Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Audiences for this project included academics working on REDD+ and payments for ecosystem services projects; international scientists and policymakers engaged in assessments through the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; and undergraduate and graduate students at Rutgers. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? 1. Threeundergraduate students worked with the PI on a undergraduate research project on climate vulnerability in Vietnam. 2. Professional development of the PI: was invited to be a lead author on ch 6 of the IPCCSpecial Report on climate change, desertification,land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxesin terrestrial ecosystems to be published in 2020. For the whole project: 7 undergraduates at Rutgers wrote honor thesis or undergraduate Aresty research project on climate change and forest carbonin Vietnam. 51 undergraduate students took a class on Climate Policy developed by PI. 2 graduate students received additional training with PI. 10 Vietnam-based researchers received methodological or other training and research opportunities. 89 forest rangers and policymakers in Vietnam received training on the results of the research project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The PI made 3 conference presentations at academic conferences. She also participated in a World Wildlife Fund webinar on Forests and Climate Change that was distributed to 30 participants on three continents. For the whole project: 10 conference presentations were made to various audiences. 8 publications and one in submission were completed. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In our final publication from this project, we assessed the development of safeguards policies for forest carbon.Given that nations themselves will determine much of the on-the-ground work towards meeting international benchmarks and standards under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, there is strong need to pay attention to how different forest-rich countries are developing Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD+) programsOur findings reveal that the mostly discretionary guidance on safeguards from United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has allowed Vietnam to only loosely address key issues (tenure and participation chief among them), and that more compulsory and explicit guidance from UNFCCC and the international community and donors on the use of appropriate indicators, data collection methods and reporting framework related to REDD+ safeguards would have been more appropriate. In particular, the tension between national-scale reporting on social safeguards and provision of high-quality and timely data that indeed reflects realities on the ground (such as consent and participation, tenure and access to land, livelihood impacts and equity) need to be addressed. Further, despite attention to safeguards at national and project levels, the current system of labelling and legalizing safeguards but not operationalizing them, appears unable to sufficiently deal with potential negative implications of REDD+, particularly for livelihoods or land tenure. For the whole project, through our research, publications and outreach to communities, we have communicated the necessity of including social surveys in the development of forest carbon projects, particularly focused on the gender implications of forest policies, the need to include poor households, and the importance of linking forest carbon to climate vulnerability as well.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Roundtable on Evaluating the Evidence for Climate Justice: Carbon Offsets, Forest Governance, and the Aftermath of COP-21, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, Nov 18-22, 2016
|
Progress 10/01/15 to 09/30/16
Outputs
Target Audience: The primary audience for this research are government officials and policy makers Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? 1. Two undergraduate students worked with the PI on thesis projects related to climate mitigation and adaptation in Vietnam. 2. Professional development of PI: McElwee was selected to be a lead author of chapter 6 of the Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 2016-2019. McElwee was also selected by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature)'s Commission on Ecosystem Management to be the Thematic Group Leader for Cultural Practices and Ecosystem Management in fall 2016. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? In this reporting period, we had the following major research and education activities: The PI visted Vietnam in Dec 2015 and July 2016 to help the Vietnam team finish data entry, cleaning and analysis. Write up of findings with several new publications in the pipeline. Three conference presentations in Vietnam, South Africa, and the US were made this fiscal year on research findings, and one new publication. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We will be finalizing additional publications.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In year five of the project, we continued to assess the impact of payments for environmental services (PES) and Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) in Vietnam. In our most recent publication (forthcoming in Forests, 2017), we use results from our household survey of 300 HH across three provinces in the North, Center and South of Vietnam to show that while some agriculturalists are spontaneously adapting to existing climate change, much more needs to be done to help them. 30% of surveyed households said they had done something recently to adapt to climate changes, andlocal people were most proactive in the agriculture sector, using adaptation strategies to adjust cropping patterns, harvesting time, selecting salt-resistant varieties, and so on, as to reduce damages to livelihoods. For example, 13% of households in Dien Bien and 12% of households in Kien Giang stated they had changed a crop variety, while only 3% of households in Kon Tum had done so. Changing crop calendars and harvesting crops early to avoid flood and disaster losses was another strategy, one that had been taken by 100% of households in Kien Giang, 90% of households in Kon Tum, and 60% of households in Dien Bien. However, most households felt they were not doing enough to adapt to climate change, and needed more policy support. In particular, households rarely mentioned adaptation actions they were taking with regard to forestry, indicating that households felt less knowledge about this sector and needed guidance as to steps to take.In group discussions, those residents who stated that they had not taken any adaptation actions explained that they knew that adaptation was necessary but they had a lack of resources. Poor households in particular stated they did not have enough human, physical or financial resources to protect their fields and homes from climate hazards, therefore they tended to lose relatively more when hit by floods and storms than wealthier households, and had a lower capacity to cope with and adapt to shocks due to lower access to savings.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
The social and environmental implications of market-based policies to conserve water and carbon, presented at the International Workshop to Explore Research Frontiers through Partnerships in the Lower Mekong Basin, Can Tho, Vietnam, Nov 30-Dec 1, 2015.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Tradeoffs in ecosystem services payments: Water, biodiversity and cultural services in Vietnam, paper presented at conference Program on Ecosystem Change and Society: Socio-ecological Dynamics in the Anthropocene, Stellenbosch, South Africa, Nov 2-5, 2015
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
The impact of land and labor inputs in outcomes of PES participation in Vietnam presented at panel Beyond Neoliberal Natures: The Reworking of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) on the Ground at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco, Mar 29- Apr 2, 2016.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
McElwee, P.D., Nguyen V.H., Nguyen D.V., Tran, N.H., Nghiem, P.T, Le, T.V.H., and Vu, T.D.H. In press. Using REDD+ Policy to Facilitate Climate Adaptation at the Local Level: Synergies and Challenges in Vietnam. Forests, forthcoming.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
McElwee, P.D. The metrics of making ecosystem services real. Submitted to Environment and Society: Advances in Research.
