This project aims at analysing the influence of competing national and international bureaucracies on the fragmentation of the international forest regime complex (IFRC). Its objectives are: - describing the political dimension of fragmentation of the IFRC programme- explaining the political dimension of fragmentation based on the model of bureaucratic politics- analysing the steering consequences resulting from fragmentation - trans-disciplinary design of solutions for coping with political aspects of fragmentationBuilding on the bureaucratic politics approach these objectives will be pursued by testing the linking hypothesis: Interest and influence of the bureaucracies cause a fragmented programme of the IFRC. This programme supports the goal of profitable timber production but keeps the decision about biodiversity and CO2 sequestration open hindering the effective steering by the IFRC. The project develops an analytical framework consisting of the following independent variables: competing national and competing international bureaucracies, elected politicians, national and international non-state actors and media discourses. The fragmentation of the political programme of the IFRC is the overall dependent variable. This project will analyse the influence of bureaucracies and their coalitions on fragmentation at the international level as well as in national case studies in Sweden, Poland and Germany. The other independent variables will be covered by sub-projects 2, 3 and 4. The findings will be linked to the other political and to the economic and technic-ecological sub projects in order to contribute to the multi-disciplinary description and explanation of fragmentation and its steering consequences.
Especially during the last decades, the natural forests of Ethiopia have been heavily disturbed by human activities. Some forests have been totally cleared and converted into fields for agricultural use, other suffered from different influences, such as heavy grazing and selective logging. The ongoing research in the Shashemane-Munessa-study area (Gu 406/8-1,2) showed clearly that, in spite of interdiction and control, forests continue to be cleared and degraded. However, it is not yet sufficiently known, how and why these processes are still going on. Growing population pressure and economic constraints for the people living in and around the forests contribute to the actual situation but allow no final answers to the complex situation. Concerning a sustainable management of the forests there is to no solid basis for recommendations from the socioeconomic and socio-cultural view. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the traditional needs and forms of forest use, including all forest products, is necessary. The objective of this project is, to achieve this basis by carrying out intensive field observations, the consultation of aerial photographs, satellite imagery and above all semi-structured interviews with the population in the study area in order to contribute to the recommendations for a sustainable use of the Munessa Shasemane forests.
The majority of the worlds forests has undergone some form of management, such as clear-cut or thinning. This management has direct relevance for global climate: Studies estimate that forest management emissions add a third to those from deforestation, while enhanced productivity in managed forests increases the capacity of the terrestrial biosphere to act as a sink for carbon dioxide emissions. However, uncertainties in the assessment of these fluxes are large. Moreover, forests influence climate also by altering the energy and water balance of the land surface. In many regions of historical deforestation, such biogeophysical effects have substantially counteracted warming due to carbon dioxide emissions. However, the effect of management on biogeophysical effects is largely unknown beyond local case studies. While the effects of climate on forest productivity is well established in forestry models, the effects of forest management on climate is less understood. Closing this feedback cycle is crucial to understand the driving forces behind past climate changes to be able to predict future climate responses and thus the required effort to adapt to it or avert it. To investigate the role of forest management in the climate system I propose to integrate a forest management module into a comprehensive Earth system model. The resulting model will be able to simultaneously address both directions of the interactions between climate and the managed land surface. My proposed work includes model development and implementation for key forest management processes, determining the growth and stock of living biomass, soil carbon cycle, and biophysical land surface properties. With this unique tool I will be able to improve estimates of terrestrial carbon source and sink terms and to assess the susceptibility of past and future climate to combined carbon cycle and biophysical effects of forest management. Furthermore, representing feedbacks between forest management and climate in a global climate model could advance efforts to combat climate change. Changes in forest management are inevitable to adapt to future climate change. In this process, is it possible to identify win-win strategies for which local management changes do not only help adaptation, but at the same time mitigate global warming by presenting favorable effects on climate? The proposed work opens a range of long-term research paths, with the aim of strengthening the climate perspective in the economic considerations of forest management and helping to improve local decisionmaking with respect to adaptation and mitigation.
Research in 'silviculture' and 'forest economics' very often takes place largely independent from each other. While silviculture predominantly focuses on ecological aspects, forest eco-nomics is sometimes very theoretic. The applied bioeconomic models often lack biological realism. Investigating mixed forests this proposal tries to improve bioeconomic modelling and optimisation under uncertainty. The hypothesis is tested whether or not bioeconomic model-ling of interacting tree species and risk integration would implicitly lead to close-to-nature forestry. In a first part, economic consequences of interdependent tree species mixed at the stand level are modelled. This part is based on published literature, an improved model of timber quality and existing data on salvage harvests. A model of survival over age is then to be developed for mixed stands. A second section then builds upon data generated in part one and concentrates on the simultaneous optimisation of species proportions and harvest-ing ages. It starts with a mean-variance optimisation as a reference solution. The obtained results are compared with data from alternative approaches as stochastic dominance, down-side risk and information-gap robustness.
