Hugh R. Bigsby

• Head of Faculty at Lincoln University

Participatory approach has been an official part of Community Forestry (CF) since 1989 when Master Plan for the Forestry Sector (1989) was introduced in Nepal. However, many problems related to benefit distribution from CF have emerged because of the way decision-making is influenced by social and institutional structures present at community level...

Abstract Purpose – Local organisations have been established on participatory approach whose central purpose is to establish development activities bringing about positive change as four pillars of developments: to establish decentralised robust local organisation for sustainable forest management to enhance livelihood of rural people, to meet the...

Small-scale farmers in Zambia are faced with problems of low crop productivity, scarcity of fuel wood and fodder, and subsequently are generally food insecure. Agroforestry can contribute to food and income security, amelioration of the environment and subsequently, to mitigation of climate change effects. However, despite all the potential of agro...

Carbon (C) stocks in the forests of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) participating countries have to be estimated and monitored to determine accurate financial incentives and compensation. The research estimated the distribution of C stock across the different pools and management regimes of tropical Sal forest i...

Nepal established community forestry institutions to manage natural resources at a local level with the intention of improving environmental and economic outcomes. While environmental successes have been made under community forestry, economic improvements, particularly for poor and marginalised groups, have proved elusive. This study examines how...

Nepal's forests have been transferred to community management with the twin objectives of supplying forest products and addressing local environmental problems. Community forests provide a range of benefits, from direct forest products such as timber and non-provisioning ecosystem services such as soil protection. There is a need to understand the...

Management of natural forests in the tropics generally involves some type of single-tree selection system that has only a few trees removed per hectare. To reduce the impact of harvesting on the residual stands, logging operations are increasingly moving to low-impact harvesting systems that work with single-tree selection. One low-impact harvestin...

L'expérience de sociétés forestières pratiquant l'abattage sélectif d'arbres individuels au Sarawak montre que leurs opérations ne sont encadrées en général que par une réglementation de base concernant par exemple le diamètre minimum d'abattage, les dimensions maximales des trouées ou les essences autorisées. En général, les aspects sylvicoles ne...

Nepal has a long history of returning public forests to local people as part of its community forestry programme. In principle the community forestry programme is designed to address both environmental quality and poverty alleviation. However, concern has been expressed that forest policies emphasise environmental conservation, and that this has a...

The effectiveness of biosecurity measures at national borders is influenced by the behaviour and levels of involvement of travellers. Involvement is the importance or relevance of an object or situation to an individual. Involvement helps regulate the way in which people receive and process information and thus influences the extent of information...

Experience with companies, using single-tree selection systems for logging in Sarawak, shows that they are generally guided only by basic statutory harvesting rules like minimum diameter limits, maximum gap size and permitted species. At best, silvicultural considerations are typically only implied in the harvesting rules, rather than being explici...

One of the outcomes of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was the provision for reductions in a range of agricultural trade barriers. In particular, certain types of barriers, such as tariffs, export subsidies, embargoes, import bans, quotas, supply management regimes, domestic price supports, licensing and excha...

The paper presents a model for quantifying quarantine-related phytosanitary measures by combining the two basic components of pest risk assessment—probability of establishment and economic effects—into a single management framework, iso-risk. The model provides a systematic and objective basis for defining and measuring acceptable risk and for just...

In Nepal, many rural households need access to public forest resources to complement private resources for food and livestock production. However, current forest policies are largely directed at environmental protection. The first part of this study identified the effect of current forest policy on livestock production using survey data from 259 ho...

Due to the public goods characteristics of many ecosystem services and their vital importance to human welfare, various mechanisms have been put in place to motivate private landowners in the provision of ecosystem services. A common approach is to try to develop a comprehensive ecosystem services market where landowners can receive payments from b...

Economic development activities change the physical and social environments in which individuals live. For planners, it is important to anticipate the types of changes that might occur, and to put measures in place that mitigate negative impacts and promote positive impacts on people and communities. Social Impact Assessment (SIA) was introduced as...

Small forest owners have a wide variety of forest types, age class distributions, forest sizes and management strategies making it awkward, if not impossible for them to participate in carbon markets. The key issue is that the focus of forest-based systems for sequestering carbon is largely on creating permanent stores of carbon on defined areas of...

The focus of forest-based systems for sequestering carbon has largely been on creating permanent stores of carbon on defined areas of land with a single payment to the forest owner for the carbon. In terms of forest management, this focus leads to two outcomes, continuing production of timber if the forest area is sufficiently large to create an ef...

This article investigates the role of capital formation in contributing to the sustainability of community forestry in Nepal, using a case study approach based on 23 forest user groups (FUGs). FUGs were classified in 3 categories on the basis of cluster analysis: (1) successful, (2) moderately successful, and (3) unsuccessful clusters. The results...

Sustainability has become a primary goal for much of the legislation which governs resource management in New Zealand. A major difficulty associated with sustainable development objectives, however, is the absence of reliable indicators to measure progress towards the goal of sustainability. The ‘ecological footprint’ provides an estimate of the am...

While there has been a large increase in investment in plantation forestry in New Zealand by smallholders during the past decade, there are still many smallholders who have chosen not to become involved in this land use or who are using only a portion of their potentially planted land for forestry. To understand why this is the case, this paper stu...