|
Progress 10/01/14 to 09/30/15
Outputs
Target Audience:Our project has strong real-world implications for policy as it engages with questions of who benefits from new market-oriented approaches to forest conservation. We have used the findings from our empirical household surveys to provide policy-relevant advice to government and NGO implementers of payments for environmental services (PES) schemes in Vietnam to help them understand why some provinces with PES have been more successful than others (namely those provinces that have built their PES implementation around equity and participation among forest protecting households receiving payments). The PIs was invited by the government of Vietnam in fall of 2014 to lead a review of policyon PES, and she was able to use this NIFA-funded research project to suggest several changes to existing PES policy to be more pro-poor, through decentralization of monitoring and implementation, as well as raising the prices paid for forest protection which will go back into the pockets of forest-protecting communities. Many of these suggestions were accepted by the government, and newly revised PES policy will be forthcoming later in 2016incorporating this feedback. In this way, the NIFAproject directly impacted policy development in Vietnam that will be affecting the lives of nearly 2 million households receiving PES payments. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?1. Graduate student in Anthropology Marian Thorpe worked on a reading course with McElwee to prepare for her qualifying exams, taken and passed in spring 2015 on topics related to this project. 2. Research collaborator Nghi Tran was recommended by PI McElwee and was selected to participate in an international course on science diplomacy in Italy in June 2015 sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science(AAAS) and The World Academy ofSciences (TWAS). This short course was designed for scientists interested in connecting their research to international policy making, policymakers interested in some of the central science based themes that might influence their work, research institutionadministrators, and research funders focused on identifyingways to build international networks. 3. In Vietnam, the research collaborators designed and implemented a training course on "Social and Environmental Safeguards: Developing Tools for Monitoring PES/REDD Projects for Success" from May 11 to July 24, 2015. 67 people from provincial departments that are most related to REDD project implementation and monitoring applied to get into the short course, of which 30 were selected. The training course was organized in Hanoi (lectures) and Hoa Binh province (field surveys). The organizers invited international and Vietnamese lecturers to deliver lectures at the course, and the students participated in practicing designing and implementing household surveys in one fieldsite. Each participant then went back to their home province to design a thesis project based on local household surveys as well. The final thesis product was then submitted to the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (CRES) (research collaborators) in Hanoi for evaluation. One local training for rangers at Bi Duop-Nui Ba National Park in Lam Dong province was also designed and implemented by research partner Tropenbos International. 22 local rangers attended to receive knowledge of REDD+ and climate change in the local context as well as negotiation skills to help local people and the National Park's rangers harmonize forest protection goals and local livelihood strategies. It is hoped that the information as well as the tools from the training willhelp the National Park officials and local people protect the forest better and at the same time improve their livelihoods. 4. Professional development of PI. McElwee was one of 16 scholars designated as "Chancellor's Scholar" at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in spring of 2015. This designation is awarded to faculty members at the associate level to recognize outstanding and highly promising scholars. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?1. Publications: Pamela McElwee, Nghiem Phuong Tuyen, Le Hue, and Vu Huong (2015).'Downscaling REDD Policies in Developing Countries: Assessing the Impacts of Carbon Payments on Household Decision Making and Vulnerability to Climate Change in Vietnam', WorldFish-EEPSEA. The research team also continues to work on additional publications that will be submitted to journals by theclose of the project: "Payments for Environmental Services, Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation, and Climate Adaptation: Understanding the Linkages" which we intend to submit to WIRES Climate Change. "Payments for Environmental Services in Vietnam: Balancing Equity and Efficiency in Market Approaches to Forest Conservation", which we intend to submit to Environmental Science and Policy. "Payments for Environmental Services and Gender: Dynamics of Access, Participation and Household Economics" which we intend to submit to World Development. "Tradeoffs in Ecosystem Services Payments: Water, Biodiversity and Cultural Services in Vietnam" which we intend to submit to Conservation Letters. 