The rational calculus of farmers assumed in many agricultural economic models is unrealistic and non-predictive of their actual decision making. Understanding structural change in agriculture can thus be improved via a realistic modeling of the decision making by agricultural entrepreneurs. Specifically, slow disinvestment (i.e., postponing farm exit), persistence of market structures (i.e., failure to reallocate land plots towards higher efficiency), and more generally characterizing the decision making of farmers are crucial for a better understanding of structural change and policy advice. We apply economic experiments to better understand such disinvestment choices, land markets with economies of scale and private opportunity costs, different auction and bargaining forms to improve allocation efficiency of land markets, and to generally characterize the decision making of farmers.
Objective: The RAMSES project will develop a rigorous, analytical framework for the implementation of adaptation strategies and measures in EU and international cities. It will develop a set of innovative methods and tools that will quantify the impacts of climate change and the costs and benefits of adaptation to climate change and thus provide the evidence to enable policy makers to design adaptation strategies. It integrates the assessment of impacts and costs to provide a much more coherent approach than currently exists. As major centres of population, economic importance, greenhouse gas emissions and infrastructure, RAMSES focuses on adaptation issues in cities. RAMSES will deliver: 1. A strategic frame for evidence-based adaptation decision-making. A pragmatic and standardised framework for decision making using comparable climate change impact assumptions, impact and adaptation costs while taking account of uncertainty. This will apply and combine smart and unconventional scientific methodologies. 2. Multi-level analysis as local administrative units, cities will be used to develop adaptation (and more generally sustainable development) strategies from the bottom-up/top-down, that can be aggregated to consider costs at the national, EU and international levels. 3. Quantification of adaptation costs a framework for assessment of full economic costs and benefits of adaptation (to date a woefully under-researched area). 4. Policy relevance and acceptance of adaptation measures city case studies and stakeholder engagement will ensure the relevance of the framework for policy makers and ensure adaptation measures become better accepted by other stakeholders. The frameworks will be converted into a user-friendly guide for stakeholders who need to prioritize adaptation and mitigation decisions. This reduces costs and enhances understanding and acceptance of adaptation. The data will be fed into the European Clearinghouse Mechanism to increase transparency/stakeholder access.
The objectives are to: (i) improve our understanding of human activities impacts (cumulative, synergistic, antagonistic) and variations due to climate change on marine biodiversity, using long-term series (pelagic and benthic). This objective will identify the barriers and bottlenecks (socio-economic and legislative) that prevent the GES being achieved (ii) test the indicators proposed by the EC, and develop new ones for assessment at species, habitats and ecosystems level, for the status classification of marine waters, integrating the indicators into a unified assessment of the biodiversity and the cost-effective implementation of the indicators (i.e. by defining monitoring and assessment strategies). This objective will allow for the adaptive management including (a) strategies & measures, (b) the role of industry and relevant stakeholders (including non-EU countries), and (c) provide an economic assessment of the consequences of the management practices proposed. It will build on the extensive work carried out by the Regional Seas Conventions (RSC) and Water Framework Directive, in which most of the partners have been involved (iii) develop/test/validate innovative integrative modelling tools to further strengthen our understanding of ecosystem and biodiversity changes (space & time); such tools can be used by statutory bodies, SMEs and marine research institutes to monitor biodiversity, applying both empirical and automatic data acquisition. This objective will demonstrate the utility of innovative monitoring systems capable of efficiently providing data on a range of parameters (including those from non-EU countries), used as indicators of GES, and for the integration of the information into a unique assessment The consortium has 23 partners, including 4 SMEs (close to 17Prozent of the requested budget) and 2 non-EU partners (Ukraine & Saudi Arabia). Moreover, an Advisory Board (RSC & scientific international scientists) has been designed,to ensure a good relationship with stakeholders.
