Alain Karsenty

Cirad - La recherche agronomique pour le développement | CIRAD · Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD)

Les besoins d'investissement sont massifs dans les pays les moins avancés et les pays à revenu inter-médiaire de la tranche inférieure, notamment pour le développement durable dans les zones rurales et dans le domaine du foncier. Les plans nationaux de financement de la biodiversité élaborés dans le cadre de la Convention pour la diversité biolo-gi...

Financing nature-positive development pathways in Southern countries is a central issue in the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in Montreal at COP15, and links to two streams: - the need expressed by Southern countries to receive support for biodiversity protection through public finance from Northern countries; - and th...

Si l’univers des différents types de crédits carbone est assez bien connu, la situation est plus floue en ce qui concerne les « crédits biodiversité ». Schématiquement, on peut distinguer deux cas : d’un côté, les systèmes, réglementaires ou volontaires, de compensation biodiversité avec des offsets, autour du principe « pas de perte nette » associ...

This paper analyses the policy changes occurring in the forest and palm oil sectors of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, through the lens of the transformational change concept. The aim is to first examine whether Sabah is transforming and, if so, to identify the determinants enabling or hindering the change. To determine if Sabah is transforming, we used t...

Comment « l'ingérence environnementale » a-t-elle évolué ces trente dernières années ? Des accords « dette contre nature » des années 1990 au projet de règlement sur la déforestation importée présenté récemment par la Commission Européenne, le cas des forêts est intéressant à analyser. Cet article propose une lecture de l'évolution de « l'ingérence...

Maintaining and enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks are options to tackle climate change and food security. However, the large-scale implementation of SOC sequestration in contrasted social and economic environments is a challenge. Giving economic value to SOC is seen as an efficient incentive for farmers to enhance SOC sequestration. There...

Converting forest ecosystems to other land uses has major negative consequences for the climate, biodiversity and human well-being. Several international initiatives have emerged to address these issues. Initially focused on narrow technical dimensions of forest management and setting up protected areas, the perspective was extended to forest-relat...

How to design incentives for SFM

Analyse de l'origine et du niveau des recette fiscales du secteur forestier dans les pays d'Afrique centrale, et discussion de l'hypothèse de l'accroissement automatique de la valeur ajoutée du fait de la transformation locale du bois plutôt que l'exportation de grumes.

Le phénomène des « mégafeux » de l’été a attiré l’attention sur l’importance des forêts, en particulier les grandes forêts tropicales. Leur contribution écologique est menacée par divers facteurs et les politiques mises en œuvre ne sont pas toujours à la hauteur des enjeux. La sauvegarde de ces forêts passe par des initiatives qui prennent davantag...

Les forêts du monde jouent un rôle essentiel pour l’atténuation du changementclimatique, le maintien de la biodiversité terrestre et le cycle global de l’eau. Pourtant, leur protection ne fait l’objet d’aucune convention internationale spécifique car une telle ambition se heurte au principe de souveraineté des Etats sur leurs ressources forestières...

Définitions et référentiels des PSE (avec vaste bibliographie)

rebours des autres régions du monde, l'Afrique pourrait devenir bientôt le continent de la déforestation, avec la RDC qui perd plus d'un million ha de couvert arboré par an. En Afrique centrale, la déforestation est le fait d'une petite agriculture dont l'emprise géographique s'accroit avec la démographie et la volonté de se constituer des patrimoi...

Translation on the French original article "Géopolitique des forêts d'Afrique cenrale"

Tropical forest degradation is a major source of greenhouse-gas emissions, but international forest and climate policies are yet to respond decisively to this. In some regions, as a result of population growth, climate change and forest degradation, the increased need for wood, whether for timber or fuelwood, will exceed the sustainable supply capa...

