Tradeoffs or Win Wins?

Is it possible to improve both livelihoods AND carbon outcomes on community forests?

What is the role of community action in achieving improvements in carbon and livelihoods?

1. Carbon and livelihoods outcomes are not correlated. This means that win-win, tradeoffs, and lose-lose outcomes are all possible depending on policy action and context.

2. To secure Win-Win outcomes on carbon and livelihoods, it is necessary to ◦increase the size of individual community

forests under the control of communities◦increase community autonomy to manage

their forests

3. Where communities do not own the land for forests on which they rely, they need compensation to conserve biomass and carbon.

Extent and increase

80 Mill. Ha. increase 2002-08; 180 Mill. Ha. in 1980-2002RRI 2008

RRI 2008

Empirical Other Totals

Explicit measures and analysis 5 3 8Measures of outcomes and recognition of tradeoffs limited or absent

359 144 503

364 147 511

very little!!!

Looked at 511 published papers since 1980

Très peu

Nesten ingenting

कु� छ नहीं�

Hampir tidak

hyvin vähän

mycket lite

IFRI Data as of September 2008

020

4060

Basa

l Are

a (s

q.m

. per

hec

tare

)

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4D

ensi

ty

0 20 40 60Basal Area (sq.m. per hectare)

• Biomass measured as basal area per hectare

• Can be calculated from data in the plot form

• Averaged for all plots over the forest gives a measure of the basal area per hectare

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5D

ensi

ty

0 10 20 30 40 50div

Simpson’s Index – Draw two trees from the sample

What is the probability of the two being of the same species?

1 = No diversity

0 = Infinite diversity

• Log of the inverse of the Simpson’s index

0.1

.2.3

.4.5

Den

sity

0 1 2 3 4lndiv

-10

12

3Li

velih

ood

Inde

x

0.2

.4.6

Den

sity

-1 0 1 2 3Livelihood Index

Combination of contributions to food, fodder, fuelwood, biomass, and timber needs of the users

A weighted-average of contribution

Factor Analysis of the five livelihood dimensions

Provides a continuous measure for comparison

Examine outcomes one by one using several potential causal factors

Result 1: Almost no observed correlation among the three outcome measuresImplication: Tradeoffs as well as above average outcomes on two dimensions are possible, above average on all dimensions unlikely

We have evidence of trade-offs AND above average outcomes on two dimensions;BUT No above average outcomes on all three dimensions

Next step – What is the association with socio-economic, biophysical, institutional factors

To answer: How does community involvement make a difference to carbon and livelihoods outcomes?

Forest size related

to all outcomes

Other relationships

ambiguous

• A number of different relationships

Ownership of community forest land

Community autonomy to match rules to resources

For improvements in BOTH carbon sequestration and livelihoods contribution, the area of forest land controlled by communities must increase

Tenure reforms in favor of communities must not ghettoize community forests. It is incumbent upon governments to allocate large areas to communities to improve carbon and livelihoods outcomes.

Two sets of outcomes on carbon and livelihoods: Panel 1 Low carbon, low livelihoods

Panel 2: High carbon, high livelihoods

Two tradeoff outcomes on carbon and livelihoods Panel 3 Low carbon, high livelihoodsPanel 4: High carbon, low livelihoods

We statistically analyze all our data to show how

1)Community forest size, 2)Community autonomy in forest

management, and 3)Community forest land ownership

Affect the likelihood of win-win/lose-lose or tradeoffs for carbon and livelihoods

HOW?

Finding 1: Controlling for effects of other factors, as size of community forests increases,

Implication –If community rights are not recognized over larger forest areas, win-win outcomes for carbon and livelihoods are not very likely

the likelihood of below average outcomes on carbon and livelihoods becomes lower,

likelihoods of above average outcomes becomes greater.

Likelihood →

Forest size ↓

Probability of Community Forest being in Low-Low

Category

Probability of Community forest being in High-High

Category

100 hectares 0.57 .01

500 hectares 0.37 .07

2500 hectares 0.16 .30

(statistically significant at .01 level)

Finding 2: Controlling for effects of other factors, as communities have greater autonomy in managing their forests, below average outcomes on carbon and livelihoods less likely, and above average outcomes more likely.

The area under the blue and red curves is the area of win-win that greater local autonomy produces

Implication – policies givingmore autonomy to communities likely to yield Win-Win outcomes on carbon and livelihoods

Likelihood →

Forest size ↓

Change in probability of community

forest being in Low-Low Category

Change in probability of community

forest being in High-High Category

100 Hectares -0.26 +0.07

500 Hectares -0.21 +0.21

2,500 Hectares

-0.12 +0.35statistically significant at .05 level

Finding 3a: when community forest land is owned by the state, communities overuse

Finding 3b: When community forest land is owned by communities, communities conserve (and increase carbon sequestration)

Implication: Compensate communities for reducing use of state- owned forests so that they have incentives to conserve the biomass and carbon on such forests – Revisit incentive design. Overall, community ownership already provides better outcomesstat. sig. at .01 level

Community forests are one of the few classes of forests worldwide that simultaneously satisfy multiple management objectives

Major gains in carbon sequestration and livelihoods benefits can be achieved by increasing the area of individual community forests under community control

Similar substantial gains can be achieved through greater community autonomy in managing their forests forests

To increase carbon sequestration, it is necessary to compensate communities to reduce use of their forests