The MSY concept was included as a principle in the 2009 Green Paper on the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in accordance with the global imperative to manage fish stocks according to the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). This implies a commitment to direct management of fish stocks towards achieving MSY by 2015. Attaining this goal is complicated by the lack of common agreement on the interpretation of 'sustainability' and 'yield' and by the effects that achieving MSY for one stock may have on other stocks and broader ecosystem, economic, or social aspects. MYFISH will provide definitions of MSY variants which maximize other measures of 'yield' than biomass and which account for the fact that single species rarely exist in isolation. Further, MYFISH will redefine the term 'sustainable' to signify that Good Environmental Status (MSFD) is achieved and economically and socially unacceptable situations are avoided, all with acceptable levels of risk. In short, MYFISH aims at integrating the MSY concept with the overarching principals of the CFP: the precautionary and the ecosystem approach. MYFISH will achieve this objective through addressing fisheries in all RAC areas and integrating stakeholders (the fishing industry, NGOs and managers) throughout the project. Existing ecosystem and fisheries models will be modified to perform maximization of stakeholder approved yield measures while ensuring acceptable impact levels on ecosystem, economic and social aspects. Implementation plans are proposed and social aspects addressed through active involvement of stakeholders. Finally, effects of changes in environment, economy and society on MSY variants are considered, aiming at procedures rendering the MSY approach robust to such changes. The expertise of 26 partners from relevant disciplines including fisheries, ecosystem, economic and social science are involved in all aspects of the project. Global experience is engaged from North America and the South Pacific.
While urban Indonesia is almost completely electrified, two-thirds of the rural population still lack access to electricity. In many cases, the mountainous rural areas are difficult to access and sparsely populated implying high investment costs for infrastructure extension. Against this background the German International Cooperation (GIZ) supports the implementation of micro hydro plants (MHP) in rural communities to supply the population with decentralized electricity. During its first project phase between 2006 and 2009, GIZ has supported the construction of 96 MHPs on two of the five main islands of Indonesia, Sulawesi and Sumatra. These activities have been funded as part of the Dutch-German Energy Partnership Energising Development (EnDev), an output-oriented programme that aims at providing modern energy to 6.1 million people in 21 countries. In a second project phase starting in 2010 (EnDev II), more than 200 micro-hydro schemes are planned to be supported. RWI has been assigned to assess the socio-economic impacts of electrification through MHP on household level through both a cross-sectional and a difference in differences approach. For this purpose, 800 households were interviewed in a first survey wave in September and November 2010. Half of them are located in 20 EnDev II villages that only got connected to an MHP after data collection. The remainder of the sample has already been using electricity at that time from a working micro hydro scheme supported within EnDev I. The second survey wave is scheduled for autumn 2012. The cross-sectional arm of the study allowed for gauging the impacts of the connection to an MHP already after the first wave at the end of 2010. For the electrified, hence, treated EnDev I households, comparable EnDev II households have been used as controls. Having follow-up data at hand at the end of 2012, difference in differences estimators can be applied to more rigorously assess the impacts of the connection to an MHP. In this approach, the EnDev I households already connected in 2010 and still connected in 2012 will serve as a reference group for the EnDev II households who got treated between the 2010 and 2012 survey. This prevents that changes induced by external influences (e.g. general economic development) are falsely ascribed to the treatment. For the reference group of EnDev II households it was found in 2010 that an important share already used 'pre-electrification' sources like generators or very simple traditional waterwheels - so called kincirs. The impact assessment will therefore not only illustrate the change from traditional energy sources like kerosene to electricity but also deliver impact findings on using a modern electricity source in comparison to pre-electrification sources that tend to be either costly and dirty (generators), or unstable and weak (kincir).
In remote areas with low electrification rates, Solar Home Systems (SHS) can be seen as a promising alternative to the investment-intensive extension of the electricity grid. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides funding to a project in Burkina Faso that offers SHS to rural households using a market-based approach. The SHS that are distributed can provide electric lighting and - depending on the chosen capacity of the system - allow for the usage of small electric appliances up to colored television. As part of the series of impact evaluations of development activities supported by the Netherlands on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, RWI and ISS assess the socio-economic impact of the usage of SHS such as improved living conditions, time savings, increased security, better health conditions, and educational attainment trough extended study hours. The idea is to conduct a difference-in-difference approach based on household surveys before and after the intervention, in combination with propensity score matching (PSM) to better match control and treatment households on pre-program characteristics (e.g. education, socio-economic status, income, asset-ownership, characteristics of the villages they live in). Following the roll-out plan of Yeelen Ba's activities, a baseline survey was conducted in November 2010 based on a random sample of villages that are in the program's catchment area. In total, 1,200 households in 40 villages (30 households per village) were interviewed. A particular focus was on the use of appliances and energy expenditures, as well as convenience and comfort aspects before and after the SHS was installed. For the difference-in-difference approach the sample will be divided into a treatment group consisting of households who will have obtained an SHS in the meantime and a control group consisting of untreated households. The follow-up survey will be conducted two years after the baseline survey in November 2012. All households will be revisited and differences in the changes in the outcome variables between the treatment group and the control group will be assessed, providing insights about how ownership of an SHS changes the socio-economic living conditions of the households.
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