Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: This paper examines policy-driven differences in local forest institutions, disturbance, and ensuing changes in forest structure and species composition among 3 neighboring montane forests under centralized or devolved management. Outcomes are contrasted among a centralized, co-managed, and communally-managed forest. An adjacent research forest serves as an ecological reference for comparison. The forests are located in the West Usambara Mountains, part of a globally-recognized biodiversity hotspot in East Africa.

Data was collected via 181 forest plots and semi-structured interviews. The communal forest, operating outside state-sponsored policy reforms, showed greater institutional autonomy and tenure security, and marginally more effective monitoring and rule enforcement. Local institutional robustness was negatively correlated with recent forest disturbance, while the principal form (illegal logging for cash vs. subsistence pole harvesting) differed on the basis of state and local management roles. In terms of forest condition, significant differences in abundance and diameter distribution of targeted species corresponded to harvesting intensity. The most disturbed co-managed forest was significantly degraded compared to the ecological reference (lower mean DBH and biomass, higher stem density and dominance by disturbance species).

Results highlight devolution challenges and suggest opportunities to better conserve forests in human-dominated landscapes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Since the end of industrial scale timber management on public lands, the Forest Service, BLM, and community-based forestry organizations have shifted the focus of their economic development efforts from commodity production to restoration. The Jobs in the Woods program in the mid 1990s, for example, sought to provide employment opportunities for displaced timber and mill workers performing restoration on public lands through service contracting. Since then, Congress and the Forest Service have embarked on several new programs—the National Fire Plan, county payments, and stewardship contracting—that, in part, seek to create economic opportunities through contracting of forest restoration work. This paper looks at 12 years of Forest Service land management contracting in western Oregon, Washington, and northern California to determine if contractors local, rural, distressed, or public lands communities have been awarded more national forest management contracts over time. Using an HLM regression model, our preliminary findings suggest once we control for other factors, local contractors have been, in fact, receiving a smaller proportion of land management contracts than the once did.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Over the past century, plant diseases have had major impacts on forested ecosystems worldwide. An important emerging forest disease is Sudden Oak Death, the causal agent of which, Phytophthora ramorum, was first identified in 2000. In 2002, we began an investigation into the impacts of the disease on mixed evergreen forest communities dominated by coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) and bay laurel (Umbellularia californica). It has been hypothesized that coast live oak/bay laurel forests are naturally succeeding towards bay laurel-dominated forests (McBride 1974). Bay laurel is a foliar host of P.ramorum which kills coast live oaks, thereby raising the forest spore load. We measured understory herbaceous plant and shrub parameters and woody plant seedling and sapling densities, over a gradient of disease severity to assess whether SOD is facilitating this succession. Woody seedlings are present at densities of 0.37 to 2.08 seedlings/m2, and sapling densities varied from 1.20 to 46.86 saplings per .08 ha plot. Initial results suggest that SOD is facilitating succession towards bay-laurel dominated forests, and correlations exist between forest infection gradients and other understory parameters. Through direct lethality to infected trees, this novel plant-pathogen combination has the potential to indirectly affect the composition and diversity of non-target understory species.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: My focus in this study is to understand local actors’ interactions around a forest management plan created by the state. The forest management plan is saturated with the social, political, and religious dynamics of Bougnounou village. How has this management plan been transformed into a local institution supervised and controlled by local powers, precisely a village chief and “fetish”?
The term ‘local actors’ denotes a plurality of individuals who can be divided into two categories: a) “people of village” whose rights of access and usage over natural resources is limited, and b) “owners of the village” one lineage, representing and embodying the local political and religious power in the chief and the “fetish.”. The power interactions have an undeniable impact on people’s conservation behaviors of the forest. For example, in the district there are many cases of disrespecting the management rules where people continue to cultivate land in other parts of the forest. But in Bougnounou case, as a technical manager stated, there are no cases of disrespecting management rules.
The material for this study, which constitutes part of my PhD thesis, elicits the following theoretical and empirical questions: how do local and traditional powers controlling members’ lives and practices appropriate a state-sponsored forest management project as a local institution? In other words, how are local powers involved in modern conservation practices?

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: FOREST TREE AND FERN SPECIES AS INDICATORS OF AN UNNATURAL FIRE EVENT IN MULANJE MOUNTAIN FOREST RESERVE, MALAWI


JAMESTONE SMION KAMWENDO
National Herbarium and Botanic Gardens of Malawi (NHBGM)
P.O. Box 528
Zomba
Malawi
E-mail: jkamwendo3@yahoo.co.uk


STUDENT PRESENTATION


ABSTRACT

Afromontane forests in Mulanje Mountain in Malawi are typically surrounded by fire prone Widdringtonia whytei (Mulanje cedar). Although the impact of fire on Mulanje cedar has been extensively studied, little is known about the impact of fire on adjacent forest. Severe fire swept through a mountain forest in 1996 and 2004. Studies have shown that fires have changed a large proportion of Hyphaene palm trees in the margin from single stemmed to multi-stemmed trees and reduced the number of Widdringtonia whytei in the margin by 68%. Using these species as indicators, we argue that similar fires will reduce the structure and diversity of mountain forests as a whole. The 1996 fire was fuelled by abnormally high fuel loads associated with surrounding pine plantations. Further, the large areas of the mountain are afforested and that global climate change is likely to lead to an increase in the conditions favouring intense fires. We therefore, consider effective management of Afromontane mountain forests essential.