| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
With reference to the article in this issue titled "Current work on environmental services at the World Bank" (page 6 ) The Bank is also aware of the need for capacity building and training and has developed a two week training course for senior level technical staff of government agencies on environmental services.
Non-governmental and private sector organizations are encouraged to participate. The training course is very much a hands-on and case study centric exercise. The where, how and why specific tools work or do not work is presented in an intensive participatory workshop environment.
The benefits envisioned are increased generation of valuable services to the country and their protection. With an eye towards financial sustainability payments for environmental services should be made privately viable where possible. Two courses have thus far been imparted (Ecuador and Venezuela) with three others in the pipeline.
The Bank welcomes those who are interested in pursuing this training course in their countries to contact the author of the newsletter article.
Gunars Platais
PhD
Sr. Environmental Economist
Environment Department, World Bank
1818 H Street, NW. Washington D.C. 20433 USA
Tel.: +202-473-2627, Fax: +202-522-1142
E-mail: gplatais@worldbank.org
http://worldbank.org/biodiversity
By Craig Turner
The Philippines is recognised as a global biodiversity hotspot and considered an international conservation priority. However, conservation is arguably being led at the local level. On one island, the Negros Forests and Ecological Foundation, Incorporated (NFEFI) has formed a unique conservation partnership with Coral Cay Conservation (CCC), a UK based NGO, to fund and facilitate sustainable conservation.
NFEFI and CCC have established the Negros Rainforest Conservation Project (NRCP) in the highly threatened Negros-Panay faunal region of the central Philippines. The NRCP aims are comparative to other biodiversity conservation projects in montane forest areas. However, it is the mechanism by which it achieves these goals that makes the project unique. CCC provides the resources to the project in terms of highly qualified scientific and technical staff, equipment, and a constant year-round stream of self-financing conservation volunteers. Under the guidance and training of the project staff, the volunteers (including sponsored local students and in-country counterparts) are provided with the necessary knowledge and technical skills to undertake natural resource assessments and contribute to the overall education, restoration and sustainable management objectives of the project.
The project is therefore participatory on a number of levels. NFEFI further facilitates liaison with local community groups, local government bodies and other NGOs, ensuring integration of all other stakeholders. The project promotes local ownership, involvement and benefit, and the operational structure (utilising self-financed volunteers) means there is virtually no cost to the host country or local NGO, and no dependency on external funding agencies. At a time when all conservation organisations strive to achieve financial sustainability, the NFEFI/CCC partnership offers one possible solution.
CCC is continually
recruiting volunteers for the NRCP and for more information, please contact:
Craig Turner (Terrestrial Science Co-ordinator)
Coral Cay Conservation
The Tower, 125 High Street, Colliers Wood, London, SW19 2JG, UK
T: +44-(0)20-8545-7722, F: +44 (0)870-750-0667
E: ct@coralcay.org
http://www.coralcay.org/
EcoSecurities Ltd. is pleased to announce the release of the World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund's "Carbon Market Intelligence Report: Issue 2." Commissioned by the PCF Plus, this report details the emergence of carbon market policies up to COP 7. The focus of the report is on the development of greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements and associated policies at various national and sub-national levels.
Svetlana Morozova, a senior analyst for EcoSecurities and principal author of the report, says "The report will benefit the growing audience of private and public groups interested in the uneven progress of greenhouse gas reduction policies across the many jurisdictions of North America, the European Union and the rest of Annex 1".
Following on the first PCF Market Intelligence report released in July of 2001, the second installment of the project extends a number of topics. It reviews Annex I's national greenhouse gas emissions profiles, analyzes new policy positions of various EU jurisdictions and assesses implications of the Bonn agreement. In addition, the second report provides an in-depth review of various legislative proposals concerning reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in a number of American states, following the official withdrawal of the United States from the Kyoto Protocol.
In the course of report preparation, EcoSecurities has interviewed more than 100 public officials and private-sector stakeholders in the United State and Europe, including representatives of the US regional energy commissions, the US EPA and a number of European agencies, among others.
