Incentivizing cooperative agreements for sustainable forest management

Published Date
July 2014, Vol.44:34–41, doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2014.03.006

Experimental tests of alternative structures and institutional rules

Author 

David McEvoy ^a

Michael Jones ^b

Michael McKee ^a,,

John Talberth ^c

aAppalachian State University, USA

• bBridgewater State University, USA
• cWorld Resources Institute, USA

Received 5 September 2013. Revised 3 February 2014. Accepted 17 March 2014. Available online 24 April 2014.

Abstract

Non-industrial private forestland owners (NIPFs) manage the majority of US forestland. But land use conversion is the highest among this group, in part due to the relative paucity of income earned, these agreements can provide opportunities for long term payments from sales of timber and ecosystem services at levels sufficient to reduce the temptation to convert. In this structured well, these agreements can provide opportunities for long term payments from sales of timber and ecosystem services at levels sufficient to reduce the temptation to convert. In this paper we investigate various means of encouraging meaningful participation in cooperative agreements for forests that emphasize conservation. We report on the results obtained through a series of laboratory market experiments in which the participants play the role of NIPFs and make resource allocation decisions facing real financial incentives. Our results shed light on the relative factors that affect the success of these agreements. In particular, we find that when agreements include contribution thresholds (with money back guarantees) coupled with relatively long contract lengths, the groups are able to preserve a significant fraction of forested lands through conservation agreements.

Keywords

Conservation agreement

Participation

Economic laboratory experiment

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 Table A-1. Overview of Experiment Treatments.

Table A-1. Overview of Experiment Treatments..

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• ☆
  Funding is provided by the World Resources Institute under the Southern Forests for the Future Project. All opinions are those of the authors. We thank Trevor McKenzie for his help in our understanding of the historical development of the timber resources in Southern Appalachia.

• ⁎ 
  Corresponding author at: Department of Economics, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA. Tel.: + 1 828 262 6080.

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Policy instruments for developing planted forests: Theory and practices in China, the U.S., Brazil, and France

Published Date
December 2015, Vol.21(4):223–237, doi:10.1016/j.jfe.2015.09.004

Author 

• Daowei Zhang ^a,,
• Anne Stenger ^b,c
• Patrice A. Harou ^d

• aForest Economics and Policy, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, 36849-5418, United States
• bBETA - UMR 7522 CNRS Université de Strasbourg, 61, avenue de la Forêt Noire, 67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France
• cINRA, UMR 356 Economie Forestière - AgroParisTech, Laboratoire d’Economie Forestière, Nancy, France
• dPinchot Institute for Conservation, Washington, DC, United States

Received 5 August 2014. Accepted 24 September 2015. Available online 23 October 2015. 

Abstract

Planted forests are seen as a means to meet increasing demand for timber and environmental services and thus to achieve sustainable forest development. In this paper, we use the Faustmann–Hartman silvicultural investment model to demonstrate how policy instruments influence planted forest development and review such a development in China, the U.S., Brazil, and France. We find that planted forests emerge because of scarcity in timber and environmental services and develop in response to economic and policy and institutional instruments, including secure property rights, stumpage price policy, and efficient forestry governance and administration.

JEL classification

Q23

Q15

Q28

D24

Keywords

Planted forest development

Market factors

Silvicultural investment model

Scarcity

Policy

Property rights

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• ⁎ 
  Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 4 844 1067; fax: +33 4 844 1084.
  
  

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China's forest tenure reform and institutional change at a crossroads

Published Date
November 2016, Vol.72:92–98, doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2016.06.019
New Frontiers of Forest Economics: Forest Economics beyond the Perfectly Competitive Commodity Markets

Author 

• Ping Liu ^a,
 
• Runsheng Yin ^b,c,
 
• Hua Li ^b,,

• aCollege of Management, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
• bCollege of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
• cDepartment of Forestry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA

Received 21 June 2015. Revised 4 January 2016. Accepted 26 March 2016. Available online 28 June 2016.

