The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes.

However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity.

Using enterprise-level data from China's Northeast-Inner Mongolia state-owned forest area for the year 2004, this paper investigates the technical efficiency of forest product processing mills and the relationship between institutional and managerial practices and efficiency. A two-stage procedure proposed by Simar and Wilson (2007) is adopted. In the first stage, a bootstrapped data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is used to compute the efficiency scores.

Mangroves are among themost threatened and rapidly disappearing natural environments worldwide. In addition to supporting a wide range of other ecological and economic functions, mangroves store considerable carbon. Here, we consider the global economic potential for protecting mangroves based exclusively on their carbon.

Typically both local villagers (“insiders”) and non-locals (“outsiders”) extract products from protected forests even though the activities are illegal. Our paper suggests that, depending on the relative ecological damage caused by each group, budget-constrained forest managers may be able to reduce total forest degradation by legalizing “insider” extraction in return for local villagers involvement in enforcement activities.

This study provides an overview and analysis of China’s timber market trends over the last two decades, along with projections to the year 2020.

EfD-Kenya actively participated in the preparation of the Kenya State of Environment (SoE) Report 2010. EfD-K Researchers Dr. Wilfred Nyangena and Geophrey Sikei were authors in the report. Dr. Nyangena was the Lead Author for Chapter 11 of the report which dealt with Policy options for action. Geophrey was a contributing author in Chapter 11 and Chapter 6 dealing with Land, Agriculture and Livestock.

Rigorous, objective evaluation of forest conservation policies in developing countries is needed to ensure that the limited financial, human, and political resources devoted to these policies are put to good use. Yet such evaluations remain uncommon.

The land competition between tropical bioenergy plantations and payments for forest carbon conservation (e.g., through an international scheme for Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, REDD+) is modeled using spatially explicit data on biofuel feedstock (oil palm and sugar cane) suitability and forest biomass carbon stocks.