The purpose of the work presented in this report is to demonstrate that policymakers have tools at their disposal that provide significant help in the evaluation of trade-offs, opportunities, and repercussions of the policies under consideration. This report focuses on Colombia, however the analytical framework can be applied to any country interested in exploring country-wide effects and economic viability of policies that aim to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture. Results provided in this study should be seen as an example of the potential applications of the framework developed.

The 2007-2008 upsurge in agricultural
commodity prices gave rise to widespread concern about
investors causing a "global land rush". Large land
deals can provide opportunities for better access to
capital, transfer of technology, and advances in
productivity and employment generation. But they carry risks
of dispossession and loss of livelihoods, corruption,
deterioration in local food security, environmental damage,

The 2007/08 commodity price boom
triggered a ‘rush’ for land in developing countries. Yet,
many affected countries lacked the regulatory infrastructure
to cope with such demand and reliable data on investors’
performance. This study uses the example of Ethiopia to show
how simple improvements in administrative data collection
can help to address this by (i) allowing assessment of the
productivity of land use and taking measures to increase it;

The question of whether biofuels help
mitigate climate change has attracted much debate in the
literature. Using a global computable general equilibrium
model that explicitly represents land-use change impacts due
to the expansion of biofuels, this study attempts to shed
some light on this question. The study shows that if biofuel
mandates and targets currently announced by more than 40
countries around the world are implemented by 2020 using

A rainforest can be modeled as a dynamic
asset subject to various risks, including risk of fire. Any
small part of the forest can be in one of two states: either
untouched by forest fire, or already damaged by fire, in
which case there is both a local forest loss and increased
dryness over a broader area. In this paper, two Bellman
equations are constructed, one for unharmed forest and a
second for already burnt forest. The analysis solves the two

The major role tropical forests play in
biodiversity and climate change has led the world to search
for effective ways to slow down deforestation. Community
forest management (CFM) is an example of the broader concept
of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM). As
part of the decentralization policy in many countries,
mainly in Africa and Asia, CFM was expected to promote: (i)
a more effective stewardship of the resources by involving

Road construction has often been viewed
as the precursor to deforestation, especially in tropical
forests. Traditional responses to such threats have been
reactive, with attempts to mitigate impacts through physical
measures, or the establishment of protected areas. These
approaches often have not been entirely successful,
especially in areas where economic potential is significant.
This paper seeks to mitigate such conflicts by proposing a

As the wild tiger population in tropical
Asia dropped from about 100,000 to 3,500 in the last
century, the need to conserve tiger habitats poses a
challenge for the Global Tiger Recovery Program. This paper
develops and uses a high-resolution monthly forest clearing
database for 74 tiger habitat areas in ten countries to
investigate habitat threats for Bengal, Indochinese, Malayan
and Sumatran tigers. The econometric model links forest

This report is based on seven background
papers comprising household studies, national level
analyses, and technical assessments. Household studies were
undertaken in Mozambique and Zambia to develop a clearer
picture of the role of Miombo woodlands in household
consumption. These studies were an outcome of intensive,
seasonal structured household surveys, which have formed the
core of the original work supported by this project

The policy note builds on experience
from both Tanzania and other Sub-Saharan African countries
with similar socioeconomic and environmental contexts. This
policy note puts forward and discusses a range of policy
measures along the entire charcoal value chain in Tanzania.
The development of this policy note benefited from a variety
of recent studies on charcoal utilization and trade
conducted in the country. This policy note is structured as

Miombo woodlands stretch across Southern
Africa in a belt from Angola and the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) in the west to Mozambique in the east. The
miombo region covers an area of around 2.4 million km. In
some areas, miombo has been highly degraded as a result of
human use (southern Malawi and parts of Zimbabwe), while in
others, it remains relatively intact (such as in parts of
northern Mozambique, and in isolated areas of Angola and the

The important role of biomass fuels
today. Timor Leste is a relatively small country located in
the eastern part of Timor Island with an area of about 1.5
million ha and an estimated 2007 population of 1.0 million.
At about US$550 GDP per capita, it is one of the least
developed countries in the world, with an estimated 40
percent of the population in poverty. However, the
development of offshore oil and gas resources in partnership