IDGEC Report on February - April 2001
IDGEC /LUCC exploring potential avenues for collaboration
Paul Mathieu and Helmut Geist met early February to discuss how the IDGEC forest
flagship activity can be part of a series of deforestation workshops that LUCC IPO is
prepared (and invited) to submit at the EU. This LUCC IPO effort will include
drivers/causes and rates of forest cover change. One could think of adding
institutional dimensions on the basis of the Forest Scoping Report. Helmut Geist
could imagine to start to write such a proposal in June or so. The meantime could be
used to develop, i.e. think about the rationale, exact title, etc.
Workshop in Tromsø, 30/31 März on PEF
IDGEC’s flagship activity on “Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones” has taken
its first towards implementing its research agenda by convening its first workshop in
Tromsø, Norway in March 2001. The next workshop has already been tentatively set
for the fall 2001 and will likely be held in Darwin, Australia.
The aim of these workshops is to bring together a team of researchers engaged in
research addressing the issues on the PEEZ agenda. The Tromsø workshop provide
participants with a forum for the presentation of individual research projects and a
discussion of how the PEEZ project can move forward by refining research
questions and sharpening the project focus. Discussions centered on the North
Atlantic and North Pacific regions and it is hoped to expand this to include a greater
emphasis on Southeast Asia and the South China Sea region in the next workshop.
(excerpt taken from the IDGEC News No. 3)
Publication of the Scoping Report for the flagship activity on “Political
Economy of Forests”
The final version of “The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forestry – Scoping
Report” is now available in paper and electronic format.
Tokyo Workshop Report is on the Web
This document summarizes the proceedings and reports the findings of a planning
meeting held in Tokyo on 29 and 30 May 2000 to provide guidance for the Carbon
Management Research Activity (CMRA), a flagship activity of the international
research program on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
(IDGEC). Attended by some 30 individuals, representing a mix of people from the
research and policy communities, the principal objective of the meeting was to
identify researchable topics relating to carbon management that constitute priority
concerns for the members of both communities. Among the many themes identified
in this connection, two emerged as matters of particular interest to both communities:
(1) the establishment and refinement of the rules of the game needed to operate the
Kyoto Mechanisms and especially the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
successfully and (2) the development of compliance mechanisms capable of inducing
both states and other key actors to adjust their behavior to meet the requirements of
the existing climate change regime or any revised regime dealing with climate
change that arises during the foreseable future.
Funding Issues
APN awards Forestry Flagship Implementation Funding
Suparb Pas-ong (IDGEC SSC) received an APN grant to conduct an institutional
analysis of forest conditions in four countries of Southeast Asia. A total of six case
studies will be completed, three focusing on upland forests, two on mangrove forests,
and one includes bothe forest types. In the context of globalization and
decentralization the analysis will focus on interplay between local, national, and
international institutions.
The EU call for proposals on Tropical forests and other forests and Environment in
developing countries (deadline May 14, 2001) encouraged a group of IDGEC related
scientists to design a project on „Governance of sustainable livelihoods in tropical
forests: globalisation, decentralization and environmental change“
The overall objective of the project are to improve forest conditions and the
livelihoods of the forest-based poor. To accomplish this the project aims to use
informed research and a comparative analysis of a series of case studies in Africa,
South and Southeast Asia to propose institutional reforms for improving forest
governance. Agus Sari (IDGEC SSC) submitted the proposal. The drafting process
was coordinated and finalized by Sylvia and Jill.
Presence at the OSM Amsterdam, July 2001
Plenary Sessions:
Day 1, Water in a changing global context: The Resource Challenge of the Century?
Madiodio Niasse (IDGEC SSC): Will water get to the people who need it?
Day 2, Global Biogeochemistry: Understanding the Metabolic System of the PLanet
Oran Young (IDGEC chair): Can new institutions solve atmospheric problems? The
cases of acid rain, ozon depletion, and climate change.
Day 2, Land-Ocean Interactions: Regional-Global Linkages
Liana Talaue McManus (IDGEC networks): Global Change in the Coastal Zones: The
case of Southeast Asia.
New IDGEC Research Fellows
IDGEC has added two new research fellows to its fold. Antonio Contreras and Frank
Alcock join Virginia Walsh and Granville Sewell as IDGEC fellows.
Dr. Antonio P. Contreras received a Ph.D. in Political Sciences from the University of
Hawaii in 1991. He previoously held a teaching position with the College of Forestry
in Natural Resources of UPLB from 1982 to July 2000, after which he served as a
visiting Fellow at the East West Centre, Honolulu, Hawaii from July to October 2000,
wherein he conducted research on the environmental security implications of
statecivil society relationshipsin Southeast Asia. At present he is on his last month as
ASIA Fellow affiliated with the Regional Centre for Social Sciences and Sustainable
Developemnt (RCSD) at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, conducting comparative
research on forest policy in the context of state-civil society relationships in Thailand
and the Philippines.
Frank Alcock is a Belfer Fellow at Harvard University‘s Kennedy School of
Government and a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science Department at Duke
University. His research interests include the relationship between science and
environmental policy, global environmental politics, and the political economy of
natural resource industries. During the coming year Frank will be conducting
research for the Kennedy School on the evolution of science-policy interactions
under the International Committee for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES).
Issue for discussion
It turned out in February 2001 that the Scoping Report on Carbon Management and
the Scoping Report No. 2 on Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones were
published and distributed in March and July 2000. This happened without informing
the IHDP secretariat or sending hard copies to us. When we learned end of February
this year that those two papers are out for distribution a brief discussion on
procedures for project publications was started by e-mail, involving IDGEC IPO,
Oran, Jill and Ike. The issue will be picked up on at the SC-March meeting again.