2. Conference Presentations: Vietnam team members Huong Vu, Nghi Tran, and Hue Ha travelled to Sydney in November 2014 to present a paper at the World Parks Congress. They presented on a panel titled "Can payments for ecosystem services (PES) make a difference toProtected Area Management?". The session focused on how payments for ecosystem services (PES) can make a difference to protected area management by providing additional income for management and development of the areas. The panel of speakers presented prominent examples where PES has been applied as a major policy tool (both successful and not so successful/failed attempts). The focus of these presentations was on highlighting the challenges and opportunities and lessons learned on implementing successful PES programs. The Vietnam team presented on "Assessing the Impact of Payments for Ecosystem Services on Livelihoods of Local Communities around National Parks in Vietnam". Their findings highlighted that while some protected areas have been able to use PES to improve livelihoods of some households around Pas, this policy has been fairly limited, and more can be done to integrate co-management with PES around Pas in the future. 3. Government policy outreach The PI participated in a government policy review of payments for environmental services policy in fallof 2014, resulting in a publication by the government of Vietnam to assist policy makers in revising their national policy. The report recommended that the government increase payment rates for forest protection, decentralized forest monitoring and community feedback, more monitoring of household distribution of PES funds to ensure the poorest are benefiting, inclusion of women in forest monitoring and allocation, and increased focus on biodiversity as a criterion for payments. 4. Media mentions. The PI was interviewed by national media several times during the reporting period. The PI was also contacted by a reporter for the international media (UK-based Guardian newspaper) for a report on protected areas in Vietnam (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/01/vietnam-tourism-rush-development-conservation). 5. Project website. The Vietnam research team has made a preliminary website to disseminate the results of the overall research project (peer.cres.edu.vn). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Three activities remain to be accomplished byproject'send. 1. The second round of panel data was collected by the Vietnam research team in July/Aug of 2015 in Lam Dong province. This will be added to the existing SPSS database in Sept/Oct of 2015 so that a complete set of household data that was surveyed in 2011 and resurveyed in 2015 can be used to compare outcomes of participation in PES payment schemes. 2. We will be finalizing additional publications. The PI was on maternity leave for part of this reporting period, so there was a slowdown in publications. These will be completed in 2016-7. We anticipate newpapers on the impacts of migration on conservation payment plans, a summary paper of the results of the 500+ household surveys, and a paper on the smaller panel data set of 227 and the changes they have undergone over 3 years of participation in conservation payment projects.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In year four of the project, we continued to assess the impact of payments for environmental services (PES) and Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) in Vietnam. In this reporting period, wehad the following major research and educationactivities: The Vietnam teamcollected a second round of panel data in Jan 2015 from one of the fieldsites (Son La) and in July 2015 from the other fieldsite (Lam Dong), and Aug/Sept 2015 was spent on data cleaning. Training and capacity building in Vietnam. Several workshops and trainings were held for implementors of PES policy. Write up of findings with several new publications in the pipeline. Oneconference presentationwasmade this fiscalyear on research findingsat the World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia in Nov 2014. Activities related to teaching:The PI developed a new independent reading course on REDD for a graduate student in Anthropology at Rutgers. This course was focused on readings documenting the development of REDD in Latin America, the issue of tenure security in REDD projects, and how safeguards and informed consent are developed by REDD communities and projects.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Pamela McElwee, Nghiem Phuong Tuyen, Le Hue, and Vu Huong (2015).�Downscaling REDD Policies in Developing Countries: Assessing the Impacts of Carbon Payments on Household Decision Making and Vulnerability to Climate Change in Vietnam. Manila: WorldFish-EEPSEA.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Can payments for ecosystem services (PES) make a difference to�Protected Area Management? At World Parks Congress, Sydney Australia, Nov 2014.