Both reports,
supplemented by a series of Appendixes, are available through the Prototype
Carbon Fund "PCF PLus" website, in the research section. For direct access
to the 2nd report, click http://www.prototypecarbonfund.org/docs/ecosecurities_2nd_report.pdf
To access the earlier report, please go to http://www.prototypecarbonfund.org/docs/ecosecurities_1st_report.pdf.
The third and final report is expected for release in the first quarter of
2002.
EcoSecurities is an environmental investment and advisory firm that specializes in services to facilitate innovative environmental finance solutions for renewable energy and other environmentally sustainable processes. For more information, please go to www.ecosecurities.com
For more
information, please contact
Svetlana Morozova
Senior Analyst
Telephone: (1) 909 621-1358
Fax: (1) 909 621-7438
Email:svetlana@ecosecurities.com
or us@ecosecurities.com
In Europe,
contact:
Paul Soffe
Senior Analyst,
Tel: (44) 1865-202-635
Fax: (44) 1865-251-438
Email: paul@ecosecurities.com
FLOWS is a free service, developed and produced by Bruce Aylward and Sylvia Tognetti, with support of Forest Trends, www.forest-trends.org, and the Environmental Economics Programme of the International Institute for Environment and Development www.iied.org\enveco\ .
FLOWS provides an independent perspective and commentary on key papers addressing hydrology, economics, and the development of markets, policies and institutional arrangements for watershed services. FLOWS was created to keep its readership up to date and informed regarding:
For an example of FLOWS messages, please see the news items on Useful myths (p.60 ) and on the new E-journal on land use and water resources research (p.62 )
FLOWS will be issued (in English and Spanish) once or twice a month, or when there are papers that merit a wide circulation. To sign up for FLOWS please send a message to listserv@cgnet.com with the message SUBSCRIBE FLOWS in the text (not the subject header).
General comments on FLOWS are welcome. Please send them to flows@forest-trends.org.
Source FLOWS List (see above)
Decisions to support watershed management programs often have been justified based on generalizations: that forest cover reduces flooding, increases dry season flow, increases rainfall, and reduces sedimentation. The discerning reader will realize that one of the reasons why this listserve exists is that reality is much more complicated than this. David Kaimowitz, the new Director General of the International Center for Forestry Research (CIFOR) brings this point home in a thought-provoking paper entitled "Useful Myths and Intractable Truths: The Politics of the Link Between Forests and Water in Central America."
Kaimowitz provides a pithy review of the scientific literature on hydrological response to change in forest cover and then goes on to examine four Central American cases. His conclusion? That these generalizations and the accompanying claims of high medium-term costs of degradation of hydrological function are often overstated. His analysis suggests that such claims have served as a convenient means of justifying investments in watershed management - in particular soil conservation and tree planting - thereby supporting the agendas of many agencies, NGOs and international donors. Hence, these claims have gone largely unquestioned. In these examples from Central America, watershed management concerns go back to the early part of the last century but did not get placed at the top of political agendas until they were linked to the sedimentation of hydroelectric dams (which could threaten urban energy supplies), to the operation of the Panama Canal (with its benefits to global commerce and the U.S. military), and to reduction of vulnerability to disasters (following the "apocalyptic rampage" of Hurricane Mitch).
Kaimowitz coins the term "useful myths" for these claims because despite the marginal ability of the resulting projects to achieve their watershed management objectives they have "generated a favorable climate for addressing environmental issues" in the region. Kaimowitz feels that the value of this should not be understated given the "intractable truth" that it is difficult to link on-farm activities to landscape level problems and even more difficult to convince policymakers to attend to long-term environmental problems. The case studies make fascinating reading, providing windows on the practical (and often convoluted) technical and political machinations of the watershed management "business." Indeed, Kaimowitz raises a rich set of questions and issues - to the point where some of the examples he cites could cause an anxious taxpayer to raise the question of what is the appropriate boundary between doing the right thing for the wrong reason and doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason.
To take just one of many issues raised in the paper, Kaimowitz returns repeatedly to critique the utility of standard, discounted cost-benefit analysis as a useful tool for assessing the long-term threat posed by sedimentation (even if less than is claimed) to the lifespan of large dams (the El Cajon, Cerron Grande and Panama Canal dams are the topics of three of the case studies). Indeed, the pitfalls of cost-benefit analysis with respect to dams is well-established, for example the World Commission on Dams has recently concluded that it is a necessary but not sufficient means of assessing dam projects.
