Granting property rights in fisheries is assumed to provide incentives for sustainable resource exploitation. These rights might also open other income options for fishers, including some that go beyond the original objectives intended by authorities establishing the right. The opportunity for alternative uses is especially high if the details of these rights are not clearly identified.

This paper discusses regulation of rural land-use and compensation, both of which appear to have become more common but also more disputed. The implications of contemporary theories in relation to this matter are examined. Coverage includes the applicability of new welfare economics, the relevance of the neoclassical theory of politics, and the implications of contemporary theories of social conflict resolution and communication.

Canada's forests will be affected by climate change to a greater degree than many other regions. The ability of the Canadian forest sector to successfully adapt to climate change, i.e. its adaptive capacity, was assessed through a series of group discussions and interviews with a variety of forestry stakeholders across Canada.

This paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence on the nexus between corruption and democracy. We establish a political economy model where the effect of democracy on corruption is conditional on income distribution and property rights protection. Our empirical analysis with cross-national panel data provides evidence that is consistent with the theoretical prediction. Moreover, the effect of democratization on corruption depends on the protection of property rights and income equality which shows that corruption is a nonlinear function of these variables.

Angola's four decades of civil war continue to have a profound effect on the country's recovery and development. While the end to the war in 2002 and the subsequent extraction of natural resources has fueled the country's economic recovery for a minority, for the majority recovery depends less on natural resource extraction than it does on acquiring and maintaining secure access to land and property upon which viable livelihoods can be rebuilt.

Shrift towards private ownership in forestry recourses in transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe promotes forest values and their development in diversified ways. In this paper, we provide a general equilibrium model assisting in estimation of forest management practices in the regional level by comparing different ownership structures and public policy measures. The model is applied for the county of Banská Bystrica in Slovakia.

Replacing petroleum fuels with biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel has been shown to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These GHG benefits can potentially be traded in the fledgling carbon markets, and methodologies for quantifying and trading are still being developed. We review the main challenges in developing such carbon trading frameworks and outline a proposed framework for the US, the main features of which include, lifecycle assessment of GHG benefits, a combination of project-specific and standard performance measures, and assigning GHG property rights to biofuel producers.

The land restitution in Bulgaria led to a severe fragmentation in land ownership. This has an impact on the agricultural development and land market. The article investigates the land transactions on the sale and rentals markets. In order to explain the processes three new institutional economic theories will be employed: property rights theory, transaction costs theory and agricultural contract theory. First, the article reviews the appropriateness of each theory, and second, results of conducted survey in two regions of Bulgaria with different degrees of land fragmentation.

The area of degraded forests in Vietnam is substantial, currently about 3.1 million ha of which about 1.7 million ha (55� %) were granted to individual farms for reforestation. However, the result of farmers’ reforestation efforts is limited. We aimed to examine the financial return, technical efficiency, and factors determining reforestation with a native tree species (Canarium album) by farms. Our results showed that reforestation with C. album is less financially profitable than that with an exotic tree species (Acacia mangium) as the alternative land use option.

Although the importance of science, in both desertification control and other types of environmental governance, has been emphasized by many studies, little is known about how science influences institutional changes. Based on a method combining surveys, interviews, observation, and a meta-analysis of the literature, this study explored the roles of science in institutional changes associated with desertification control in northern China.

Current accelerating biodiversity loss is by many conservationists regarded as a result of economic development. Some economists agree on this viewpoint but argue it is valid at low income levels because of the need to secure a minimum living standard. On the other hand, economic development at higher income levels can instead mitigate biodiversity loss because of improved willingness and affordability to implement measures such as protected areas. This so-called environmental Kuznets relation is tested in this study by econometric analysis of cross-sectional data on a global scale.