Les forêts tropicales sont fréquemment présentées comme des Communs, bien commun ou patrimoine commun. En réalité, on ne peut traiter cette question qu’en envisageant la double dimension de l’objet « forêt tropicale », enjeu d’accords internationaux pour tenter de mettre sur pied un régime partagé pour sa conservation. Cette double dimension renvoi...

Forest management certification seems to be stagnating or even receding in the Congo basin. This is attributable to the financial difficulties of some European companies, but might also be a consequence of unexpected interactions with the FLEGT process, which is lagging behind in the Congo Basin. Although this process and private certifications are...

Combating imported deforestation through modulation of custom tariffs for agricultural commodities

Traduction française de l'éditorial de Bois et Forêts des Tropiques n°336 (avril 2018), numéro thématique sur la Sylviculture tropicale en forêt dense africaine, en hommage à René Catinot René Catinot, qui fut directeur des recherches forestières au CTFT (Centre Technique Forestier Tropical, qui deviendra le département Forêt du Cirad) et figure hi...

René Catinot, qui fut directeur des recherches forestières au CTFT (Centre Technique Forestier Tropical, qui deviendra le département Forêt du Cirad) et figure historique de la foresterie tropicale française, se posait cette question au début des années 1960. Dès leur arrivée en Afrique Tropicale, nous dit Catinot, « les Forestiers chargés de la ge...

In the 19th Century, Imperial Russia looked to take control of the sea ports of the warm seas of the Arabian/Persian Gulf. It was the “Great Game”, which the newspapers of the time so liked to depict, used to disguise the hushed confrontation between the Russian bear, the English lion and the Persian cat. It all started in 2008 with the dramatic an...

Je reviens sur les problèmes conjoncturels, mais également sur les causes profondes des difficultés de cette filière, sur la question de la durabilité de l’exploitation forestière, certifiée ou non, et l’hégémonie croissante des acteurs asiatiques. Je termine par quelques propositions de politique publique dont l’ambition est de redonner un peu de...

e foncier agricole est entré dans la mondialisation. Ce phénomène est porteur de risques et d’opportunité. Risque de marginalisation accrue des agricultures familiales au nom de la modernisation des structures et de la nécessité d’accroître la production alimentaire – même si la majorité de ces investissements ne concernent pas les productions susc...

Dans une lettre cosignée par 30 chercheurs et publiquement adressée au ministère norvégien du Climat et de l’Environnement, le Pr Simon Lewis (University of Leeds) et ses collègues dénoncent l’impact potentiellement négatif de l’exploitation forestière sur les vastes marécages de la cuvette congolaise, abritant en partie des tourbières. Cette lettr...

Forest concessions have been used by governments as a development instrument of remote and landlocked areas. Currently, in Africa, concessions are caught between the increase in population density in rural areas and agribusiness investors seeking land. They remain a controversial forest resource management instrument, although certification has bee...

Forest concessions in Central Africa are being subjected to a combination of pressures from agribusiness investments, population growth and the informalisation of the domestic timber trade. This puts them at a crossroad. Despite REDD+, the forest sector is not a policy priority for governments whose ambition is to achieve emerging country status. T...

This paper aims to clarify two distinct but complementary questions on economic and legal additionality in the payments for environmental services (PES) debate based on examples from the literature and direct observations made in Madagascar and Mexico. For the economic dimension of additionality, we explain two ‘regimes of justification’, efficienc...

This viewpoint paper presents a reaction to the article by Brandt et al. (2016). It highlights the complexities inherent to the attribution of deforestation impacts to policy interventions when using remote-sensing data. This critique argues that in the context of the Congo a suite of factors (i.e., population density in particular) other than thos...

A political and social recognition of ecosystem services is increasingly complementing that of services generally expected from agriculture. It is in this context that this chapter discusses the role of payments for environmental services in regulating agricultural and forestry activities. We first show how the initial representation of payments fo...

In 2014 Decree 14/018 laying down the rules for granting forest concessions to local communities, followed by Ministerial Order 0/25 on the same issue was published in the DRC. This paper aims to analyse the abovementioned legislation with respect to participatory management of forests. The explicit recognition of the duality of a customary de fact...