|
Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/14
Outputs
Target Audience: Target audiences for the project include: 1. Undergraduate and graduate students at Rutgers University. Research project findings were incorporated into modules in three classes taught by the PI: an undergraduate class on International Environmental Policy in fall 2013; a graduate class on Nature Society Theory in fall 2013; and a new undergraduate course in spring 2014 on Social Dimensions of Climate Change. Enrollment was 24 students and the course received strong teaching reviews and will be offered again. Additionally, two undergraduate research projects related to the grant were developed through the Arestry Undergraduate Research Program. 2. Professional audiences (scientists and academics) were presented with research findings through PI presentations at several professional association conferences this year. 3. Findings were disseminated within Vietnam to key policymakers working on ecosystem issues through the participation of the PI in a government review of their ecosystem services policy in Aug/Sept 2014. Recommendations from research to improve ecosystem services policy were presented by the PI to key Vietnam government ministries at a workshop in Hanoi in Sept 2014. Additionally, the development of a website by the Vietnam research partners will disseminate results from the projects in both English and Vietnamese. It will also provide access to our survey protocols and make our household dataset available to other interested researchers. The website is schedule to be finished by early 2015. 4. Findings have been written up and submitted to peer-reviewed journals and will be part of several edited book collections (see Products section) to be shared with target audiences, including other scientists and policymakers. 5. Findings were also shared with the wider public through the mass media.The PI made contact with a reporter based in Hanoi and pitched him a possible story on payments for environmental services in Vietnam, based on findings from this project. McElwee was interviewed at length by the reporter in Jan 2014 in Vietnam. The resulting story made the New York Times on June 6, 2014, with quotes from the PI. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? In addition to the participation of three Vietnam-based collaborators in a "PEER Science Participants' Conference" in Bangkok, Thailand in fall 2013, collaborator Nghi Tran travelled to the US from May 18-25, 2014 to visit Rutgers and to take part in a workshop at the University of Connecticut for a new NSF-funded Research Collaborators Network titled PARTNERS: People And Reforestation in the Tropics: a Network for Education, Research, and Synthesis. Tran was recommended for the workshop and RCN through his affiliation with this project. The workshop provided an excellent opportunity for Tran to meet other researchers, particularly from Latin America, working on reforestation issues and he will continue to be involved in this RCN network for the next 3 years. 2 undergraduate students at Rutgers, Melissa Cleland and Sae Ha Je Yun, joined the project this year as well through the Rutgers Aresty Undergraduate Research Center. Both students worked 5 hours a week on independent research projects on topics affiliated with this grant, and developed a research plan, undertook the research, and presented results at a poster competition. This opportunity provided the students with an excellent chance to see how social science research is planned and undertaken. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Results have been disseminated through 4 main forms: 1) publications 2) conference presentation 3) media mentions and 4) website development. 1). Publications. One book was written and submitted by the PI and is now under contract with the University of Washington Press for publication in 2015. (See products section for further details.) Several additional journal articles are in draft form. Additionally, a report to the Prime Minister of Vietnam was submitted to help in the process of policy revisions for ecosystem services policy in Sept 2014. 2). Conference presentations. A total of 3 conference presentations were made this year by the PI and Vietnam collaborators. These included presentations in the US at the American Anthropological Association and Association of American Geographers annual meetings, and 1 international conferences: - McElwee, P(2013)."Producing knowledge on fictitious commodities: On emerging carbon regimes in Vietnam,"paper presented on panelCarbon (Up)Dating: The Maturing, Waxing, or Waning of Carbon in Environmental Governance and Conservation Policy. Annual meeting of American Anthropological Association.Chicago, Nov 19-23, 2013. - McElwee, P, Nghiem, T., Tran, N, Le, H and Vu, H.(2014)."Challenges in payments for environmental services policies: Tradeoffs between energy, water and land services in Vietnam"paper presented on panel"The land-water-energy nexus: governance challenges, approaches and experiences". Global Land Project Open Science Conference.Berlin, Germany, Mar 19-21, 2014. - McElwee, P(2014)."The ontological politics of REDD: Turning trees into carbon and land managers into service providers in Vietnam,"paper presented on panelMixed Methods and Hybrid Epistemologies in Climate Change Research III. Annual meeting of Association of American Geographers.Tampa, Florida, April 8-12, 2014. 3). Media mentions. Some of our research made the New York Times on June 6th, with quotes from the PI used. 4) Website development. The Vietnam partners are developing a website that will disseminate results from the projects in both English and Vietnamese. It will also provide access to our survey protocols and make our household dataset available to other interested researchers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Three major activities remain to be accomplished in 2014-5. The first is revisiting the original household surveys done in 2011 (227 households), which will be done by the Vietnam team in spring of 2015 so that we have panel data on these households and their use of conservation payments. This additional data will be included in our existing SPSS database in spring of 2015 and the data will be cleaned at that point. Secondly, we will be finalizing additional publications, including submitting 2 articles now in preparation by September 2015, and developing three additional articles by spring 2016 (one of these articles will be published open access). We anticipate newpapers on the impacts of migration on conservation payment plans, a summary paper of the results of the 500+ household surveys, and a paper on the smaller panel data set of 227 and the changes they have undergone over 3 years of participation in conservation payment projects. The final remaining activity is developing a website where the projects findings can be publicized. This is being developed by a information technology expert in Vietnam (the website will be in both English and Vietnamese) and will be completed by spring 2015.