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.

Although carbon sequestration programs for non-industrial forestland owners in Massachusetts are being developed, very little is known about the program attributes of importance to different types of landowners or the likelihood that landowners will participate in any given program. This study estimates the probability that Massachusetts landowners will participate in several carbon offset programs using data from a survey of 3000 Massachusetts forestland owners. Results from an ordered logit discrete choice model suggest that the likelihood of enrollment in most programs is quite low.

Biodiversity conservation on private land of the developed world faces several challenges. The costs of land are often high, and the attitudes of landowners towards conservation are variable. Scientists and practitioners need to scan for and adopt cost-effective solutions that allow for the long-term sustainability of conservation measures on private land. In this study, we focus on one of such possible solutions: Working with landowners to implement voluntary nonmonetary conservation. We restrict our focus to protection of raptor nests, but the ideas can be applied to other taxa as well.

The assessment of alternative forest management strategies should account not only for the private benefits to forest landowners but also for the ecological, environmental and economic benefits valued by society. There are a number of empirical valuation methods that may contribute to that assessment. These methods involve several steps: data acquisition, model specification and estimation.

This study reviews the potential use of biochar as soil amendment in afforestation, reforestation, agroforestry, fruit tree orchards, and bio-energy plantations. Implementing this practice could sequester large amounts of carbon (C) over the long-term, potentially offsetting anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, and mitigating climate change. On a global scale, this practice could sequester between 2 and 109.2 Pg biochar-C in 1.75 billion ha of degraded and deforested lands and agroforestry systems.

Woody biomass has gained considerable attention in the U.S. as a feedstock for producing renewable bioenergy. Though these resources are generally not cost competitive with fossil fuels under current technology and market conditions, they are likely to generate numerous socioeconomic and environmental benefits to the entire nation. Since the positive externalities associated with wood-based bioenergy production are not fully accounted for in the market place, policy incentives could play an important role in its promotion in the future.

Scientists have called repeatedly for a broader conservation agenda that emphasizes not only protected areas but also the landscapes in which those areas are embedded. We describe key advances in the science and practice of engaging private landowners in biodiversity conservation and propose a conceptual model for integrating conservation management on reserves and privately owned lands. The overall goal of our model is to blur the distinction between land management on reserves and the surrounding landscapes in a way that fosters widespread implementation of conservation practices.

Should north Australia's extensive populations of feral animals be eradicated for conservation, or exploited as a rare opportunity for Indigenous enterprise in remote regions? We examine options for a herd of banteng, a cattle species endangered in its native Asian range but abundant in Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, an Aboriginal land managed jointly by traditional owners and a conservation agency in the Northern Territory of Australia.

The state of Oregon’s (USA) land use planning framework has long been characterized by tensions between state and local authority, between traditionally-defined “urban” and “rural” concerns, and between the competing interests of various landowners.

The population of the Critically Endangered Mariana crow Corvus kubaryi on the island of Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, has decreased dramatically in recent years. It is unclear to what extent negative practices by people, such as inappropriate land use or persecution of crows, have contributed to this decline. We conducted a public opinion survey to document ongoing practices towards the crows on Rota, to assess residents’ knowledge of and attitudes towards the birds, and to gauge potential responses to a government-instituted land incentive programme.

By the end of the 1980s, Argentina was in the middle of a severe economic crisis. In 1991, the Deregulation Decree, which steered the political economy toward a new neoliberal policy, dismantled the Argentine National Forestry Institute (IFONA), an autonomous bureaucracy responsible for forests. The aim of this study is to analyze the influence the World Bank exerted on domestic forest policymaking and bureaucratic reform in Argentina. We selected the interventions of the World Bank in the Argentinian forest and agricultural policy that started in the early 1990s and still continues today.