Browsing by Author "Fisher, Brendan"

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Implementation and opportunity costs of reducing deforestation and forest degradation in Tanzania
(2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2011) Fisher, Brendan; Lewis, Simon L.; Burgess, Neil D.; Malimbwi, Rogers E.; Munishi, Panteleo K.; Swetnam, Ruth D.; Turner, Kerry; Willcock, Simon; Balmford, Andrew
The Cancún Agreements provide strong backing for a REDDC (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism whereby developed countries pay developing ones for forest conservation1. REDDC has potential to simultaneously deliver cost-effective climate change mitigation and human development2–5. However, most REDDC analysis has used coarse-scale data, overlooked important opportunity costs to tropical forest users4,5 and failed to consider how to best invest funds to limit leakage, that is, merely displacing deforestation6. Here we examine these issues for Tanzania, a REDDCcountry, by comparing district-scale carbon losses from deforestation with the opportunity costs of carbon conservation. Opportunity costs are estimated as rents from both agriculture and charcoal production (the most important proximate causes of regional forest conversion7–9). As an alternativewe also calculate the implementation costs of alleviating the demand for forest conversion—thereby addressing the problem of leakage—by raising agricultural yields on existing cropland and increasing charcoal fuel-use efficiency. The implementation costs exceed the opportunity costs of carbon conservation (medians of US$6.50 versus US$3.90 per Mg CO2), so effective REDDC policies may cost more than simpler estimates suggest. However, even if agricultural yields are doubled, implementation is possible at the competitive price of US$12 per Mg CO2.
Linking science with stakeholders to sustain natural capital
(2007) Mwakalila, Shadrack; Burgess, Neil; Ricketts, Taylor; Olwero, Nasser; Swetnam, Ruth; Mbilinyi, Boniface; Marchant, Rob; Mtalo, Felix; White, Sue; Munishi, Pantaleo; Marshall, Andrew; Malimbwi, Rogers; Smith, Celina; Jambiya, George; Marshall, Andrew; Madoffe, Seif; Fisher, Brendan; Kajembe, George; Morse-Jones, Sian; Kulindwa, Kassim; Green, Jonathan; Balmford, Andrew
Measuring, modeling and mapping ecosystem services in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania
(SAGE, 2011) Fisher, Brendan; Turner, R. Kerry; Burgess, Neil D.; Swetnam, Ruth D.; Green, Jonathan; Green, Rhys E.; Kajembe, George; Kulindwa, Kassim; Lewis, Simon L.
In light of the significance that ecosystem service research is likely to play in linking conservation activities and human welfare, systematic approaches to measuring, modeling and mapping ecosystem services (and their value to society) are sorely needed. In this paper we outline one such approach, which we developed in order to understand the links between the functioning of the ecosystems of Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains and their impact on human welfare at local, regional and global scales. The essence of our approach is the creation of a series of maps created using field-based or remotely sourced data, data- driven models, and socio-economic scenarios coupled with rule-based assumptions. Here we describe the construction of this spatial information and how it can help to shed light on the complex relationships between ecological and social systems. There are obvious difficulties in operationalizing this approach, but by highlighting those which we have encountered in our own case-study work, we have also been able to suggest some routes to overcoming these impediments.