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In this year of the project, we continued to assess the impact of payments for environmental services (PES) and Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) in Vietnam. Our project had the following major research and educationactivities: 1) Work between the PI and researchers in Vietnam to extend the research to three new fieldsites. 2) Revisit to Vietnam by the PI in January 2014 to expand the number of stakeholder interviews ofpolicymakers and to assist the Vietnam-based collaborators carry out new activities. 3) Training and capacity building was continued for the Vietnam-based research collaborators. 4). Writing up of findings and the dissemination of preliminary results through new publications. 5). Participation by the PI in a government evaluation of ecosystem services policy in Aug/Sept 2014. 6). Development of new course for Rutgers undergraduates in spring of 2014, and undergraduate research activities for two students at Rutgers. We expand upon each of these major activities below: 1. New field sites: Through funding received from the USAID Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) program, the Vietnam side of this research team has additional funding to extend the original household survey we began with to three new research sites and to revisit previous research sites. The teams worked collaboratively with the PI through Skype calls on new survey revisions for this work. 300 additional household surveys were carried out from Nov 2013-June 2014 by the Vietnam team with their PEER funding, which will be compared and combined with the original 227 household surveys carried out in year 1. The new fieldsites are in the provinces of Dien Bien, Kon Tum and Kien Giang, in the north, center and south of the country respectively, and have introduced new ecological types and ethnicities for households into the survey sample. The three new sites are also in various stages of introducing PES and REDD policies to pay households for protecting forests, allowing us to see how different locals implement this policy. 2. PI trip to Vietnam: In Jan 2014, the PI traveled to Vietnam. She met with the Vietnam research team extensively to help them continue their fieldwork and work on project management and reporting tasks.The team plus PI revisited one major fieldsite and extended new group meetings on topics that had emerged from earlier research. The PI also met with policymakers in Hanoi and attended several workshops on REDD and PES while in-country. 3. Training and capacity building: Several Vietnam-based collaborators attended a "PEER Science Participants' Conference" in Bangkok, Thailand in October 2013 by invitation from USAID. Each of the 3 Vietnam co-PI's prepared a 3 minute flash talk presentations and contributed to a poster that was displayed at the conference. 4. New publications: The PI and partners have several new publications (see products section). The major publication from this year was the completion of a book by PI McElwee, titled Forests are Gold: Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam. The book had been under work for several years, and this project funding enabled the completion and addition of a new chapter to finalize the book. The book was submitted to the University of Washington Press in December 2013 and is currently under contract for publication in 2015. Three conference presentations were made in year 3 on research findings, and these presentations are in the process of being developed into additional journal articles. 5. The PI was invited to participate in a government review of three years of payments for environmental services policy in Vietnam based on her experience with this research project and she traveled to Vietnam twice in Aug and Sept 2014 to participate in the evaluation process. A report recommending improvements in ecosystem services policy was written and submitted to the Prime Minister of Vietnam in Sept 2014, and a presentation was made to government officials from various ministries in Sept 2014. The Government of Vietnam is now planning revisions in existing laws to increase payments to households participating in forest conservation based on these recommendations. 6. Undergraduate course and opportunities: The PI developed a new course for the undergraduate major Environmental Policy, Institutions and Behavior (EPIB) at Rutgers. The course examined topics in social, cultural and political aspects of climate change, including the science of climate change and why it has been so contested in some quarters; the existing and predicted physical, cultural and societal impacts of climate change; how vulnerability to climate change is measured and whether societies will be able to adapt to forecasted changes; the ethical and social justice dimensions of acting or not acting on climate change; and proposed mitigation strategies to avoid climate risk impacts, including REDD. 24 students (both majors and non-majors) enrolled in the course and evaluations were positive. The course will be used in future semesters as a result. Additionally, 2 undergraduate students engaged in special year-long research projects on topics related to this project through the Aresty Undergraduate Research program at Rutgers. Students worked 5 hours a week with the PI on their two projects, one on global safeguards for REDD and other forest carbon projects, and one on conflicts in Vietnam over land, water and wildlife.
