China’s grain-for-green policy of converting steep cultivated land to forest and grassland is one of the most important initiatives to develop its western inland regions. Using a multi-objective programming model, this study assessed the impacts of this policy in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River. In addition to the strategic planning of...

Disclaimer The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, UNDP, UNEP, UNEP Risoe Centre or their Member States. Executive Summary Forests play an important role in the global carbon balance. As both carbon sources and sinks, they have the potential to form an important component in efforts to combat global climate ch...

Forest policy throughout Latin America is undergoing a decentralization process in which more of the responsibilities for managing forest resources are delegated to municipal governments, often with mixed success (Larson, 2003). Considered critical for household needs and as biodiversity reserves, forest fragments on private lands comprise one-quarter of the forest resources in developing count...

Major focus has been devoted in the last three decades to administrative and economic aspects of colonial forest policies in south India, but scientific aspects received little attention. Consequently scientific dynamics of British forestry remained a less focused domain in the literature on colonial forest history. By examining the history of forest policies in south India this paper proposes ...

The concept of forest functions evolved in Central Europe as an important tool in the practice of multi-objective forest management. It is based on designating forest function areas that are relatively more important for the selected services. Recent practice has raised a number of concerns regarding the suitability and effectiveness of the concept of forest functions in satisfying increasing s...

Any system to compensate countries for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) requires a historical reference level against which future performance can be measured. Here we examine the possibilities Sri Lanka, a small forest country with limited data on forest carbon stocks, has to get ready for REDD+. We construct a historical reference level using available fores...

Forest and colleagues have persuasively made the case that policy capacity is a fundamental prerequisite to health reform. They offer a comprehensive life-cycle definition of policy capacity and stress that it involves much more than problem identification and option development. I would like to offer a Canadian perspective. If we define health reform as re-orienting the health system from acut...

Much research in recent years has analyzed the ecosystem service aspect of forests, while highlighting the need for sustainable forests. Forest management mechanisms at an inter-institutional level in Japan have been identified to hinder the implementation of forest management that is focused on the equal production of ecosystem services. This study presents an institutional analysis of unsusta...