Suchergebnisse

Recent decades have seen a rapid movement towards decentralising forest rights and tenure to local communities and indigenous groups in both developing and developed nations. Attribution of local and community rights to forests appears to be gathering increasing momentum in many tropical developing countries. Greater local control of forest resources is a response to the failure of government agencies to exercise adequate stewardship over forests and to ensure that the values of all stakeholders are adequately protected. We reviewed evidence of the impact of decentralised forest management on the biodiversity values of forests and conclude that special measures are needed to protect these values. There are trade-offs between shorter-term local needs for forest lands and products and longer-term global needs for biodiversity and other environmental values. We present evidence of local forest management leading to declining forest integrity with negative impacts on both local forest users and the global environment. We advocate greater attention to measures to ensure protection of biodiversity in locally-managed forests.

Recent decades have seen a rapid movement towards decentralising forest rights and tenure to local communities and indigenous groups in both developing and developed nations. Attribution of local and community rights to forests appears to be gathering increasing momentum in many tropical developing countries. Greater local control of forest resources is a response to the failure of government agencies to exercise adequate stewardship over forests and to ensure that the values of all stakeholders are adequately protected. We reviewed evidence of the impact of decentralised forest management on the biodiversity values of forests and conclude that special measures are needed to protect these values. There are trade-offs between shorter-term local needs for forest lands and products and longer-term global needs for biodiversity and other environmental values. We present evidence of local forest management leading to declining forest integrity with negative impacts on both local forest users and the global environment. We advocate greater attention to measures to ensure protection of biodiversity in locally-managed forests.

Integrated approaches to natural resource management are often undermined by fundamental governance weaknesses. We studied governance of a forest landscape in East Lombok, Indonesia. Forest Management Units (Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan or KPH) are an institutional mechanism used in Indonesia for coordinating the management of competing sectors in forest landscapes, balancing the interests of government, business, and civil society. Previous reviews of KPHs indicate they are not delivering their potential benefits due to an uncertain legal mandate and inadequate resources. We utilized participatory methods with a broad range of stakeholders in East Lombok to examine how KPHs might improve institutional arrangements to better meet forest landscape goals. We find that KPHs are primarily limited by insufficient integration with other actors in the landscape. Thus, strengthened engagement with other institutions, as well as civil society, is required. Although new governance arrangements that allow for institutional collaboration and community engagement are needed in the long term, there are steps that the East Lombok KPH can take now. Coordinating institutional commitments and engaging civil society to reconcile power asymmetries and build consensus can help promote sustainable outcomes. Our study concludes that improved multi-level, polycentric governance arrangements between government, NGOs, the private sector, and civil society are required to achieve sustainable landscapes in Lombok. The lessons from Lombok can inform forest landscape governance improvements throughout Indonesia and the tropics. ; Forestry, Faculty of ; Non UBC ; Forest and Conservation Sciences, Department of ; Reviewed ; Faculty

Integrated approaches to natural resource management are often undermined by fundamental governance weaknesses. We studied governance of a forest landscape in East Lombok, Indonesia. Forest Management Units (Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan or KPH) are an institutional mechanism used in Indonesia for coordinating the management of competing sectors in forest landscapes, balancing the interests of government, business, and civil society. Previous reviews of KPHs indicate they are not delivering their potential benefits due to an uncertain legal mandate and inadequate resources. We utilized participatory methods with a broad range of stakeholders in East Lombok to examine how KPHs might improve institutional arrangements to better meet forest landscape goals. We find that KPHs are primarily limited by insufficient integration with other actors in the landscape. Thus, strengthened engagement with other institutions, as well as civil society,is required. Although new governance arrangements that allow for institutional collaboration and community engagement are needed in the long term, there are steps that the East Lombok KPH can take now. Coordinating institutional commitments and engaging civil society to reconcile power asymmetries and build consensus can help promote sustainable outcomes. Our study concludes that improved multi-level, polycentric governance arrangements between government, NGOs, the private sector, and civil society are required to achieve sustainable landscapes in Lombok. The lessons from Lombok can inform forest landscape governance improvements throughout Indonesia and the tropics.

