Policies must balance forest conservation’s local costs with its benefits—local to global—in terms of biodiversity, the mitigation of climate change, and other eco-services such as water quality. The trade-offs with development vary across forest locations. We argue that considering location in three ways helps to predict policy impact and improve policy choice: (i) policy impacts vary by locat...

We consider a generalization of the model of stochastic search in an out-forest, introduced and studied by Denardo, Rothblum, and Van der Heyden [1]. We provide a simple proof of the optimality of index-based policies.

This paper addresses the effects of economic transition policies on forestry in China. The effects of de-collectivization and market liberalization on the forest land area and timber harvest are studied using panel data from four provinces covering the period 1978]1995. Fixed effects ordinary least squares models for forest land cover and annual harvests per hectare are estimated, allowing for ...

Tropical forests do far more than sustain biodiversity; they are homes to indigenous peoples, pharmacopeias of natural products, and provide vital ecosystem services, such as ̄ood amelioration and soil conservation. At regional and global scales, tropical forests also have a major in ̄uence on carbon storage and climate. I highlight these bene®ts, then assess the pattern and pace of tropical for...

Forest degradation in protected areas has been monitored around the world with remote sensing data, but degradation processes undetectable by widely used satellite sensors have been largely overlooked. Increased human pressures and socioeconomic development make forest protection more challenging, particularly for forest ecosystems that lie across national borders because of the differences in ...

In a recent editorial in Biostatistics, Peng (2009) introduced a system for making data and computer code from papers in the journal publicly available so that other researchers can reproduce the statistical analyses in the paper. The editors explain in a short accompanying note (Diggle and Zeger, 2009) that ‘we wish to encourage the practice of making research published in the journal reproduc...

Forest ecosystems contribute to the diets and subsistence of forest dwellers, and in increasingly market-oriented economies they provide a significant portion of the food and medicines consumed by urban populations. Recognition that the sustainable use of forest resources is essential for local livelihoods and the well-being of national populations provides a foundation for investment in conser...