Scale and co-management outcomes: assessing the impact of collaborative forest management on community and household resilience in Ghana

Reviewing social-ecological resilience for agroforestry systems under climate change conditions

Global change is shaping social-ecological systems, threatening both natural and socio-economic ecosystems as a whole. Landscapes with combined nature-human interactions are particularly vulnerable to changing climatic conditions. Therefore, there is a need to find viable and practical solutions for the preservation and recovery of the affected systems. A relevant way to cope with disturbances is to promote social-ecological resilience through the use of strategies targeting the social-ecological system as a whole, in order to ensure an efficient self-reorganization of a landscape. This study presents a research innovation by clarifying the concept of social-ecological resilience while being focused on providing a useful tool for landscape managers. For doing so, the research first defines social-ecological resilience and aims to give a clear idea of its characteristics and application features. Second, it explains the importance of social-ecological resilience for landscapes, focusing on the relationship of humans with nature and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for biodiversity conservation. Third, it proposes guidelines and measures for the promotion and enhancement of social-ecological resilience. The outcomes of the study show a broad perspective on the concept of social-ecological resilience to understand the necessary adaptation to global change. As findings, this research highlights the significance of nature-human interactions for agroforestry systems, citing also the potential contribution that digital innovation can play for the conservation of those interactions in a sustainable way. Moreover, it uncovers the key role of local communities in building social-ecological resilience through the application of a variety of described strategies that can have a relevant impact and be useful for landscape management practices to face upcoming challenges linked to climate change.

The role of protected areas co-management in enhancing resistance and resilience of deciduous forest ecosystem to extreme climatic events in Bangladesh

Due to ongoing and projected climate change as well as increasing anthropogenic disturbances, the tropical deciduous forest has been experiencing a decline in its biomass and productivity. To mitigate this adverse effect, many tropical countries have adopted forest co-management engaging local communities. However, the effects of co-management on the resistance and resilience of forest ecosystems to extreme climatic events have rarely been tested. The present study investigates the effects of co-management on resistance and resilience to extreme climatic events in two major tropical deciduous forest protected areas of Bangladesh, namely Madhupur National Park (MNP) and Bhawal National Park (BNP), through remotely sensed satellite data. We used the Google Earth Engine platform to access the Landsat images from 1990 to 2020 for a comprehensive assessment of the forest cover condition under two major management regimes (i.e., traditional and co-management). We find that co-management slows down the rate of forest destruction, where the rate of forest destruction was 108 ha year^-1 in MNP and 121 ha year^-1 in BNP during the year 1990-2008 under traditional forest management system. Under the co-management regime, forest cover increased by 19 ha year^-1 and 41 ha year^-1 from 2009 to 2020 respectively in MNP and BNP. Our study finds a highly significant correlation between rainfall (p < 0.001) and forest health, although co-management had poor impacts on forest resistance and resilience in case of extreme climatic events, such as drought and heavy rainfall. We find, no significant impacts of co-management on resistance and resilience to drought in MNP, and on resistance and resilience to heavy rainfall in MNP and BNP. In BNP, the impacts of co-management on resistance (p < 0.05) and resilience (p < 0.01) of forest to drought were highly significant. Forest co-management although have the potentials to reduce the deforestation rate by mitigating anthropogenic disturbances, its capacity to tackle the adverse impact of climate change was limited in our study. An adaptive co-management model, therefore, is crucial for mainstreaming the adverse effect of climate change on the tropical deciduous forest to harness the maximum potential of community participation in forest resources management.

