Browsing by Author "Schons Do Valle, Stella Zucchetti"
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- An Analysis of the Suruí Forest Carbon Project in Context of Settler ColonialismHoward, Faith Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-25)This thesis analyzes the Suruí Forest Carbon Project in the context of settler colonialism. By exploring the three core principles of settler colonialism as outlined by settler colonial scholar Patrick Wolfe: access to land, elimination of the native, and the understanding that settler colonialism is a structure and not an event, I will demonstrate how each one of the three principles helped contribute to creating the context within which the Suruí Forest Carbon Project was situated. By taking this approach, I will be able to demonstrate the limits and possibilities of the project for the Suruí indigenous peoples. This analysis will allow me to present the challenges and contradictions associated with implementing REDD+ carbon credit projects in settler states such as Brazil and how, due to settler colonialism's structural limitations, these types of projects could be a possibility of providing some agency for indigenous peoples trying to find ways to assert their autonomy. The Suruí Forest Carbon Project was the first and still one of the only examples of an indigenous-led carbon emissions reduction project operating through the sale of carbon credits. During the first five years the project was operational, it drastically helped reduce deforestation levels within the Suruí's territory, leading many to deem the project a success. However, in 2015 and 2016, following the discovery of gold and diamonds on the Suruí's territory, the project's sight was eventually overrun by garimpeiros (small-scale gold miners), and in 2018 the project was suspended, leading some to consider it a failure. Therefore, I will present some of the challenges that arise when neoliberal conservation efforts, such as carbon credit projects, struggle to address factors outside their initial control, in this case, settler colonialism. Also, by analyzing the different components going into the project's creation, implementation, and suspension, I will present how carbon credit projects working directly with indigenous peoples can successfully halt deforestation for limited periods. But how settler colonialism makes these groups of people and their land vulnerable, which can help contribute to projects being undermined. Through my analysis, I will help demonstrate some factors that impact these types of projects' longevity and some things that would need to be implemented in the future to succeed in the long term.
- Diameter Estimation of Eucalyptus spp. Plantations in Southern Brazil Using Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation Data and Support Vector RegressionMiller, Benjamin Daniel (Virginia Tech, 2022-06-23)Forest plantations make up a large percentage of managed forest land globally. Assessing plantation productivity is vital from both commodity production and carbon management standpoints. Measuring the productivity of these areas is essential given their rapid growth and turnover. Transparent metrics to compare reported carbon storage with estimated values are required for internationally transferred mitigation outcomes under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. Data from the Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) provide an excellent opportunity to measure plantation forests over large areas. We focused our efforts on Eucalyptus in southern Brazil and used data from an industrial partner to investigate plantation metrics (height, diameter, volume, stems per hectare, etc.) and to create a model of plantation diameter using Support Vector Regression (SVR). SVR enabled a robust model of tree diameter even given the heteroskedasticity and spatial auto correlation present in the GEDI data, which deleteriously impacted attempts at linear modeling. We could predict tree diameter in these plantations to within 1 cm using space-borne lidar, with broad implications for using space-borne lidars to monitor carbon accretion in secondary forest plantation.