Publications
- Type:
Books
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Pamela McElwee (2015). Forests are Gold: Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam University of Washington Press: Seattle.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
McElwee, P, Nghiem, T., Tran, N, Le, H and Vu, H. (2014). "Challenges in payments for environmental services policies: Tradeoffs between energy, water and land services in Vietnam" paper presented on panel "The land-water-energy nexus: governance challenges, approaches and experiences". Global Land Project Open Science Conference. Berlin, Germany, Mar
19-21, 2014.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
McElwee, P (2014). "The ontological politics of REDD: Turning trees into carbon and land managers into service providers in Vietnam," paper presented on panel Mixed Methods and Hybrid Epistemologies in Climate Change Research III. Annual meeting of Association of American Geographers. Tampa, Florida, April 8-12, 2014.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Report to Government of Vietnam: "Report on Three years (2011-2014) of Implementation of Policy on Payment for Forest
Environmental Services", P. McElwee and Nguyen Chi Thanh.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
McElwee, P (2013). "Producing knowledge on fictitious commodities: On emerging carbon regimes in Vietnam," paper
presented on panel Carbon (Up)Dating: The Maturing, Waxing, or Waning of Carbon in Environmental Governance and
Conservation Policy. Annual meeting of American Anthropological Association. Chicago, Nov 19-23, 2013.
|
Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/13
Outputs
Target Audience: Target audiences for the project include: 1. Undergraduate and graduate students at Rutgers University. Research project findings were incorporated into modules in three classes taught by the PI: an undergraduate class on International Environmental Policy in fall 2012; a graduate course on the Political Economy of Climate Change in spring 2013; and a graduate class on Nature Society Theory in fall 2013. 2. Professional audiences (scientists and academics) were presented with research findings through PI presentations at several professional association conferences this year.These have included: -- P. McElwee,Presentation on “Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) as Global Governmentality in Vietnam”American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 11/18/12. -- P. McElwee presented, co-authors on paper were Nghiem Phuong Tuyen, Tran Huu Nghi, Le Thi Van Hue, and Vu Dieu Huong. Payments for Environmental Services in Vietnam: Balancing Equity and Efficiency in Market Approaches to Forest Conservation.Los Angeles CA. Association of American Geographers annual meeting as part of panel “Payments for Ecosystem Services: Paths toward Sustainability,”4/10/13. - P. McElwee presented paper at conference of the European Association for Southeast Asian studies (EUROSEAS) in Portugal in July 201 3as part of panel on "Community-Driven Development and Conservation Interventions in Southeast Asia". The paper was titled "Market-based environmental conservation in Southeast Asia: What role for communities and social capital?" 3.) Findings were disseminated within Vietnam to key policymakers working on ecosystem issues through a workshop in June 2013 organized by the Vietnam collaborators, involving nearly 60 invited policy and NGO stakeholders. The Vietnamese partners will continue to work on Vietnamese translations of key journal articles to engage with relevant stakeholders in Vietnam. 4). Findings have been written up and submitted to peer-reviewed journals and will be part of several edited book collections (see Products section) to be shared with target audiences, including other scientists and policymakers. Additional publications and a project website will be developed in 2014 to ensure maximum impact for dissemination of findings to target audiences of scientists and policymakers in the US and Vietnam. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The research skills of participating partners from Vietnamwere enhanced in several ways. First, Tran Huu Nghi, a Ph.D student, was supported to attend a workshop in Hanoi on scientific report writing in October 2012 to enhance his capacity to contribute to writing up of research results. Second, an internal training was held in Dec 2012 for team members, including 3 Ph.D. scientists (Dr. Nghiem Phuong Tuyen (F), of the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (CRES) of Vietnam National University (VNU); Dr. Le Thi Van Hue (F) of CRES; and Dr. Dao Minh Truong (M) of CRES); 2graduate students (Vu Thi Dieu Huong (F), VNU and Tran Huu Nghi (M), VNU); two project assistants (Ha Thi Tu Anh (F), Tropenbos International and Ha Thi Thu Hue (F) of CRES) and several other additional personne, Vu Minh Hoa (F); Nguyen Manh Ha (M); and Le Trong Toan (M) of CRES; and Nguyen Viet Dung (M) and Nguyen Huu Dung (M) of PanNature. The Vietnam collaborators had requested training in how to use SPSS and analyze quantitative data, how to use Nvivo for qualitative analysis, in scientific report writing, in index development, and in use of InVEST, an ecosystems services modeling program. Therefore a multi-day training was organized internally for the collaborating partners and was attended by 12 people in Dec 2012. Financial support for the development of the training was provided through a PEER grant to the Vietnam collaborators and support was provided by McElwee for the development of training materials through her support from NIFA. Third, PI Pamela McElwee was selected for professional development as part of a Rutgers Office for the Promotion of Women in Science, Engineering and Mathematics program in fall 2012, titled "ObjectiveAnalysis ofSelf andInstitutionSeminar(OASIS) Leadership & Professional Development Program". Along with 20 other women who were competitively selected from across all units of the university, McElwee received capacity development in project management, leadership styles, negotiating skills, and management assessments. In January 2013, McElwee presented a capacity building workshop for other women participants in OASIS on the use of online project management software to manage multi-sited research projects. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Research findings have been disseminated in several ways over the course of this years' work, and will continue throughout the project. 1). Findings were presented at several professional conferences this year.These have included: -- P. McElwee,Presentation on “Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) as Global Governmentality in Vietnam”American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 11/18/12. -- P. McElwee presented, co-authors on paper were Nghiem Phuong Tuyen, Tran Huu Nghi, Le Thi Van Hue, and Vu Dieu Huong. Payments for Environmental Services in Vietnam: Balancing Equity and Efficiency in Market Approaches to Forest Conservation.Los Angeles CA. Association of American Geographers annual meeting as part of panel “Payments for Ecosystem Services: Paths toward Sustainability,”4/10/13. - P. McElwee presented paper at conference of the European Association for Southeast Asian studies (EUROSEAS) in Portugal in July 201 3as part of panel on "Community-Driven Development and Conservation Interventions in Southeast Asia". The paper was titled "Market-based environmental conservation in Southeast Asia: What role for communities and social capital?" 2). Findings have been written up and submitted to peer-reviewed journals and will be part of several edited book collections (see Products section). 3.) Findings were disseminated within Vietnam to key policymakers through a workshop in June 2013 organized by the Vietnam collaborators, involving 59 invited policy and NGO stakeholders. The Vietnamese partners will continue to work on Vietnamese translations of key journal articles to engage with relevant stakeholders in Vietnam. Additional publications and a project website will be developed in 2014 to ensure maximum impact for dissemination of findings. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? During the next reporting period for this project, key activities will include: 1) Presentations of findings: - PI McElwee will present a paper titled "Challenges in Payments for Environmental Services Policies: Tradeoffs between Energy, Water and Land Services in Vietnam" at the Global Land Project Open Science meeting in Berlin in March 2014. The PI and Vietnam partners have submitted an abstract to the Adaptation Futures conference for a paper titled, "Assessing the Linkages between Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation and REDD+ in Forest Communities in Vietnam" to be held in Fortaleza Brazil in May 2014. 2) Finalizing additional publications. We have several publications in preparation for submission in 2014: “Payments for Environmental Services in Vietnam: Balancing Equity and Efficiency in Market Approaches to Forest Conservation” for submission to Environmental Science and Policy. "Payments for Environmental Services, Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation, and Climate Adaptation: Understanding the Linkages" for submission to WIRES Climate Change. “Payments for Environmental Services and Gender: Dynamics of Access, Participation and Household Economics”, for submission to World Development. 3) Finalizing website. We have purchased a domain name (vietnamclimatechange.org) and hosting site and will be putting research findings, publications and survey instruments online for dissemination to audiences in both English and Vietnamese.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project continued to assess the impact of payments for environmental services (PES) and Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) in Vietnam.From 10/01/2012 to 9/30/2013, our project had the following major research and training activities: 1) Data transcription and analysis for qualitative interviews was carried out. 2.) Training and capacity building for survey research was continued for the Vietnam-based research collaborators in Dec of 2012. 3). Writing up of findings occurred throughout the year (see products), and the dissemination of preliminary results through a workshop in Vietnam was carried out in June 2013. The research team spent spring 2013 developing publications and beginning the process of translating some initial research findings into Vietnamese. In June 2013, the Vietnam collaborators held a workshop in Hanoi, attended by 59 people, including government officials from both central and local levels and NGO leaders, to disseminate initial findings and provide information about proposed future work. Additionally, the PI made several presentations on the work to both internal Rutgers audiences as well as to professional organizations (Association of American Geographers and American Anthropological Association). Several key findings have emerged from our project. These include the importance of linking analysis of social factors (gender, migration status, and landholdings, as well as variables like income) to households' ability to participate in market-based environmental policies like PES; the need to better link PES/REDD with analysis of household climate vulnerability to ensure new policies do not exacerbate existing vulnerabilities; and the need for better and more complete consultation and participation by communities of both service providers and ecosystem services users in PES and REDD plans. Our work, both in our specific case study in Vietnam, but also in our wider reviews of existing literature on PES and REDD, have found these areas to be ones in which there is little existing data, and therefore our Vietnam study is especially important. The first major finding and area of needed work is in the relationship between gender and PES policies. There is an especially important need to understand if PES may be impacted by, and, in turn, affect gender dynamics in PES sites, and what challenges PES projects face in achieving gender equality. Examples from previous policies on forest and ecosystem conservation, such as community forestry or integrated conservation and development projects, have revealed that women’s participation in projects has often fallen short and that gender