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

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 409
Author(s):  
Richard Kyere-Boateng ◽  
Michal V. Marek
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Forest Policies ◽  
Illegal Mining ◽  
The Social ◽  
Forest Use ◽  
Eventual Loss

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.

Global tropical forest area measurements derived from coarse resolution satellite imagery: a comparison with other approaches

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILIPPE MAYAUX ◽  
FRÉDÉRIC ACHARD ◽  
JEAN-PAUL MALINGREAU
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Forest Area ◽  
Base Line ◽  
High Resolution Data ◽  
Forest Policies ◽  
Forest Distribution ◽  
Definition Of

Definition of appropriate tropical forest policies must be supported by better information about forest distribution. New information technologies make possible the development of advanced systems which can accurately report on tropical forest area issues. The European Commission TREES (Tropical Ecosystem Environment observation by Satellite) project has produced a consistent map of the humid tropical forest cover based on 1 km resolution satellite data. This base-line reference information can be further calibrated using a sample of high-resolution data, in order to produce accurate forest area estimates. There is good general agreement with other pantropical inventories (Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Forest Resources Assessment 90, World Conservation Union Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests, National Aeronautics & Space Administration [USA] Landsat Pathfinder) using different approaches (compilation of existing data, statistical sampling, exhaustive survey with satellite data). However, for some countries, large differences appear among the assessments. Discrepancies arising from this comparison are here analysed in terms of limitations associated with each approach and they are generally associated with differences in forest definition, data source and processing methodology. According to the different inventories, the total area of closed tropical forest is estimated at 1090–1220 million hectares with the following continental distribution: 185–215 million hectares in Africa, 235–275 million hectares in Asia, and 670–730 million hectares in Latin America. A proposal for improving the current state of forest statistics by combining the contribution of the various methods under review is made.

Forest policies, management and conservation in Soviet (1920–1991) and post-Soviet (1991–2005) Armenia

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOVIK Y. SAYADYAN ◽  
RAFAEL MORENO-SANCHEZ
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
International Community ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Forest Policies ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Forestry Sector ◽  
History Of ◽  
Forest Use ◽  
Management And Conservation

The extent and condition of forest ecosystems in Armenia have decreased drastically since the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This decline is not only a consequence of the recent history of the area, but also the result of decades of forest policies, management and forest-use practices. To reverse the negative trends, it is important for stakeholders, scientists, resource managers and policy makers (in Armenia and abroad) to understand the influential factors in the decline, yet such information is scarce, highly fragmented, written in Armenian or Russian, and inaccessible to the international community. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge base of the international community by presenting and contrasting the most important issues and processes that have affected forest cover in Armenia during the USSR (1920–1991) and independence periods (1991–to date). For each period, the legal framework, the forest inventory practices, forest use, management and conservation practices, the forestry education, and the perception of the forests by forest communities and society at large are presented and discussed. Except for the social perception of the forests, the most relevant aspects of these issues have scarcely changed from one period to the next. There is a need to address the most pressing problems and improve the current conditions of the forests and the forestry sector in Armenia.

scholarly journals Comprehensive Overview of REDD+ in India: Status, Opportunities and Challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Harish Bahadur Chand ◽  
Sanjay Singh ◽  
Abhishek Kumar ◽  
Anil Kumar Kewat ◽  
Roshan Bhatt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Forest Dependency ◽  
Forestry Sector ◽  
Large Geographical Area

Climate change is a worldwide issue with detrimental effects on ecosystems and human well-being. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is a worldwide policy tool for combating climate change by reducing emissions from the forestry sector and has received widespread attention. Since the program's inception, India has been a strong advocate for REDD+ and its activities. The goal of this research is to evaluate India's current REDD+ readiness. India is the fourth largest CO2 emitter in the world, accounting for 7% of global CO2 emissions. India's emission trajectory shows the country's ever-increasing CO2 emission trend, with an annual average increase rate of 5-6 percent. India has a large geographical area and forest cover, and it holds 7,124.6 million tons of carbon stock. Forests are traditionally managed through a participatory approach, which is similar to REDD+ activities. India has made significant progress toward REDD+ implementation by developing a national REDD+ strategy, enacting consistent laws and regulations, and demonstrating accountability and monitoring of national forest carbon. However, several issues, including forest dependency, community rights, capacity building, policies, and finance, should be carefully addressed to overcome hurdles in REDD+ implementation.

scholarly journals Leisure and youth clubs’ work with young people of ethnic minority background living in socially deprived housing areas: creating processes of hope and empowerment through social pedagogical work

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Elisa Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
After School ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
The Social

This article gives an analysis of social pedagogical work in leisure and youth clubs, physically located in so-called socially deprived housing areas in Denmark. The pedagogical work is especially aimed at young boys of ethnic minority background. The article draws on empirical research from a project exploring leisure and youth clubs’ impact on children and young people’s well-being and opportunities for development when growing up in socially deprived housing areas. The social pedagogical work seems very closely related to societal issues moving into the pedagogical everyday life of the leisure and youth clubs. These clubs, besides embracing the children and young people’s active leisure life in communities with other children and young people, are thus also instrumental in helping and supporting the children and young people to cope with an everyday life that features experiences of stigmatising and inequality-shaped living conditions. The social pedagogical work is analysed from the perspectives of the pedagogues and young people, taking their point of view to what seems particularly significant to the well-being and development of the young people based on Scandinavian-German critical psychology. This is integrated with Paulo Freire’s notion of hope and empowerment, which is the analytical framework within the context of social pedagogical work concerned with how the young men develop belief in themselves for them to complete their education, get a job in after-school hours and refrain from involvement in crime and gang-related communities.