The Tierra del Fuego government has a statutory responsibility to ensure that Nothofagus forests are sustainably used. To provide strategies to maximize the forest's sustainable benefits for society, this research develops indicators of sustainable management of lenga forests. Multicriteria methods are used to integrate different perspectives regar...

The present article examines the relationship between community forest management policies on the one hand, and income and unemployment in rural areas of Nepal on the other, by modeling the effect of forest management constraints on community forest use. Current government policy dictates the use of all community forestland for environmental conser...

This research studies the effects on income and employment when externally imposed policies constrain use of common forest reso urces. Using a mixed-integer linear programming model, the study examines the impacts of cons ervation-oriented community forest policies in Nepal on three household income groups. The results show that current community f...

The study examines the importance of community forest resources for income and employment in rural areas of Nepal by studying the effect of current forestry policy on forestland use. Using data from 259 households in six community forest user groups in three hilly districts (Dolakha, Kavre and Nuwakot), the results show that the resources available...

Common forests in developing countries are valuable sources of raw material supplies, employment and income generation, particularly for low income households. This paper looks at the effect on income and employment when common forest resources have external policies that constrain their use. Using a mixed-integer linear programming model, this stu...

The characteristics of forestry in New Zealand have provided a particular basis for the development of forest valuation that makes it unique internationally. In particular, forest valuation techniques place an emphasis on the valuation of the forest crop separately from the land that it is growing on. This distinction arises from a number of factor...

The relative importance to New Zealand consumers of five different wood outdoor furniture attributes was studied using conjoint and cluster analyses through a mail survey that was implemented in July 2000. The results indicate that the most important attribute for New Zealand consumers is the source of the wood (New Zealand preferred to imported)....

Paper presented at Sustainable Production of Forest Products 2000, IUFRO Division 5 Research Group 5.12, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 2000. The study examines the relative importance to New Zealand consumers of environmental certification compared to other wood product attributes using conjoint analysis. A survey of preferences for product attrib...

Sustainable development has become a primary objective for many countries throughout the world since the late 1980s. A major difficulty associated with sustainable development objectives, however, is the absence of reliable indicators to measure progress towards the goal of sustainability. The ‘ecological footprint’ provides an estimate of the land...

This paper examines the production structure of the Australian sawmilling sector over the period 1950-51 to 1984-85 using a translog cost function. The results show that the sawmilling industry is best represented by a production function which does not have any restrictions on functional form. Inputs, including capital, labour, materials and energ...

This paper examines the production structure of the Australian sawmilling sector over the period 1950-51 to 1984-85 using a translog cost function. The results show that the sawmilling industry is best represented by a production function which does not have any restrictions on functional form. Inputs, including capital, labour, materials and energ...

Price elasticities for demand and supply of sawn timber in Australia were estimated. The price elasticity of demand was based on a composite price calculated as a weighted average of a domestic sawn timber, dressed imports, and rough softwood and hardwood imports. The use of a composite price overcomes problems encountered in earlier studies where...

The theoretical basis of competition and collaboration is discussed. A history of the recent relationships between the wood- based industries of the two countries is outlined. Future prospects for competition and collaboration are reviewed for trans-Tasman trade and for trade with third countries. Some implications of these trends are discussed.

Nepal has established community forestry institutions to manage natural resources at the local community level under the assumption that there will be better management than under Government agencies. However, community forestry has not been entirely successful as it has not addressed the needs of poor and marginalised groups. The main goal of this...

Until recently, rimu has been an important timber species for the furniture industry in New Zealand. Current New Zealand Government policy is to stop all logging on public forests from March 2002. Public forests have been the main source of rimu timber, and the ban is having a substantial impact on the furniture industry. The purpose of this study...

The paper looks at the implications of internationalisation of forest ownership on forest valuation. With an increase in the international diversity of forest owners questions are raised about the effect that this has on the methods used to value forests and whether there are substantive differences due to the nationality of the owner. A survey of...

The Sanitary Phytosanitary Code (SPS) is an effort to reduce the technical barriers to trade created by phytosanitary regulations, or trade barriers related to plant and animal health. A key feature of SPS is risk assessment and risk management in determining appropriate quarantine actions which provide an acceptable level of risk to the importer a...

Paper presented at the 2010 New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (Inc.) Conference, Tahuna Conference Centre – Nelson, New Zealand. August 26-27, 2010. Management of many Nepalese forests has been devolved to local communities. Forest products, which are used by the community and which may also be traded, are essential contributo...

Paper presented at the 2010 New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (Inc.) Conference, Tahuna Conference Centre – Nelson, New Zealand. August 26-27, 2010. Community forestry in Nepal is intended to reduce poverty by sustainable management of forests. Timber is one of the most high-value forest products, especially in the case of Sal...

Paper presented at the 2009 New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (Inc.) Conference, Tahuna Conference Centre – Nelson, New Zealand. August 27-28, 2009. Forests form the dominant natural ecosystem in Malaysia. About 55% of Malaysian land area is forested and endows a rich diversity of flora and fauna. Peat swamp forests constitute...

Paper presented at the 2009 New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (Inc.) Conference, Tahuna Conference Centre – Nelson, New Zealand. August 27-28, 2009. Agroforestry technologies have been extensively researched and introduced to smallholder farmers in Zambia for over two decades. Despite the research and extension effort over thi...