Modern forms of land security must articulate the inclusive (manage the superimposition of rights) and the exclusive (ensure enforceable rights), in order to intelligently combine land sharing and land sparing in territorial development

Les concessions forestières sont, au même titre que les autres espaces forestiers, des espaces multifonctionnels. Ces concessions, dont l’objectif principal est l’exploitation du bois d’œuvre, sont des espaces sur lesquels différents usages coexistent. Les terroirs communautaires de chasse se superposent en partie à celles-ci. Il est donc possible...

In a letter jointly signed by 30 researchers and addressed publically to the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment, Professor Simon Lewis (University of Leeds) and his colleagues denounced the potentially negative impact of logging in the vast swamplands of the Congolese Cuvette, which partly comprises peatlands. The letter requested that N...

entral Africa is a region with a very strong potential for agricultural development. The desire of the countries in the subregion for economic emergence, the availability of arable land, and encouraging prices on the world market for perennial crops will inexorably lead to increased production of cash corps. In Central Africa this growth, which wi...

The environmental effectiveness of Central African management plans has recently become a topic of debate. The first discussion focused on additional deforestation connected to concessions with a management plan, as opposed to concessions without. Conclusions of an article published in early 2016 that supported this debate were challenged by resear...

Des débats sur l'efficacité environnementale des plans d'aménagement en Afrique centrale se sont fait jour récemment. Une première discussion porte sur le déboisement supplémentaire qui serait lié aux concessions aménagées par rapport aux concessions sans plan d'aménagement. Des résultats publiés début 2016 et allant dans ce sens ont été questionné...

L’Afrique Centrale est une région au très fort potentiel de développement agricole. La volonté d’émergence économique des pays de la sous-région, la disponibilité en terres arables et les cours favorables des commodités produites par les cultures pérennes sur le marché mondial, rendent inexorable un développement des cultures commerciales. Ce dével...

entral Africa is a region with a very strong potential for agricultural development. The desire of the countries in the subregion for economic emergence, the availability of arable land, and encouraging prices on the world market for perennial crops will inexorably lead to increased production of cash corps. In Central Africa this growth, which wi...

entral Africa is a region with a very strong potential for agricultural development. The desire of the countries in the subregion for economic emergence, the availability of arable land, and encouraging prices on the world market for perennial crops will inexorably lead to increased production of cash corps. In Central Africa this growth, which wi...

At the beginning of the 1990s, the World Bank introduced conditionalities to reform the forest concession regime in Central Africa and continuously intervened, inter alia, in Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and the DRC up to 2010. The reforms were designed to achieve two immediate objectives: (i) increase the price of the resource through competitive market...

A report for the FAO on the current situation and perspectives of forest concessions in Central and West Africa

Cameroon's for est sector has for many decades been characterized by industrial, large-scale, concession-based and export-oriented timber production. Over the past two decades, many innovative regulations have been adopted that largely responded to the external requests of the country's technical and financial partners. By using data and informatio...

Les concessions forestières industrielles sont caractérisées par un faible niveau de participation des populations locales. Leur évolution vers des modèles plus inclusifs semble inévitable, sur la base de la cartographie participative et de l’institutionnalisation des espaces coutumiers traversés. Déjà utilisés par quelques sociétés comme clé de pa...

Certification standard bodies in climate governance are assumed to function as independent third parties agencies in transactions, providing trust and transparency to ensure that the calculation of carbon credits is reliable. This article investigates the validity of this assumption for the voluntary forest carbon market by analysing the environmen...

Industrial forest concessions cover about 45 million hectares in Central Africa. This paper discusses the weaknesses of the current concession model and initiatives for helping it evolve; it then proposes a new type of concession, entitled 'Concessions 2.0', adapted to the future challenges presented by the overlapping among the rights and modes of...