Highlights

• China has encountered challenges in reforming and restructuring its rural forestry.
• •
  Harvest restrictions must be relaxed to improve the forest management incentive.
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  Parcelization of forestland and a rush to form forest co-ops need to be dealt with.
• •
  Boundary disputes and conflicting claims should be carefully resolved.
• •
  Rules of classified management and ecosystem service compensation ought to be adjusted.

Abstract 

China's latest rural forest reforms have made headway by further devolving the use rights of collectively owned forestland and relaxing government control over private forestry operations. However, there have been policy inconsistencies, conflicts, and even maladaptions such as harvest restrictions, taking of devolved forestland without fair compensation, lack of flexibility in local execution, and a rush to forming co-ops. Building on recent research advances, this paper attempts to further elucidate practical solutions to these challenges. The authors argue that the stake is high to address these challenges in a timely manner, and that effective and coherent resolutions to them are urgently needed. To that end, it is essential to better understand the institutional economics in regard to property rights, collective action, transaction costs, and governance, and to better understand the primary features of forest ecosystems and forestry as well as the rural society of China. It is hoped that this effort will contribute to the continued discussion and more effective implementation of the forest devolution and institutional transition in China and elsewhere.

Keywords

Devolution

Tenure

Land use rights

Governance

Transaction cost

Collective action

Ecosystem services

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• ☆
  This article is part of a special section entitled “New Frontiers of Forest Economics: Forest Economics beyond the Perfectly Competitive Commodity Markets”, published in the journal Forest Policy and Economics 72, 2016.

• ⁎ 
  Corresponding author.

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New Frontiers of Forest Economics: Forest economics beyond the perfectly competitive commodity markets

Published Date
November 2016, Vol.72:1–6, doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2016.06.009
New Frontiers of Forest Economics: Forest Economics beyond the Perfectly Competitive Commodity Market.

Author 

Shashi Kant ^a,,

Peter Deegen ^b,

Martin Hostettler ^c,

Sen Wang ^d,

Jintao Xu ^e,

Gregory Valatin ^f,

aFaculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, 33 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Canada

bProfessorship of Forest Policy and Forest Resource Economics, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

cCycad AG, CH 3011 Bern, Switzerland

dCanadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Atlantic Forestry Centre Fredericton, E3B 5P7, New Brunswick

eNational School of Development, Peking University, Beijing, China

fForest Research, Alice Holt Lodge, Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom

Received 3 March 2015. Revised 5 February 2016. Accepted 5 April 2016. Available online 2 July 2016.

Highlights

• The need of New Frontiers of Forest Economics (NEFFE) is discussed.
• •
  Science includes analysis as well as synthesis.
• •
  Economic models should interweave other-regarding and self-interest preferences.
• •
  Rigorous analysis and synthesis of externalities should be the focus.
• •
  Markets and political institutions should be treated as entangled institutions.

Abstract 

The paper provides an overview of the papers included in this special issue, and presents thoughts about New Frontiers of Forest Economics. The paper argues that science does not mean analysis alone; it should be complemented by synthesis and forest economics is a promising field to rediscover synthesis as a methodology of science. The paper sets the goal of boundless profession of forest economics and suggests three key areas of research: (i) economic models that interweave other-regarding and non-cooperative self-interest preferences; (ii) rigorous analysis and synthesis of externalities and development of new economic approaches to address the diversity of interrelated property rights of complex ecosystems; and (iii) treating markets and political institutions as entangled institutions.

Keywords

Analysis

Behavioral economics

Constitutional economics

Forest economics

Institutional economics

Political institutions

Property rights

And synthesis

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• ☆
  This article is part of a special section entitled “New Frontiers of Forest Economics: Forest Economics beyond the Perfectly Competitive Commodity Markets”, published in the journal Forest Policy and Economics 72, 2016.

• ⁎ 
  Corresponding author.

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