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.
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.
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.
Deviant behaviour on various levels of the food supply chain may cause food risks. It entails irregular technological procedures which cause (increased probabilities of) adverse outcomes for buyers and consumers. Besides technological hazards and hitherto unknown health threats, moral hazard and malpractice in food businesses represent an additional source of risk which can be termed 'behavioural food risk'. From a regulatory perspective, adverse outcomes associated with deviance represent negative externalities that are caused by the breaking of rules designed to prevent them. From a rational choice perspective, the probability of malpractice increases with the benefits for its authors. It decreases with the probability of detection and resulting losses. It also decreases with bonds to social norms that protect producers from yielding to economic temptations. The design of mechanisms that reduce behavioural risks and prevent malpractice requires an understanding of why food businesses obey or do not obey the rules. This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of malpractice on the restaurant/retail level through comparative case studies and statistical analyses of food inspection and survey data. Accounting for the complexity of economic behaviour, we will not only look at economic incentives but consider all relevant behavioural determinants, including social context factors.
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.
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.
SOCIOEC is an interdisciplinary, European wide project bringing together scientists from several fisheries sciences with industry partners and other key stakeholders to work in an integrated manner on solutions for future fisheries management, that can be implemented at a regional level. The central concept is to provide a mechanism for developing measures that are consistent with the overarching sustainability objectives of the EU, and that can provide consensus across all stakeholders. The first step will be to develop a coherent and consistent set of management objectives, which will address ecological; economic and social sustainability targets. The objectives should be consistent with the aims of the CFP, MSFD and other EU directives, but they should also be understandable by the wider stakeholder community and engage their support. This will then lead to the proposal of a number of potential management measures, based on existing or new approaches. The second step will be to analyze the incentives for compliance provided by these measures. In particular, we will examine fisher's responses and perceptions of these measures, based on historical analysis as well as direct consultation and interviews. This project part will also examine how the governance can be changed to facilitate self- and co-management to ensure fisher buy-in to promising management measures. In particular, the project will focus on the interpretation of overarching (i.e. EU) objectives in local and regional contexts. Finally, the project will examine the impacts of the management measures that emerge from this process, particularly in terms of their economic and social impacts. The IA analysis will be integrated by evaluating the proposed measures against the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency and coherence. Special attention will be paid in evaluating the proposed management measures' performance in terms of their ability to achieve the general and specific ecological objectives.
The Eastern Plains region of Colombia is a large tract of tropical savannah covering approximately 17Prozent of the Colombian land mass. It is an agriculturally poor region where current agricultural practices of cattle ranching have rapidly lead to poor soil fertility and low productivity. In Colombia, agriculture represents a very important part of the economy. In an attempt to economically stabilize the region the government has developed a regional plan for the Eastern Plains. This includes converting pasture land into cropping systems that provide food security for the growing Colombian population and reducing poverty.Cassava is the key crop in the regional plan for economic development and stability. However, cassava is a plant that is almost completely dependent on a symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to efficiently obtain nutrients and grow. AMF have already been shown to greatly enhance cassava yields in the field, even when added to soil that already contains AMF. They also allow farmers to reduce fertilizer inputs and use much cheaper sources of phosphate. However, to realistically use AMF to increase cassava yields and make cassava cropping more profitable, it is necessary to inoculate with native AMF in a sterile based carrier, with low transport costs. This project seeks to isolate native AMF from soils in the eastern plains and from the roots of cassava in native undisturbed populations, screen them for effectiveness in increasing cassava yields and then put some of the most effective ones into a clean sterile culture system on artificial media for mass production. These AMF isolates will be used as inocula in field trials. Because cassava is so mycorrhiza-dependent, we also propose to screen the genetic diversity of cassava for mycorrhizal responsiveness. The Swiss group will use their expertise in molecular genetics of AMF to develop a molecular marker system for quality control of AMF inoculum in cassava roots and perform a pilot AMF breeding approach to cross AMF and obtain genetically novel AMF for use in the field. The Swiss partner will train the Colombian group in these technologies. The results of the project will be disseminated within the framework of the socio-economic plan for the region developed by the National University of Colombia's Institute for Studies in Orinoquia. Researchers in that institute will use the results of this project to make economic projections of the impact of the results on small farms and cooperatives in the Eastern Plains and at the whole regional level. They will then accordingly disseminate the information to agronomists, farmers and land-owners in the region.
African animal trypanosomosis (AAT) in cattle and the threat of widespread resistance to trypanocidal drugs, that has been the major input of disease control and prevention, are important production risks to resource-poor cattle farmers in smallholder crop livestock production systems in the cotton belt of West Africa. Recent studies in that region underline the urgency to improve the understanding of drug resistance development and to find ways of its sustainable containment and prevention. The overall goal of this research is to analyze options that can lead to the sustainability of livestock production in spite of AAT and drug resistance. In this context the decision making behaviour of farmers with regard to two factors, namely time preference and attitude towards risk plays an important role. These are two major variables affecting farmers input choice of disease control and prevention. Based on the simultaneous elicitation of these parameters by means of economic field experiments among a representative sample of farmers in Mali and Burkina Faso these information are applied to a bio-economic model suitable to compare disease control strategies.
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