Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) is a conservation finance instrument based on the payments for ecosystem services model, wherein governments, private landowners, concession holders, and/or communities are compensated for undertaking activities which mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from forest use and land use change. This article reviews the numerous sources for REDD+ finance within the context of total global conservation finance.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a source of litigation and subject to court interpretation during the past several decades. In this study, event analysis was employed to examine the impact of six court decisions related to the ESA on the financial performance of U.S. forest products firms. The finding of abnormal returns revealed that all six events generated the expected positive or negative returns, and among them, four were statistically significant. Changes in systematic risk reflected the reaction of the stock market to the verdict announcements.

BACKGROUND: The biological conservation in private lands largely depends upon landowners’ willingness to keep populations of wild species on them, an issue highlighted by the Convention on Biological Diversity. In this study, we aim (i) to understand small landowners’ behavioural intentions, or relative intensity to adopt a given behaviour, towards threatened wildlife and (ii) to assess the role of local ecological knowledge, awareness of protected area, and forest ownership on landowners’ behavioural intentions towards threatened biodiversity.

The objective of this article is to provide new empirical evidence on landlord-tenant choices of share versus cash-rent contracts in U.S. agriculture. The focus is on the contribution of explanatory variables that represent transaction costs, risk-sharing incentives, or both. An empirical model of contract choice is tested against the 1999 Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey (AELOS) and finds mixed evidence for low transaction cost and risk-sharing-incentive motives for landlord-tenant choices of a share versus cash-rent contract.

An important and potentially underused source of biomass that could be utilized in energy production is from nonindustrial private woodlands. We employ the Theory of Planned Behavior to estimate the social availability of woody biomass as a function of landowner behavior intent, landowner characteristics, forest land characteristics, and biomass price on stated willingness to harvest biomass in conjunction with a commercial timber harvest.

Through a mail survey of 541 residents and riparian landowners in the area surrounding the Blue River watershed of southern Indiana, we examined perceptions and intended behaviors toward the eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis), an aquatic salamander experiencing drastic population declines due to anthropogenic causes. While anecdotal reports attribute hellbender mortality and removal to anglers and pet collectors, only 5% of respondents reported these negative behaviors.

Nothofagus dombeyi grows in a wide variety of sites. The information about its productivity is still scarce, which makes it difficult for foresters and landowners to take decisions about the best practices to maintain and/or improve the goods and services derived from the forest. The aim of this study was to construct dominant tree height functions and site index curves for secondary forests of Nothofagus dombeyi (coihue) in south-central Chile. We measured 100 sample units throughout three edaphoclimatic zones, and 300 dominant trees (three per plot) were used for stem analysis.

Forest certification, a proxy for sustainable forest management, covers more than 10% of the world's forests. Under forest certification, forest managers and landowners must comply with environmental, economic and social management standards aiming to promote forest conservation. Despite an increasing area of certified forests, there is a dearth of data on how forest certification is affecting the conservation of forest ecosystems and associated habitats.

This study investigated the role that a public land grazing permit buyout would have on ranching operations and conserving private land open space in the Rocky Mountain region of the western United States. Loss of grazing permits could serve as a pivotal factor in expediting private land fragmentation if ranching operations are enticed to sell their land due to loss of economic viability.

A major development concern of the 1970s and 1980s was 'the other energy' or 'woodfuel crisis'. Woodfuel use in developing regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America was believed to be a key factor in tropical deforestation, and the loss of forests was projected to result in widespread woodfuel shortages. In recent years, however, it has become apparent that woodfuel production is seldom a direct cause of deforestation (although it may be a by-product), and that most woodfuel demand is met by trees and shrubs growing outside of forest areas.

Efforts to protect the remaining Araucaria Forest fragments in Southern Brazil have focused on large forests dominated by the threatened species Araucaria angustifolia. However, such an approach can miss significant biodiversity by ignoring smaller forest fragments scattered throughout the landscape, many of which exist on small farms. Here, I evaluate the method used to define a set of natural reserves in Southern Brazil to assess if it captures and preserves the significant biodiversity that exists in this unique biome.