As long-lived capital investments Kaimowitz cites a recent figure that Cerron Grande still has 172 years to go - the use of zero or low discount rates to place more value on future costs and benefits makes the benefits of dams enormously attractive. Of course, large dams have their own complex set of social and environmental impacts so that fiddling with the discount rate may not be the solution. However, it is worth noting that as with the decision to invest in soil conservation, the decision to engage in watershed management is not a one-time only decision, rather it is an option that can be taken at any point along the lifespan of a project. Using a more dynamic options approach to valuing sedimentation impacts (see the reference to the papers by the WCD and Walker below) might thus serve as a more meaningful and practical way of providing advance warning of the point at which the benefits of acting will outweigh the costs of waiting.
Papers:
The paper by Kaimowitz can be obtained from:
Inna Bangun, i.bangun@cgiar.org
and comments on the paper can be sent to mailto:d.kaimowitz@cgiar.org
The World Commission on Dams report can be downloaded from www.dams.org and the thematic paper on economic analysis of dams which includes chapters on discounting and the options response to the problem of uncertainty, timing and irreversibility in project investment can be downloaded from www.dams.org/thematic/tr31.htm
For more on the options approach to investments in soil conservation see Walker, D.J. 1982. A Damage Function to Evaluate Erosion Control Economics. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 64 (11): 690-698.
This is to draw your attention to a new E-Journal on Land Use and Water Resources Research edited by Ian Calder. The first issue, now available on-line at http://www. luwrr.com, contains a reassessment of the hydrology of tropical montane cloud forests by L.A. (Sampurno) Bruijnzeel, and a series of articles on various aspects of problems associated with invasive alien species. These include their hydrological impacts and economic costs, integrated approaches to controlling them,and economic instruments and institutional arrangements that could potentially be used to support these efforts. The issue also featuresSouth Africa's Working for Water Programme (designed to eradicate invasive alien species to improve water supply while also reducing poverty and unemployment), including an evaluation and a discussion of the inherent social challenges.
Source: FLOWS List see Pg 60
The IUFRO (International Union of Forest Research Organizations) working party - 1.07.19 "Sustainable management and genetic resources of Meliaceae" serves as a forum for exchange of information on the sustainable management and genetic resources of Meliaceae, particularly the Swietenioideae (mahogany, Spanish cedar, etc.). Our principal means of communication is a mailing list, maintained by the Center for Research and Higher Education in Tropical Agriculture (CATIE), Costa Rica. Please join us!
The announcement about the working party and email list is available at: www.catie.ac.cr/catie/DirFun/Listas/iufro.htm in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. Please tell your friends and colleagues!
If you have any questions or comments, please contact Sheila Ward at: seward@caribe.net
The British Forestry Commission is organising an international symposium in Edinburgh the 5th to the 9th of August 2002, to raise awareness about existing remote sensing technique tools between forest managers. This event intends to bring along those tools currently used worldwide and to show their potential application in European forestry. This symposium is partly funded by the EU LIFE programme FORESTSAFE, which covers the main organisation and the publication of the proceedings. In addition, we are planning parallel activities such as a one-day seminar about optical, radar and lidar systems with their possible applications in forestry; and exhibits with commercial products like software, data capture and consulting. After the symposium, we want to compile the most relevant applications in a peer-review publication.
Objectives
Remote sensing techniques have been developed over the last decades and nowadays
some of them constitute important operational tools for forest management.
Remote sensing methodologies are rapidly penetrating a number of application
domains such as forest inventory, management of abiotic hazards, health monitoring,
pollution control, timber extraction, production forecast, landscape architecture,
the provision of recreation facilities and many others. In addition, remote
sensing techniques are a valuable source of spatial information when combined
with the Geographic Information Systems. Remote sensing data are extensively
used in spatial models for decision support in forestry. The symposium programme
intends to address all the remote sensing techniques such as aerial photography,
radar, lidar, optical systems and thermography. Additionally, the workshop
would like to invite solutions for primary data transfer including the use
of the World Wide Web, data compression techniques, visualisation and mobile
computing.
