Tropical forests in Africa’s mountains store more carbon than previously thought. At the same time, vast amounts of the forests have already been lost. “This draws the attention to the importance of conserving these forests“, says Göran Wallin Focali member at the University of Gothenburg, co-author of the new study published in Nature.
The EU is currently a major contributor to deforestation through the consumption of forest risk commodities such as palm oil, soybeans, cocoa, and coffee. This new Focali brief, written by Simon Bager and Focali member U. Martin Persson, offers insight on how to assess policy proposals which address the tropical deforestation generated from EU imports and recommends two comprehensive proposals which meet the developed guidelines.
Do multifunctional landscapes hold specific opportunities for women in enhancing food production and food security? Lisa Westholm (SLU) and Madelene Ostwald (GMV) find in this literature review that products controlled by women in multifunctional settings risk being ignored in decision-making, and that increasing the value of these products might have adverse effects on women's empowerment. To remove these barriers, traditional gender roles have to change.
Research from Focalimembers Florence Pendrill, Martin Persson, Javier Godar and others reveal that up to 39 % of emissions from deforestation are driven by international trade, where Europe and China are major importers. In fact, a sixth of the carbon footprint of an average EU-diet is due to deforestation emissions. This calls for implementation of policy measures that cross international supply-chains if deforestation emissions are to be effectively reduced.
Throughout the tropics, forests are increasingly devoid of larger mammals - a condition referred to as empty forests. Large mammals and birds fill important roles for forest structure and composition and their depletion have implications for the forests carbon storage capacity. This new article by Focali-member Torsten Krause shows that effects of defaunation are ignored in REDD+, which compromises not only the forest ecosystem function, but also the objectives of the program.
Human induced faunal loss - defaunation - has been greatly overlooked when it comes to forest conservation and management. This recent study by Focali-members Torsten Krause, Tobias Nielsen and Fariborz Zelli with colleagues, analyzes the impacts of defaunation and associated multi-level governance gaps using Nigeria´s Cross River State forests as a case.
A significant share of Sweden's environmental impact occur overseas. Sweden's large dependency on food imports cause not only tropical deforestation but also a vast use of pesticides. In this new paper, Focali-researchers Christel Cederberg and Martin Persson with colleagues present footprint indicators to measure environmental pressures from Swedish food consumption.
The scientific community represents different viewpoints on forest-climate interactions and how to prioritize to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement. Focali-researcher Göran Berndes is co-authoring this report from KSLA that showcases discussions and conclusions from a conference with the aim of identifying knowledge gaps and priorities for future research and data collection.
New study from Rwandan researchers together with Focaliresearchers Johan Uddling and Göran Wallin on climate sensitivity of tropical trees along an elevation gradient in Rwanda. The study finds that gas exchange strongly decrease at lower sites in the dry season, which indicates that primary production as well as transpiration would decline in a climate with more pronounced dry periods.
Contestation over the use of land and forest areas in the Amazon have a long history, is heavily influenced by global consumption demands and as often the devil is in the details and paragraphs. A new study published in Nature Sustainability shows that up to fifteen million hectares of land might lose its current protection due to a paragraph in the Brazilian Forest Act, the most important legal framework for nature conservation on privately owned land in Brazil.
