on related forest policies(n=15) considering community-managed forestry, the challenges faced by the national community-managed forestry program,and the actions required to enable communitymanaged forestry to support communities. Analysis revealed that experts were in moderate agreement,denoted by Kendall's W=0.152, on how well forest policies articulate and implement the characteristics of community-managed forestry. Ranking of the major challenges faced by the national communitymanaged forestry program yielded Kendall's W of0.104, indicating the confidence in the ranking among experts was fair. There was only low confidence in the ranking of the action needed, with Kendall's W of0.055. Content analysis of the three case studies examining local experts' opinions on the attributes of community-managed forestry concerning the access,local participation and protection of the sustainable forestry revealed that Attribute one ‘Local people have access to the forest land and forest resources', and Attribute three ‘Local people begin by protecting and restoring the forests', received high attention from local experts. Of lesser importance or agreement was attributing two: local participation in decision-making concerning the forest.

Review on Forest Policy Development in China

Forest policy evolution was presented firstly in order to understand the background of forest policy development in China. The recent changes of forest policy were introduced in details, including forest policies on improving biodiversity conservation and securing national ecological safety, restoring key ecosystems, promoting sustainable forest management (SFM), clarifying forest land tenure and protecting farmer’s right on forest and forest land management, promoting healthy forestry industry development and strengthening international cooperation. In addition, it was presented that the evolution of policies in other related sectors and their impacts on forests and forestry, such as bio-energy plantation establishment plan, timber saving and substituting policy, environmental impact assessment (EIA) policy and climate change policy. The features of forest policies in China were analyzed and recommendations were given to ensure the effectiveness of forest policies in the end.

Forests of Greece, Their Multiple Functions and Uses, Sustainable Management and Biodiversity Conservation in the Face of Climate Change

This is a review paper based on national and international literature, national inventories and empirical approach. A general overview of the forests, forest management and forest biodiversity of Greece are briefly summarized. The distribution of the main forest species and their ecosystems in the Geographic regions of Greece is presented in a tabular form. Their multiple functions and uses, their management type/regime, their risks and threats, protection and conservation measures are also synoptically described. Furthermore, adaptive forest management and silviculture as well as management of genetic diversity in order to face climate change are also analysed. Research priority areas on biodiversity and challenges for biodiversity research and related policy in Greece have been summarized. The new Rural Development Program (2014-2020), which is currently in the final phase of implementation, will take into consideration the forest itself and forest-related European and National legal obligations. Finally, major conclusions and research priority areas on future management and conservation of forests are highlighted.

The Challenge of Crafting Institutions for the Commons： The Case of Community Forestry Support Programs in Mexico 2003-2008

Mexico forest tenure structure is known worldwide for its progressive approach of giving local communities full property rights to set a robust support to sustainable livelihoods in forested areas. Most forest areas in Mexico are owned by local communities either through the ejido, agrarian indigenous community or groups of small owners. In the last 30 years, many forest communities explored forest production at a commercial scale, creating their own communal forestry business and concurring to national markets with their timber and non-timber products. The socio-economical impacts of this approach were tremendous, steadily improving communities living standards. This success prompted rural organizations to ask the Mexican government to launch programs to expand the ＂community forestry＂ model. With international assistance from the World Bank and other agencies, the government of Mexico launched three different programs to foster forest commons： the Forest Conservation and Management Program, the Indigenous, Communities and Biodiversity Project and the Mexican part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. Performance of these programs has been assessed through the World Bank evaluation framework, but the question about their environmental impact or even about their environmental sustainability and therefore their validity as national policies has been scantily explored and practically not debated. To contribute to answering these questions, the author made an extensive analysis of their impact over forest cover during the 2003-2008 period using land cover maps and correlated them with institutional development variables, building a social organization and collective action index （SOCAI）, following Elinor Ostrom institutional analysis and development framework （lAD）.

The Genesis and Paradigm Shift in Forest Inventory: Bangladesh Chapter

Bangladesh (Indo-Bangladesh to independent Bangladesh) has more than 250 years of history in forest inventory. The Boundary demarcation of the Sundarbans forest in 1764 was the first record of forest inventory. A total of 30 inventories have been recorded that were started to form the boundary demarcation to complex biodiversity, biomass, and carbon stock assessment. These inventories used simple cartographic to complex satellite image processing techniques, software base data/information collection methods, and sophisticated statistical procedures in data analysis. Eventually, the history of the forest inventory of Bangladesh is about 100 years older than the history of forest management. This study aimed to classify the inventories into distinct time frames based on outputs and align them with the motive of rulers, existing forest policy, and contemporary global and national issues. The historical records forest inventory has been divided into four distinct periods, e.g., Mid eighteenth to the late nineteenth century: 1764-1876;Early twenty century: 1905-1924;Mid-twenty to late twenty century: 1958-2000;and Early twenty-first century: 2001-present). The objectives/outputs of each inventory were highly linked with the motive of rulers, policy statements, available technologies, and recent issues from national and global perspectives.