plays a large role in how benefits are shared. However, little existing work has looked directly at women’s participation in and impacts from newer market-oriented approaches to forest conservation, such as PES. A number of important gender-related questions need examination, including how have PES projects tried to incorporate women’s participation in PES schemes, what complications or disadvantages might women face in participating in PES, what impact have PES payments made on households that have received them, especially female members, and what future considerations might be built into proposed PES plans going forward to ensure gender equity in projects. Our data, which was collected from both husbands and wives in household interviews, as well as from both male and female heads of households, provides a good first step at analyzing these problems. The fact that one of our fieldsites included surveys of indigenous communities who have traditionally practiced matriarchal land tenure inheritance and descent makes our data particularly unique for analysis of gender. Our findings indicate that participation in PES is lower for female-headed households, and even among participating households, women have been less involved in PES activities than men, partially due to labor requirements and partially due to gender perceptions of the types of work required for PES. Forest use prior to the implementation in PES in the study site was revealed to be highly gendered, and thus PES activities which have resulted in restrictions on forest use have the potential to differentially impact men and women. The use of PES payments within the household has been mixed, with not all PES payments being equally shared by all members of the household, which has the potential to effect gender dynamics within the household in the future as well. One additional area of particular concern is with households in which men are out-migrants to nearby urban areas for seasonal work. These migrant households have been disproportionately excluded from PES contracts and benefits, due to the perception that they cannot supply the labor needed to protect forests. We have written up an draft article on these findings titled “Payments for Environmental Services and Gender: Dynamics of Access, Participation and Household Economics”, which presents both the Vietnam case study and a literature review of gender and PES, and which will be submitted to World Development at the end of March 2014. The second area of findings is in linkages with climate vulnerability. Even though REDD in particular is a policy that is driven by concerns over the impact of carbon emissions on climate change, on the ground it is difficult to say that REDD appears to be much about climate. Our experience in Vietnam suggests that it is about land use and poverty primarily and there are few existing linkages with understanding of climate variability. Vietnam authorities working on REDD are aligned with the Ministry of Agriculture (MARD), while all other climate change activities like forecasting and adaptation issues are usually handled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE); the two ministries almost never cooperate on joint actions. Documents and workshops on REDD have also not been linked to other climate activities that Vietnam is undertaking, such as the development of National Adaptation Action Plans, or Clean Development Mechanism credits. Furthermore, there is very little attention at the policy level to trying to understand the linkages between climate vulnerability and the development of forest policy. But it is clear that the two areas need to be conjoined; climate change will affect the biophysical properties of forests over time in Vietnam, and responses to climate change adaptation may include the need to rethinking existing forest policies. Yet in no site were forestry officials who were interviewed able to speak to how they had built climate change forecasts into how they were thinking about REDD development, and there were few areas of overlap between REDD and climate preparation (such as the threat of forest fires that are forecasted under the increasing droughts likely in the future, and how REDD could be used to fund fire management.) This finding is concerning because it suggests that policies for REDD and policies for climate adaptation may be developing on different tracks, and have the potential to contradict or even cancel each other out if more attention is not paid to this issue. We have an article in preparation on this finding, tentatively titled "Payments for Environmental Services, Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation, and Climate Adaptation: Understanding the Linkages" which will be submitted to WIRES Climate Change in 2104. A book chapter, titled “Heritage: From conservation and development to climate change” for the book Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate Change, J. Barnes and M. Dove, eds., is currently under review with Yale University Press.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Payments for Environmental Services and Rural-Urban Divides in Developing Countries: A Case Study from Vietnam, Pamela McElwee, Nghiem Phuong Tuyen, Le Thi Van Hue, Tran Huu Nghi, revise and resubmit for Journal of Rural Studies, special invited issue on Neoliberalising Rural Natures, V. Higgins, J. Dibden, C. Potter and C. Cocklin, guest editors.
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Heritage: From Conservation and Development to Climate Change, Pamela McElwee, chapter for Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate Change, J. Barnes and M. Dove, editors. In press with Yale University Press, forthcoming 2014.
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Social equity and forest carbon in Vietnam, Pamela McElwee, chapter for Carbon Governance and Social Equity, S. Fiske and S. Paladino, eds. Contract with Left Coast Press.
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Progress 09/01/12 to 09/30/12
Outputs
Target Audience:
Nothing Reported
Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Nothing to report
Publications
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