Who should
attend
The purpose of the symposium is to show forestry managers, forest practitioners,
policy makers, planners and scientists examples of operational tools developed
from remote sensing techniques. The organisation of this symposium would like
to bring together developers and users of these technologies into a common
forum where both can be informed about the development and application of
those tools regarded as operational. The symposium would also provide an opportunity
for users to provide feedback about their requirements in future tool's developments.
Call
for papers
Papers are invited on the topics outlined in the main areas of interest and
others falling within the scope of the meeting. Abstracts of no more than
300 words should be submitted to the Symposium Secretariat before the 28th
of February 2002.
Each paper will be allocated 20 minutes, 15 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for questions and discussion. Each abstract will start with an invited keynote speaker. Abstracts should clearly state the purpose, results and conclusions of the work to be described in the final paper. Final acceptance will be notified by the 31st of May 2002. Full-length papers will be submitted before the 30th of June.
The language of the symposium will be English.
Abstract
submission
Please submit your abstract including your name, full address and symposium
topics Registration forms are available in the
Symposium Official Web site www.forestry.gov.uk/ForestSAT
Email: ForestSAT@forestry.gsi.gov.uk
Fax Submission: +44 (0)131 445 5124
Mail: Abstracts should be sent to:
Juan C. Suáárez, ForestSAT symposium
Forest Research, Northern Research Station Roslin, Midlothian EH25 9SY
United Kingdom
Venue
Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh Duration: Three days conference, one day
optional seminar and one day for a field excursion.
Exhibitors
Information
The organisation of the symposium have made available a limited number of
space for exhibits. These facilities are ideal for organisations wishing to
exhibit software, hardware, products, services and literature relating to
the theme of the symposium. Further details are available in the exhibitors
page and the symposium secretariat (+44 (0)131 445 2176)
Preliminary
seminar
Prior to the symposium,
there will be an introductory seminar on the fundamentals of the most relevant
remote sensing techniques applied to forestry like radar, optical systems
and lidar. The seminar will be conducted at Edinburgh University on Monday
the 5th of August 2002. Attendance is optional. Further details are available
in the seminar page and the symposium secretariat (+44 (0)131 445 2176) ForestSAT
Symposium in Edinburgh. August 5-9th 2002 'Operational Tools in Forestry using
Remote Sensing Techniques'
Duration:
1-11 weeks
Period: September- November 2002
We are pleased to inform you about IAC's new training programme on collaborative adaptive forest management (CAFM) and biodiversity conservation (BC). The course is designed for managers, co-ordinators, senior staff, policy-makers, trainers and researchers, involved in the policy and practice of collaborative forestry and nature management. They wish to renew, broaden and strengthen their professional and leadership qualities and share experiences with colleagues from other countries and continents, and are committed to critically assess their own work and environment.
Course
Focus
Collaborative adaptive forest management aims to achieve a balance between
the conservation and utilisation of forest resources in the pursuit of rural
development and sustainable livelihoods in complex and dynamic environments.
Therefore, foresters who work in CAFM require a balance of social and technical
skills and insights. In response to this need the programme covers the following
broad areas of interest: collaboration and decision-making between stakeholders,
integrated land use, sustainable adaptive forest management, biodiversity
conservation, poverty reduction, equity and empowerment. Training is based
on experience-based and task-oriented learning, which participants and resource
persons develop together.
Outline
of the programme
The training programme offers five short courses and one seminar, addressing
different aspects of collaborative adaptive forest management. Although each
of the courses is designed to stand alone, the programme permits various combinations.
The full course program comprising all six elements provides a comprehensive
package on collaborative forest management and bio-diversity conservation.
The programme consists of the following short courses:
More information
and application forms can be obtained from our website or from the address
below:
IAC, P.O. Box 88, 6700 AB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Telefax: + 31 317 495 395
E-Mail: Training@wur.nl
http://www.iac.wur.nl/iac/index2.htm?courses/annual.cfm