- Economic Tools to Improve Forest Practices' OutcomesJunqueira Sartori, Pedro (Virginia Tech, 2023-09-01)This PhD dissertation work delves into critical issues within the forestry business related to carbon sequestration, land value maximization and climate change vulnerability. The study proposes different tools to enhance the efficiency and outcomes of forest practices. Chapter two involves an enhanced forest rotation deferral methodology for carbon dioxide sequestration, focusing on the forest's final product destination passed the Faustmann optimal rotation age. Instead of giving the same value for pulp wood and saw timber, the research acknowledges the benefit of increased carbon dioxide stored in saw timber materials. To drive landowners to the socially optimum rotation age, where the marginal benefits of extended carbon storage equal the private marginal cost of postponing forest rotation, an incentive based mechanism is proposed, using subsidies. Through sensitivity analysis on the underlying assumptions, the socially optimal rotation is consistently greater than the currently applied one-year harvesting deferral, and smaller than longer extensions, such as 20 years deferred rotations. In chapter three, a novel approach to design Streamside Management Zones widths that vary according to different landscape characteristics is presented, as opposed to the constant command and control width currently used in Virginia. This adaptive approach allows landowners to maximize land value, while ensuring water quality protection. To determine the sediment retention equation as a function of SMZ slope, width, and soil texture, we use data derived from the Watershed Erosion Prediction Project. By simulating different regulatory constraints concerning accepted sediment delivery, the study shows the tradeoff between water quality and land expectation value through the changes in the opportunity cost of Streamside Management Zones. Lastly, chapter four centers on a dataset collected in India about tree planting species choice followed by a second model that incorporates socio-economic, as well as revealed preference management choices, and tree planting species as explanatory variables in a binary crop loss model. The findings reveal that tree planting, except for fruit trees, compared to agricultural crops, diminishes the household's probability of facing losses due to climate change, extreme weather events and pest attacks. Specifically, there is a 14.4% reduction in the probability of facing a loss when planting Eucalypt and Casuarina trees, a 7.6% reduction when planting palm trees, and 13.5% reduction when planting multiple trees, which evidences how trees are less vulnerable. Throughout this dissertation, the interdisciplinary research uses rigorous methodologies, comprehensive data analysis, and environmental economics theoretical foundation, culminating in valuable insights and potential policy recommendations to enhance forest practices in environmental challenging times.
- The Economics of management effort in planted forests: an empirical analysis of fertilization and thinning prescriptions of Pinus taeda in the US SouthSartori, Pedro J. (Virginia Tech, 2021-01-06)If a landowner‘s main objective is to maximize his/her profits from planted forest investments, questions such as when and where exactly they should fertilize, thin and clearcut must be answered. We take advantage of an experiment established in 5 different states in the US South. Forest inventory data was collected for different combinations of thinning densities where some of them received fertilization. We use the Land Expectation Value methodology where our assumptions are the infinite amount of Pine rotations while costs and stumpage prices are known and constant, and markets are perfect. One of the main results we found is that fertilization has a decreasing marginal benefit on site index quality.
- Forests and fisheries in the Brazilian Amazon: Understanding incentives to comply with conservation effortsSchons Do Valle, Stella Zucchetti (Virginia Tech, 2017-08-15)This PhD dissertation represents an effort to understand individual behavior leading to decisions regarding natural resource use and compliance with conservation policy at the government and at the community levels through the analysis of specific cases in the Brazilian Amazon. I first analyze the case of smallholder land clearing along the Transamazon and BR-163 highways in the face of Brazilian Forest Code enforcement by the federal government. My hypothesis is that smallholder land clearing paths over time are affected by assessments of the probability of being caught violating the Forest Code. I develop a dynamic decision model that considers the potential benefits and costs accrued from land clearing through time by a representative smallholder and include her perception of the probability of Forest Code enforcement, unobserved to the researcher. I apply an endogenous switching regressions econometric model to data collected with a sample of 542 households in 2003 and 2013/14. I find that longer land tenure frontiers where there are opportunities for smallholders to transition to cattle grazing from agriculture deserve the attention of enforcement of land clearing laws and restrictions and that the use of the forest by a smallholder is a protective signal that must be considered and encouraged. My results suggest that alleged government efforts to enforce the Forest Code among smallholders in the sample region have been ineffective. The second case I analyze is that of fisher households that enforce community fishing agreements, known as accords, in the floodplains of the Amazon River surrounding the city of Santarém. My hypothesis is that individual households benefit from their own fishing accords enforcement effort through fishing time savings. A factor demand analysis applied to data collected with over 600 households reveals that statistically important drivers of labor demand and fuel include the level of dedication of a household and its history in implementing fishing accords, the landscape, the flood cycle, the distance to the main regional market and biomass. The average household fishing time savings from enforcing accords range between 59 and 36 eight-hour days for a six-month-period, an important argument for continuing the enterprise.