Homeowner perceptions and responses to buffelgrass invasion risk in the Tucson, Arizona Wildland-Urban Interface

In this study, we aimed to analyze homeowners' level of awareness and perceived risk about buffelgrass invasion in the Tucson, Arizona Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), as well as the factors influencing their participation in buffelgrass control and fire risk mitigation efforts. Data for the study were generated through the administration of an online survey among 117 members of Home Owner Associations (HOAs) in the Tucson WUI. The results showed that the overwhelming majority of respondents were aware of buffelgrass, but their knowledge about buffelgrass control mechanisms appeared to be limited. Respondents also more frequently expressed concern about the risks posed by buffelgrass invasion to general targets, such as the Sonoran Desert ecosystem, native plants and wildlife than risks to their private property and neighborhoods. The results also showed that the level of involvement in HOAs, and leadership in HOAs had significant positive effects on homeowners' participation in buffelgrass control efforts. Homeowners' duration of residence also had a significant negative effect on participation in buffelgrass control efforts, suggesting that newcomers may be more involved than long-term residents. Similarly, the number of months respondents spent in Tucson per year had a negative effect on the number of hours spent on buffelgrass control efforts. Respondents' perceived risk about buffelgrass invasion also had a positive effect on the hours spent on buffelgrass control as well as their level of involvement in fire risk mitigation efforts. These results highlight the importance of local institutions and community heterogeneity in social responses to threats in WUI communities. Policies aimed at building the resilience of WUI communities need to account for their complexity as coupled social-ecological systems.

Analysis of the Social-Ecological Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Ghana: Application of the DPSIR Framework

Globally, forests provide several functions and services to support humans’ well-being and the mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The services that forests provide enable the forest-dependent people and communities to meet their livelihood needs and well-being. Nevertheless, the world’s forests face a twin environmental problem of deforestation and forest degradation (D&FD), resulting in ubiquitous depletion of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services and eventual loss of forest cover. Ghana, like any tropical forest developing country, is not immune to these human-caused D&FD. This paper reviews Ghana’s D&FD driven by a plethora of pressures, despite many forest policies and interventions to ensure sustainable management and forest use. The review is important as Ghana is experiencing an annual D&FD rate of 2%, equivalent to 135,000 hectares loss of forest cover. Although some studies have focused on the causes of D&FD on Ghana’ forests, they failed to show the chain of causal links of drivers that cause D&FD. This review fills the knowledge and practice gap by adopting the Driver-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses (DPSIR) analytical framework to analyse the literature-based sources of causes D&FD in Ghana. Specifically, the analysis identified agriculture expansion, cocoa farming expansion, illegal logging, illegal mining, population growth and policy failures and lapses as the key drivers of Ghana’s D&FD. The study uses the DPSIR analytical framework to show the chain of causal links that lead to the country’s D&FD and highlights the numerous interventions required to reverse and halt the ubiquitous perpetual trend of D&FD in Ghana. Similar tropical forest countries experiencing D&FD will find the review most useful to curtail the menace.

Multi-criteria evaluation in paradigmatic perspectives of agricultural environmental management

Agriculture is one of the primary activities that affects the environment due to natural resources consumption. Therefore, systematic environmental management for the agricultural sector is required. This study was conducted to analyze the paradigmatic perspective and strategies of agricultural environmental management in Iran. Considering basic criteria of environmental management, three paradigms of frontier economics, eco-development and deep ecology were compared using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The AHP, is a multi-criteria decision making techniques which is useful when there are different alternatives or indicators in decision making. Comparisons were based on the viewpoints of 117 policy makers, superior managers and main elites and agriculture sector researchers. Environmental managerial strategies also have been studied. Findings revealed paradoxes among the paradigmatic perspectives and selected strategies of different agricultural stakeholders which reduce their effective interactions. Frontier economics is the dominant viewpoint of key agricultural policy makers and other governmental executives. They prefer independent reactive strategies to cope with environmental challenges. Agricultural researchers and private sector authorities believe in eco-development. They have selected cooperative proactive strategies in this regard. Finally, deep ecology has the highest priority according to environmental specialists, who endorse strategic maneuvering and believe in modifying, rethinking and redesigning previous strategies. A paradigm shift, as well as consistency between paradigmatic perspectives and executive strategies, is suggested.