Over the last decade, hundreds of payments for ecosystem services (PES) programmes have been initiated around the world, but evidence of their environmental benefits remains limited. In this study, two PES programmes operating in the municipality of Coatepec (Mexico) were evaluated to assess their effectiveness in protecting the region's endangered upland forests. Landsat satellite data were analysed to assess changes in forest cover before and after programme implementation using a difference-in-differences estimator.

Who owns the world’s forests, and who decides on their governance? The answers to these questions are still deeply contested. To many Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have lived in and around forests for generations, the forests belong to them, under locally defined systems of customary tenure. In most countries, however, governments have claimed ownership of much of the forest estate through historical processes of expropriation, and those claims have been formalized in statutory laws.

This paper analyzes the implications of copper mining in Zambia on customary rights to land and forests, and the societal stakes associated with foreign investment in the mining industry. Copper mining affects forests, and in turn the people with customary rights to those forests, in a number of direct and indirect ways, from deforestation during green site development and selective harvesting of timber to the significant but indirect pressures over forests through infrastructure development and the population pull effect of mining towns.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India enacted the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, a tribal friendly legislation to address the historical injustice and critical issues, pertaining to the forest rights deprivation of the Forest Dwellers. To facilitate its implementation, FRA Rules, 2008 was framed and then made amendment to the Rules in 2012. However, several constraining factors and issues came to the notice in the implementation process of the Act in letter and spirit.

An Act to deal with establishment of funds under the public accounts of India and of each State, credit the monies received from the user agencies towards compensatory afforestation, additional compensatory afforestation, penal compensatory afforestation, net present value and all other amounts recovered from such agencies under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

This manual helps interested parties to understand and address corruption risks associated with forest carbon accounting – particularly REDD+ – programmes and strategies at the national level. Users will learn how to identify corruption risks and instruments to help address these risks within the development of national Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) action plans and strategies, and the implementation of REDD+ and other forest carbon projects. The manual’s scope does not extend to corruption risks at the international level.

This Environmental Annual report 2016-17 is prepared by The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India.

This Report contains activities and achievements of planning, promotion, co-ordination and overseeing the implementation of India's environmental and forestry policies and programmes in yearly basis.

The areas that this report deals are as follows: 

·         Natural Resources- Surveys and explorations by different departments under the ministry

·         Environmental Impact Assessments

This report indicates that the Forest governance is identified as critical to the success of REDD+.

Implementation of robust REDD+ strategy is possible through Community Based Forest Governance.

Report talks on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) which is a global mechanism that aims at sustainable forest management (SFM) through protecting forests and enhancing carbon sequestration.

Report briefly describes The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 

Lei da Protecção, conservação e uso sustentável da biodiversidade de Mocambique (Lei N. 5/2017)