SEES Fellows: Interacting Effects of Public Policy and Cash Crop Expansion on Forest Conservation

该项目由NSF科学、工程和教育促进可持续发展研究员(SEE FLOLS)计划支持，目标是帮助实现必要的发现，为导致环境、能源和社会可持续发展的行动提供信息，同时创造必要的劳动力来应对这些挑战。可持续发展科学是一个新兴领域，它解决了在不损害环境、不牺牲子孙后代满足其需求的能力的情况下满足人类需求的挑战。一支强大的科学队伍需要接受跨学科研究和思维方面的教育和培训，特别是在可持续发展科学领域。在SEES奖学金的支持下，该项目将使一位有前途的早期职业研究人员能够在与可持续发展相关的独立研究生涯中确立自己的地位。这位研究员的项目将研究经济作物生产如何影响生态系统服务付费(PES)计划下的森林保护。森林提供许多有价值的服务，如土壤侵蚀控制和生物多样性，这对附近的农业非常重要，以及碳封存，有助于减缓全球气候变化。PES计划利用激励措施敦促土地所有者在他们的土地上种植和维护森林，以创造这样的好处。然而，这类方案的成功程度各不相同，似乎取决于尚未完全了解的社会和经济因素--特别是土地利用和资源利用之间的权衡。科学家们现在正在讨论经济作物的生产是否可以通过减少从森林中开采资源的压力来加强森林保护。该项目采用跨学科的方法来研究经济作物和森林更新之间关系的社会经济和生态层面。更好地了解家庭决策、公共政策和森林状况之间的联系，有助于完善森林保护计划，使其最大限度地促进人类和环境的福祉。这项研究将考察不同的经济作物种植模式对中国退耕还林计划下的森林的影响。退耕还林计划是对在退耕农田上植树造林的家庭进行补偿的计划。云南省维溪县将选出10个社区，根据社区是集体组织种植和销售经济作物、家庭单独采用经济作物还是经济作物缺位而有所不同。将收集数据以检验三个核心假设：(1)在家庭一级，经济作物生产导致森林资源减少；(2)从社区来看，没有经济作物的社区，森林利用强度最大，集体种植经济作物的社区，森林利用强度最小；(3)植物多样性和碳固存与森林资源利用强度负相关。数据收集将包括对家庭生计的调查；关于资源利用的分调查，包括由答复者主导的森林使用情况测绘；选定用来控制海拔、坡度、坡向和与原有森林的接近程度的人工林的实地测量；以及遥感卫星图像。分析将评估家庭和社区因素对不同资源利用的影响及其与地块和景观一级森林措施的关系。通过比较同一景观中的不同社区，这项研究将捕捉到区域和家庭研究迄今忽略的中观机制。

The project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish himself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This Fellow's project will examine how cash crop production affects forest conservation under Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs. Forests provide many valuable services, such as soil erosion control and biodiversity, which can be very important for nearby agriculture, and carbon sequestration, which can help slow global climate change. PES programs use incentives to urge landowners to plant and maintain forests on their land in order to create such benefits. However, the success of such programs is varied and appears to depend on social and economic factors that are not fully understood - particularly the tradeoffs between land-use and resource-use. Scientists now debate whether the production of cash-crops can enhance forest conservation by reducing the pressure to extract resources from forests. This project employs an interdisciplinary approach to study both the socioeconomic and ecological dimensions of the relationship between cash-crops and forest regeneration. A better understanding of the linkages between household decision-making, public policy, and forest conditions could help refine forest conservation programs so that they maximize both human and environment wellbeing. This research will examine how varying patterns of cash crop adoption affect forests under China's Grain-to-Green Program, which compensates households for planting forests on retired farmland. Ten communities will be selected in Weixi County, Yunnan Province, varying by whether the community organizes collectively to plant and market cash crops, households individually adopt cash crops, or cash crops are absent. Data will be gathered to test three core hypotheses: (1) at the household level, cash crop production leads to less withdrawal of forest resources; (2) across communities, forest use intensity is greatest where cash crops are absent and least where cash crops are adopted collectively; and (3) plant diversity and carbon sequestration correlate negatively with intensity of forest resource use. Data collection will include a survey of household livelihoods; a sub-survey on resource use, including respondent-led mapping of forest use; field measurements in planted forests selected to control for elevation, slope, aspect, and proximity to pre-existing forests; and remotely sensed satellite imagery. Analyses will assess effects of household and community factors on different resource uses and their relationships with forest measures at plot and landscape levels. By comparing across communities in a landscape, this research will capture meso-level mechanisms that regional and household studies have neglected so far.