Mapping aboveground biomass by integrating geospatial and forest inventory data through a k-nearest neighbor strategy in North Central Mexico

As climate change negotiations progress,monitoring biomass and carbon stocks is becoming an important part of the current forest research.Therefore,national governments are interested in developing forest-monitoring strategies using geospatial technology.Among statistical methods for mapping biomass,there is a nonparametric approach called k-nearest neighbor(kNN).We compared four variations of distance metrics of the kNN for the spatially-explicit estimation of aboveground biomass in a portion of the Mexican north border of the intertropical zone.Satellite derived,climatic,and topographic predictor variables were combined with the Mexican National Forest Inventory(NFI)data to accomplish the purpose.Performance of distance metrics applied into the kNN algorithm was evaluated using a cross validation leave-one-out technique.The results indicate that the Most Similar Neighbor(MSN)approach maximizes the correlation between predictor and response variables(r=0.9).Our results are in agreement with those reported in the literature.These findings confirm the predictive potential of the MSN approach for mapping forest variables at pixel level under the policy of Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation(REDD+).

Forest Policies Addressing Climate Change in China

As a developing country with a large population and a fragile ecological environment, China is particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Beginning with the Rio Conference of 1992 China has played a progressively enhanced role in combating climate change. A series of policies and measures to address climate change have been taken in the overall context of national sustainable development strategy, making positive contributions to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change, among which forestry linked policies have been given increasing priority to over the years. At the UN Summit on Climate Change in September 2009, China's President committed the country to an unprecedented increase in forest carbon sink through augmenting forest coverage by 40 million ha and forest stock volume by 1.3 billion m3 by 2020 compared to the 2005 level. For realizing it China has evolved the Forestry Action Plan to Cope with Climate Change that sets forth five basic principles that include combining the targets of forestry development with the national strategies on climate change, increasing forest size and improving forest quality, increasing carbon trading and controlling emissions, combining government guidance with social participation, slowing down climate change, and adapting to the change. Further, in order to make it people's program rather than a top-down government initiative, China is speeding up the trend of decentralization and privatization of forest management through collective forest tenure reform that are geared towards releasing direct governmental control over forest management, decentralizing the powers of forest administrations to lower levels and promoting community participation in forest management. These comprehensive steps have changed the face of forestry in the country but both the government and the scientific community realize that this is merely a beginning in the long and arduous task of combating climate change.

Variable retention harvesting: conceptual analysis according to different environmental ethics and forest valuation

Background:Conceptual clarity is important to attain precise communication of scientific knowledge and to implement appropriate technological and policy actions.Many concepts referring to forest management are widely used by decision-makers,regardless of their complexity.Although the scientific and methodological issues of forestry practices are frequently discussed in the literature,their normative dimensions are rarely treated.Thus,linguistic uncertainty increases when different environmentally ethical perspectives and ways of valuing forests are considered.The objective was to compare different conceptualizations on the silvicultural systems suggested for forest management and the implications they have for conservation.We have conceptually contrasted highintensity forestry practices with variable retention harvesting,considering different environmentally ethical perspectives and forest valuation alternatives.Results:Clear boundaries between clear-cutting,selective logging,and variable retention harvesting can be evidenced when different ethical points of view and alternatives in the human-nature relationships are considered.We have found a variety of definitions of variable retention harvesting that can be analyzed under different ethical positions.Sharply contrasting views on variable retention harvesting can be evidenced if nature is considered to be purely at human’s service or if it is conceptualized as humans co-inhabiting with nature.The latter position implies that the maintenance of ecological,evolutionary,and historical processes supported by unmanaged forest stands is a crucial step for forest management proposals based on variable retention harvesting.Conclusions:Forestry practices that are focused on forest yields and that misinterpret functional uncertainty of forest functioning would be risky.Moreover,forestry with variable retention harvesting could imply good yields with reasonable conservation management in some contexts,while it could be unacceptable in other socioecological contexts.The improvement of conceptual clarity on the different meanings of variable retention harvesting and the development of indicators for forest management based on the variations of this concept can reduce controversies.