Suchergebnisse

Projects in the forestry sector, and land-use change and forestry projects more generally, have the potential to help mitigate global warming by acting as sinks for greenhouse gasses, particularly CO2. However, concerns have been expressed that participation in carbon-sink projects may be constrained by high costs. This problem may be particularly severe for projects involving smallholders in developing countries. Of particular concern are the transaction costs incurred in developing projects, measuring, certifying, and selling the carbon-sequestration services generated by such projects. This paper addresses these issues by reviewing the implications of transaction and abatement costs in carbon-sequestration projects. An approach to estimating abatement costs is demonstrated through four case studies of agroforestry systems located in Sumatra, Indonesia. A typology of transaction costs is presented and related to existing pilot projects. The paper concludes with recommendations to reduce the disadvantages that smallholders may face in capturing the opportunities offered by carbon markets.

Legitimacy deficits have been identified as central to the ongoing challenges encountered in implementing the policy reforms introduced to reduce the environmental impacts of over-allocating water in the Murray-Darling Basin. In closing the special issue on Building and Maintaining Trust and Legitimacy in Environmental Water Management, this article draws on the preceding articles in responding to a call for the focus of evaluations of environmental water reforms to be broadened to assess their performance against metrics of legitimacy. The first aim is to consider some analytical issues to be encountered in developing legitimacy metrics for MDB environmental water reform contexts. The other aim is to explore the role of legitimacy metrics in empirical research designed to strengthen the evidence available for deciding whether and how to invest in establishing and sustaining the legitimacy of the MDB reforms. Particular reference is made to empirical studies of the consequences and antecedents of legitimacy in U.S. contexts of the law and its policing. Furnishing policy makers with reliable evidence to guide their decisions on whether and how to invest in the legitimacy of the MDB environmental water reforms will require studies of this kind that are adapted to the unique contexts of these reforms.