Setting aside protected areas is widely recognized as one of the most effective measures to prevent species from extinction. Accordingly, there has been a tremendous effort by governments worldwide to establish protected areas, resulting in over 100,000 sites, which are set aside, to achieve the 10% target proposed at the Fourth World Park Congress in 1992 in Caracas. The main effort of the European to achieve this target is the Natura 2000 network of protected areas, comprising over 25,000 sites representing 18 % of the area of the 27 Member States of the European Union. The designation of Natura 2000 sites was based on species and habitats listed in the Annexes of the Habitats and Birds Directive. The effectiveness of the selection process and the resulting Natura 2000 network has often been questioned as each country made its designations largely independently and in most cases without considering the theories of optimal reserve site selection. However, the effectiveness of the selection process and the Natura 2000 network has never been explicitly analysed at the European scale. Here we present such an analysis focusing on the representation of Annex II species of the Habitats Directive in the Natura 2000 network relative to a random allocation of species to sites. Our results show that the network is effective in covering target species and minimizing the number of gap species (i.e. species not represented in a single site of the Natura 2000 network). We demonstrate that the representation is uneven among species. Some species are overrepresented and many species are only represented in a low number of sites. We show that this is mainly due to differing patterns in species ranges, as wide-spread species are inevitably represented in many sites, but narrow ranged species are often covered only by a small number of sites in a particular area. Finally, we propose a representation index that detects species that are underrepresented and could be used to direct future conservation efforts.

Setting aside protected areas is widely recognized as one of the most effective measures to prevent species from extinction. Accordingly, there has been a tremendous effort by governments worldwide to establish protected areas, resulting in over 100,000 sites, which are set aside, to achieve the 10% target proposed at the Fourth World Park Congress in 1992 in Caracas. The main effort of the European to achieve this target is the Natura 2000 network of protected areas, comprising over 25,000 sites representing 18 % of the area of the 27 Member States of the European Union. The designation of Natura 2000 sites was based on species and habitats listed in the Annexes of the Habitats and Birds Directive. The effectiveness of the selection process and the resulting Natura 2000 network has often been questioned as each country made its designations largely independently and in most cases without considering the theories of optimal reserve site selection. However, the effectiveness of the selection process and the Natura 2000 network has never been explicitly analysed at the European scale. Here we present such an analysis focusing on the representation of Annex II species of the Habitats Directive in the Natura 2000 network relative to a random allocation of species to sites. Our results show that the network is effective in covering target species and minimizing the number of gap species (i.e. species not represented in a single site of the Natura 2000 network). We demonstrate that the representation is uneven among species. Some species are overrepresented and many species are only represented in a low number of sites. We show that this is mainly due to differing patterns in species ranges, as wide-spread species are inevitably represented in many sites, but narrow ranged species are often covered only by a small number of sites in a particular area. Finally, we propose a representation index that detects species that are underrepresented and could be used to direct future conservation efforts.

This Editorial presents the focus, scope and policies of the inaugural issue of Nature Conservation, a new open access, peer-reviewed journal bridging natural sciences, social sciences and hands-on applications in conservation management. The journal covers all aspects of nature conservation and aims particularly at facilitating better interaction between scientists and practitioners. The journal will impose no restrictions on manuscript size or the use of colour. We will use an XML-based editorial workflow and several cutting-edge innovations in publishing and information dissemination. These include semantic mark-up of, and enhancements to published text, data, and extensive cross-linking within the journal and to external sources. We believe the journal will make an important contribution to better linking science and practice, offers rapid, peer-reviewed and flexible publication for authors and unrestricted access to content. ; The journal Nature Conservation was established within the framework of the European Union's Framework Program 7 large-integrated project SCALES: Securing the Conservation of biodiversity across Administrative Levels and spatial, temporal, and Ecological Scales, www.scales-project.net (grant 226852; Henle et al. 2010).