Forests as Pathways out of Poverty and to Broader ...
Transcript of Forests as Pathways out of Poverty and to Broader ...
Photo: CI
Forests as Pathways out of Poverty and to Broader Prosperity: Empirical
Insights and Conceptual Advances
Daniel C. Miller, University of Illinois Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science
October 24, 2018
Photo: K. Nakamura
Roadmap
• Research motivation
• Research approach and results
– Traditional review
– Systematic mapping and review
• Moving forward
– A new tool for evidence synthesis
– Conclusions
Study motivation• Forests provide goods and services vital to human well-being
• Forest-poverty literature shows significance of forests for basic consumption and, in some cases, a safety net
• Much less known about whether and how forests can provide a pathway out of poverty in developing countries.
• Even less known about forests as providing pathway to broader prosperity, including more widely shared economic benefits and other aspects of human well-being
Study questions
• Can forests provide a pathway out of poverty?
• Can forests provide a pathway to broader-based prosperity?
• What specific mechanisms/pathways does literature identify in answering these questions?
Forest-poverty linkages1. Support for current consumption (subsistence)
2. Safety nets
3. Income & increase in available assets as means to escape poverty
Photos: PROFOR
Major focus of forest-poverty literature
Material living standards
Economic living standards - general
Economic living standards - asset accumulation
Subsistence & safety nets
Pathway out of poverty
Conceptualizing Prosperity
Material living standards
Economic living standards - general
Economic living standards - asset accumulation
Economic equity
Health
Education
Social Relations
Security and Safety
Governance
Subjective Well-Being
Culture and Spirituality
Freedom of Choice and Action
Subsistence & safety nets
Pathway out of poverty
Broader prosperity
Sources: Angelsen & Wunder2003; Sunderlin et al. 2005; McKinnon et al. 2016
Methods
Keyword search using Web of Science for most-cited forest-livelihoods papers:
• Forest* and econ*• Forest* and economic*• Forest* and livelihood*• Forest* and poverty• Forest* and prosper*• Forest* and (“well-being” or “wellbeing” or “well being”)
Top 100 cited papers for each search string for two periods to avoid bias toward older papers:
• 1990-2016• 2012-2016
Geographic distribution of empirical studies reviewed
Total n = 150 studies with cases in 56 countries
Distribution of studies by outcome focus
N = 150 studies in 56 countries
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Health
Social relations
Culture and spirituality
Subjective well-being
Economic equity
Security and safety
Governance
Economic living standards - Asset accumulation
Material living standards
Economic living standards - general
Outcomes examined
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Economic/material + otheroutcome(s)
Economic + material outcomes
Material living standards
Economic living standards-general
# of studies
Very few studies examine economic/material well-being andanother dimension of prosperity
Poverty dynamics
• Many studies say forests provide income or benefits to poor, but don’t say whether and how forests help them escape from poverty
• 25 of 150 studies examined forest-poverty dynamics: – 12 described a social group (e.g. household, community, or
region) as moving out of poverty due at least in part to forests
– 2 found movement into poverty.
– 0 studies on broader prosperity analyzed a mechanism.
Moving out of poverty: mechanisms
• Harvest and sale of wood
• External payment for forest conservation and restoration (government, market)
• NTFPs (but likely relevant for only certain crops)
• Growing and sale of tree crops (oil palm, fruit)
• Relative increase in “off-forest” income
• ecosystem services to improve agricultural production
Moving into/staying in poverty: mechanisms
• Dependence on unprofitable and/or degrading forest resources
• Interventions exacerbate existing inequalities (e.g. land reforms)
• Plantations crowd out smallholder agricultural activity & erode ecosystem services
Study conclusions
• Main finding: Empirical studies of 1) movement out of poverty and 2) economic poverty and other dimensions of human well-being (broader prosperity) remain rare
• Research need: panel data studies to shed light on how forests may affect poverty and broader-based prosperity over time
• Policy implication: Broaden dialogue about forests’ contribution to development – not just about (extreme) poverty
Research question
What evidence exists on the contribution of forest-based productive activities to poverty alleviation?
Aims of systematic map
-locate, characterize and assess empirical studies
-identify the type and frequency of forest-based activities and poverty outcomes being studied
-assess the overall quality of the evidence base
-identify indicators commonly used to measure poverty outcomes
METHODOLOGY
Scope literature
Set inclusion criteria
Draft protocol
Conduct search strategy
Screen & assess results
Extract relevant data
Analyse trends/impacts
Summary of findings
• Knowledge gaps exist:– Predominance of economic constructs of poverty– Geographic bias in research effort– Differential impacts between demographic groups
• Further synthesis possible on:– Impacts of forest management on poverty– Impacts of governance types on poverty – we are
in fact now doing this…
Motivation
• Systematic reviews and maps increasingly used to shed light onforest-livelihoods (and many other) issues
• BUT they are usually very labor intensive & time consuming
• Careful, repetitive work required is prone to errors andinconsistencies
• Average environmental systematic review = 164 days (full‐timeequivalent) (SD 23) and systematic map = takes 211 days (SD 53)(Haddaway and Westgate, 2018).
colandrapp.com
• Open access, machine-learning assisted tool for conducting evidence synthesis
• Uses machine learning, natural language processing, and text-mining functions:
• partially automate finding relevant citations
• extract desired data from PDFs.
See: Cheng et al. 2018; colandrapp.com
Key results from experiment testing Colandr
Colandr can make screening literature for evidence more efficientand less painful
Example from agroforestry systematic map (Miller et al. 2018):
– Compare time to screen articles using traditional method vs. Colandr
– N = 207
If we used Colandar results indicate we could have saved:
– ~100 hrs
– ~$20,000
This is likely an understatement of savings as only pertains toscreening of 200 studies and gains come as more studies screened
Summary
Evidence on forest-poverty linkages increasing, but major gaps remain.
Studies of movement out of poverty and to greater prosperity remain rare
New technology can help build evidence base
Need for panel studies to understand dynamics
More general need to include broader dimensions of human well-being in debate about forest contributions
Thank you!
Email: [email protected]@oregonstate.edu
Acknowledgements: This research was supportedby the USDA National Institute of Food andAgriculture Hatch project 1009327 and PROFOR atthe World Bank. We gratefully acknowledgeexcellent research assistance by Roberta Afonsoand Katia Nakamura. We thank Arun Agrawal, DijiChandrasekharan, and Nalin Kishor for initialdiscussion that helped spark this work. DuncanMacQueen, Sofia Ahlroth, Gill Shepherd, PriyaShymsandar, and several author contributors to aforthcoming volume on this topic provided valuablecomments.