scholarly journals Evidence that a national REDD+ program reduces tree cover loss and carbon emissions in a high forest cover, low deforestation country

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (49) ◽  
pp. 24492-24499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anand Roopsind ◽  
Brent Sohngen ◽  
Jodi Brandt
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
Forest Protection ◽  
Forest Policies ◽  
Deforestation Rates ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation Policy ◽  
Implementation Period ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
The Impact

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a climate change mitigation policy in which rich countries provide payments to developing countries for protecting their forests. In 2009, the countries of Norway and Guyana entered into one of the first bilateral REDD+ programs, with Norway offering to pay US$250 million to Guyana if annual deforestation rates remained below 0.056% from 2010 to 2015. To quantify the impact of this national REDD+ program, we construct a counterfactual times-series trajectory of annual tree cover loss using synthetic matching. This analytical approach allows us to quantify tree cover loss that would have occurred in the absence of the Norway-Guyana REDD+ program. We found that the Norway-Guyana REDD+ program reduced tree cover loss by 35% during the implementation period (2010 to 2015), equivalent to 12.8 million tons of avoided CO2 emissions. Our analysis indicates that national REDD+ payments attenuated the effect of increases in gold prices, an internationally traded commodity that is the primary deforestation driver in Guyana. Overall, we found strong evidence that the program met the additionality criteria of REDD+. However, we found that tree cover loss increased after the payments ended, and therefore, our results suggest that without continued payments, forest protection is not guaranteed. On the issue of leakage, which is complex and difficult to quantify, a multinational REDD+ program for a region could address leakage that results from differences in forest policies between neighboring countries.

Interdisciplinary analysis of the environment: insights from tropical forest research

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHARACHCHANDRA LELE ◽  
AMIT KURIEN
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Forest Research ◽  
Forest Change ◽  
Tropical Forest Management ◽  
The Social ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
The Impact

SUMMARYTropical forest management is a quintessential interdisciplinary (ID) problem straddling the social-natural divide, and has attracted scholars from many disciplines. This paper is a review of the ID research on tropical forests with a view to understanding the challenges involved in doing ID environmental research in general and the manner in which they might be addressed. Research on two core interdisciplinary questions in tropical forest research, namely causes of tropical forest loss and degradation and its impacts on society, is analysed to illuminate issues facing ID researchers. The challenges stem from differences in implicit values, theories and epistemologies across disciplines, as well as the relationship between individual disciplines, the ID space and the wider applied research audience. Understanding the value-laden nature of terms such as forest loss and degradation leads to a multidimensional and multidisciplinary characterization of the impact of forest change on human well-being. The analysis of causes of change has been enriched by ID research in which forest outcomes are characterized explicitly in terms of their values, measured in terms relevant to these values and linked to chains of socioeconomic variables at the appropriate scale. Explanations from different disciplines may be reconciled to some extent by seeing each as partial and perhaps having context-specific validity, although some core tensions, especially between economists and anthropologists, remain. Insights from ID research have been unevenly internalized in the literature, pointing to the absence of a broadly shared ID space as a consequence of individual social science disciplines appropriating environment as a subject of study. Shifting from theory-driven to problem-driven research and re-engaging self-consciously in this applied ID space will be required to generate more rigorous and relevant ID research on forests.

Entrepreneurial Education - a New Challenge for Universities in Romania

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Gabriel Croitoru ◽  
Mircea Constantin Duica ◽  
Dorin Claudiu Manolache ◽  
Mihaela Ancuta Banu
Keyword(s):  
Social Role ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Positive Contribution ◽  
Business Decision ◽  
Entrepreneurial Spirit ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
High Degree

Abstract Entrepreneurial spirit plays an increasingly important role in the economic sphere, and universities are meant to play a central role in this process, where the main objective is the continuous development and mediation of the knowledge increasingly geared to the applications through innovation and patenting a secure platform for employment and well-being growth. The Universities have to take a position in if/and how they want to grow into a so-called “University of Entrepreneurship” which is characterized by a high degree of openness to the surrounding society and here we are talking, especially, about, the business sector in Romania. This evolution of expectations for the social role of universities has resulted from increased and recent interest in entrepreneurship and innovation of areas as research and theory of the business environment. The experience gained as teachers indicates that education and entrepreneurship education should include different theories and methodology than those applied in the usual way. The theory of traditional management and microeconomic models could even be a barrier to new thinking and change and, therefore, to the implementation of modern entrepreneurial actions. We want this article to be a source of inspiration for educational institutions and to have a positive contribution to research in business education and to be applicable in business decision-making.

FORGOTTEN EFFECTS IN THE VALUATION OF THE SOCIAL WELL-BEING INDEX IN MEXICO’S SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
G.G. Alfaro-Calderon ◽  
N.L. Godinez-Reyes ◽  
R. Gomez-Monge ◽  
V. Alfaro-Garcia ◽  
A.M. Gil-Lafuente
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Social
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