- Non-industrial private forest expansion in Andhra PradeshWynne, Randolph H.; Thomas, Valerie A.; Schons Do Valle, Stella Zucchetti; Gundimeda, Haripriya; Cobourn, Kelly M.; Amacher, Gregory S.; Köhlin, Gunnar; Williams, Paige; More, Snehal; Shinde, Nilesh (2019-04-09)Outside forests, Andhra Pradesh is greening, and we are learning by how much— and why. Our objectives are to (1) map smallholder forest plantations in Andhra Pradesh using multitemporal HLS S10 and/or very-high spatial resolution commercial satellite data, and (2) determine the drivers of plantation forest establishment. We have (1) developed a land use model that integrates land quality and spatial aspects of the farm with market variables and farmer production decisions, (2) implemented a household-level socio-economic survey, and (3) completed a Sentinel 2-era classification that separates natural from planted forest with 94% accuracy. Plantation forestry is rapidly expanding in Asia, and understanding the extent, drivers, and ramifications of these new trees outside forests is vital.
- The Social Cost of Fiscal Federalism and the Depletion of China’s Native ForestsWang, Haoyu (Virginia Tech, 2021-05-06)China's key forested region is located in the northeast. This region consists of state forest enterprises which manage harvesting and reforestation and have represented the most important source of wood supplies since the 1950s. Deforestation is a major problem there, however, and has resulted in several central government reforms. We develop a framework for assessing the social cost of state forest enterprise deforestation. We first develop a two-principal, one-agent model that fits the federalistic organization state forests, in that state forest managers make (potentially hidden) decisions under influence of provincial and central government policies and quotas meant to direct manager behavior. This model is used to derive an expression of the social cost of these hidden actions as well as a comparison of first and second best government policies. We then use panel data from a survey conducted by the Environmental Economics Program in China (EEPC) to compute social welfare losses and use a regression approach to confirm the main factors in these costs in practice. A sensitivity analysis shows that lower harvesting limits and a more accurate monitoring system are the keys to lowering social welfare loss. These are more important than conventional instruments used by the governments such as wages for managers that achieve certain targets. Through regression analysis we find that the remote areas with a higher percentage of mature natural forests are the ones that will always have the highest social welfare loss. These areas are the hardest to monitor, but our results show they must be a critical focus moving forward.
- Three essays on Brazil's deforestation control policies and their potential effects: Conflicts, Compliance, and Secondary forest recoveryShinde, Nilesh Nivrutti (Virginia Tech, 2022-09-02)Brazil reduced its annual deforested area from 27772 km2 to 4571 km2 from 2004 to 2012. This phenomenal achievement resulted from multiple government initiatives, most notably the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm). However, these ambitious deforestation control policies yield multiple spillover effects. This dissertation examines the effects of the two initiatives from the PPCDAm program, namely the Forest Code of 2012 and the Green Municipality Program. The first chapter provides causal evidence that land registration abates conflicts in Pará. The chapter discusses policy implications in three discussions, prospective deforestation control, potential agricultural growth, and livelihoods promotion within CAR and its related policies. The results from this chapter provoke a question about the drop in land conflicts that stimulates forest conservation on private landholdings. Thereon, my second chapter deals with the dynamic land clearing decision of private landholders in the Brazilian Amazon. The results suggest that the persistence of compliance, thus forest conservation on privately held land, is driven mainly by past compliance and municipality-level incentives. As these two chapters established that land registration abates conflicts, and private landholders are driven by specific incentives to preserve the forest on their land. My third chapter investigates the impact of the provincial governance promotion program on secondary forest recovery. Municipalities participating in the local government improvement program steadily observe an expansion in secondary forest areas. To sum up, my dissertation explores the spillover effects of the deforestation control policy, starting with achieving fewer land conflicts and investigating the local incentives to promote forest protection on private land. Lastly, I provide evidence that the governance promotion program will result in secondary forest recovery.