This work provides an important, broad and legal critique and assessment of transnational trends, structures and innovations currently in use for managing forests.

This edited collection assesses governance in forestry programmes and projects, including REDD+ governance. It examines political representation, participation and decentralisation in forest governance, providing insight as to how forest governance arrangements can be responsive to the socio-economic interests of local people and communities who live adjacent to and depend on forests. Global Forest Governance and Climate Change argues that inclusive complementary representation of local communities is required for strong participatory processes and democratic decentralisation of forest governance. Responsiveness to local people’s socio-economic interests in forestry initiatives require paying attention to not just the hosting of participatory meetings and activities, but also to the full cast of appointed, self-authorized, and elected representative agents that stand, speak, and act for local people. This book will be of interest to students and academics across the fields of climate change governance, forestry, development studies, and political economy. It will also be a useful resource for policy makers and practitioners responsible for forestry and climate change initiatives.

Many countries around the world are engaged in decentralization processes, and most African countries face serious problems with forest governance, from benefits sharing to illegality and sustainable forest management. This book summarizes experiences to date on the extent and nature of decentralization and its outcomes, most of which suggest an underperformance of governance reforms, and explores the viability of different governance instruments in the context of weak governance and expanding commercial pressures over forests. Findings are grouped into two thematic areas: decentralization, livelihoods and sustainable forest management; and international trade, finance and forest sector governance reforms. The authors examine diverse forces shaping the forest sector, including the theory and practice of decentralization, usurpation of authority, corruption and illegality, inequitable patterns of benefits capture and expansion of international trade in timber and carbon credits, and discuss related outcomes on livelihoods, forest condition and equity. The book builds on earlier volumes exploring different dimensions of decentralization and perspectives from other world regions, and distills dimensions of forest governance that are both unique to Africa and representative of broader global patterns. Authors ground their analysis in relevant theory while attempting to distill implications of their findings for policy and practice.

Today, problems such as deforestation, biodiversity loss and illegal logging have provoked various policy responses that are often referred to as forest and nature governance. In its broadest interpretation, governance is about the many ways in which public and private actors from the state, market and/or civil society govern public issues at multiple scales. This book takes a fresh perspective on the study of forest and nature governance. Departing from ‘practice theory’, and building upon scholars like Giddens, Bourdieu, Reckwitz, Schatzki and Callon, it seeks to move beyond established understandings of institutions, actors, and knowledge. In so doing, it not only presents an innovative conceptual and methodological framework for a practice based approach, but also rich case studies and ethnographies. Finally, this book is about how actors involved in governance talk about and work with trees, forests, biodiversity, wildlife, and so on, while acting upon forest policies, environmental discourses, codes of conduct, or scientific insights.

This book analyses and develops overarching concepts for forest policy and forest governance and includes a detailed investigation into the historical discussion on forests. It examines opportunities and limits for negative emissions in a sector that – like peatlands – appears significantly less ambivalent compared to highly technical large-scale forms of climate geoengineering. The analysis shows that the binding climate and biodiversity targets under international law are much more ambitious than most people assume. Measured against that, the volume critically reviews the potentials of afforestation and reforestation for climate mitigation, which is often presented as the new saviour to fulfil the commitments of the Paris Agreement and to reach climate neutrality in the future. It becomes clear that ultimately only biodiverse and thus resilient forests can function as a carbon sink in the long term. The volume shows that the existing European and international forest governance approaches fail to comply with these targets and insights. Furthermore, the book develops a bundle of policy measures. Quantity governance systems for livestock farming, fossil fuels and similar drivers of deforestations represent the most important approach. They are most effective when not directly targeting forests due to their heterogeneity but central damaging factors. With regard to the dominant regulatory and subsidy-based governance for forests we show that it remains necessary to supplement these quantity governance systems with certain easily graspable and thus controllable regulatory and subsidy regulations such as a regulatory protection of old-growth forests with almost no exceptions; extension of the livestock-to-land-ratio established in organic farming to all farming; far-reaching restriction of bioenergy use to certain residues flanked by import bans; and a national and international complete conversion of all agricultural and forest subsidies to “public money for public services” to promote nature conservation and afforestation in addition to the quantity control systems.

Deforestation in tropical rainforest countries is one of the largest contributors to human-induced climate change. Deforestation, especially in the tropics, contributes around 20 per cent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, and, in the case of Indonesia, amounts to 85 per cent of its annual emissions from human activities. This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the emerging legal and policy frameworks for managing forests as a key means to address climate change. The authors uniquely combine an assessment of the international rules for forestry governance with a detailed assessment of the legal and institutional context of Indonesia; one of the most globally important test case jurisdictions for the effective roll-out of ‘Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation’ (REDD). Using Indonesia as a key case study, the book explores challenges that heavily forested States face in resource management to address climate mitigation imperatives, such as providing safeguards for local communities and indigenous peoples. This book will be of great relevance to students, scholars and policymakers with an interest in international environmental law, climate change and environment and sustainability studies in general.

Winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout Award 2008 for the best book on international environmental problems. This pioneering study examines the impacts of neoliberal global governance on forests and provides an exhaustive overview of international forest politics: Intergovernmental Panel on Forests World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development Intergovernmental Forum on Forests United Nations Forum on Forests Forest Certification New policies to address illegal logging World Bank's forests strategy Convention on Biological Diversity - and other international forest-related processes The book is an essential reference for students of global environmental politics and required reading for forest policy makers. It concludes by arguing for a democratization of global governance and a fundamental restructuring of the regulatory environment so that final decision making authority is restored to the local level. Driven by concern at what forest loss means for communities and future generations, this is a book that stands to make a difference.

The contributions of forests to the well-being of humankind are far-reaching. Forests provide vital wood supplies, help to combat rural poverty, and ensure food security and decent livelihoods; they offer promising mid-term green growth opportunities; and they deliver vital long-term environmental services, such as clean air and water, biodiversity and mitigation of climate change. Building on data that are more comprehensive and reliable than ever before and covering 234 countries and territories, the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015 (FRA 2015) shows encouraging signs of improved forest management and a global slowdown in deforestation. However, these trends need to be strengthened, especially in countries that are lagging behind.