Dans un contexte où la reconnaissance politique et sociale des services écosystémiques complète de plus en plus celles des services habituellement attendus de l'agriculture, ce chapitre discute le rôle des paiements pour services environnementaux dans la régulation des activités agricoles et forestières. Nous montrons tout d'abord comment la représ...

Un article publié dans Land Use Policy début 2016 arrive à la conclusion a priori étonnante que la déforestation serait, au Congo, plus élevée dans les concessions forestières avec des plans d'aménagement que dans celles qui n'en ont pas. L'analyse d'évaluation d'impact qui a conduit ces chercheurs à un tel résultat se base sur un appariement de pa...

Against a backdrop of growing concerns over REDD+ implications for tenure of forest-dependent communities, very few scientific studies have attempted to assess the linkages between the two. This paper offers empirical evidences for impacts of REDD+ intervention based on a case study of Thailand, where de jure state property and de facto tenure appa...

This paper presents a critical analysis of potential and risks associated with REDD+ mechanism in the context of international climate negotiation, and formulates recommendations for international negotiators, governments and civil society.. It is the synthesis of discussions held during the workshop organised by CIRAD, GRET and Les Amis de la Terr...

Strategies to tackle deforestation are evolving. Under pressure from environmental NGOs and consumers, the major food companies are voluntarily committing to apply the “zero deforestation” principle, especially for their production of the key agricultural commodities (palm oil, cocoa, soy, etc.), which are responsible for around 70% of deforestatio...

Protected Areas (PAs) remain the central instrument to protect Madagascar's threatened biodiversity. We combine matching and regressions in a quasi-natural experiment setting

Protected Areas (PAs) remain the central instrument to protect Madagascar's threatened biodiversity. We combine matching and regressions in a quasi-natural experiment setting to analyze PAs' additionality annually between 2001 and 2012 and study the channels that moderate the impact. PAs' have allowed to stabilize deforestation around a positive wi...

The stakes are high for tropical forestlands in multi-actor power relations because of their interdependence (climate change mitigation), their above- and below-ground resources (wood, mines) and their arable lands. In tropical countries, where the State owns most of the forestlands, many governments feel that any external initiative to change thei...

Achieving forest conservation together with poverty alleviation and equity is an unending challenge in the tropics. The Makira REDD+ pilot project located in northeastern Madagascar is a well-suited case to explore this challenge in conditions of extreme poverty and climatic vulnerability. We assessed the potential effect of project siting on the l...

Rapport de consultance pour le Secretariat Permanent REDD+, Côte d’Ivoire

Les Cahiers de BIODIV’2050 n°2 INITIATIVES

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) has become a central dimension of the contemporary international forest regime. The mechanism seeks to reward actors for keeping or restoring forests as a means to reduce carbon emissions. Carbon rights, here understood as title to carbon credits, have an odd status in the REDD+ d...

This reports review the potential of innovative mechanisms to finance biodiversity at the intentional level. Based on a literature review and interviews with key informants, the study listed 20 financing initiatives that are potentially innovative for biodiversity and analyzed their potential and limitations. It ends up highlighting three promising...

Dans ce texte, A. Karsenty et D. Ezzine de Blas discutent du paradoxe qui fait que les paiements pour services environnementaux (PSE) sont fréquemment présentés comme des instruments « basés sur le marché », au motif qu’ils modifient les incitations, même si le recours à de véritables marchés est exceptionnel. Cette confusion conduit ceux qui voien...

On the Nature of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are instruments of financial incentive for the conservation of nature. If ecosystem services are defined as benefits given to humans by nature, environmental services at the heart of PES’s are services exchanged by people for the sake of nature. Whi...

Central African countries are elaborating strategies for the implementation of the main elements of the REDD+ mechanism (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Among the measures needed to avoid deforestation and to introduce indicative systems for the conservation of forests, reforms to adapt land tenure systems to internat...