Allometric equations – why they might be interesting to social scientists

We were having dinner with a friend of my husband’s last week- a forester by training, who has done a lot of work on forest carbon markets – and he was blown away when I mentioned I had just finished a book chapter on allometric equations. ‘Why would a social scientist be interested in allometric equations?’ he asked. It is a fair enough question, what, afterall, are allometric equations?

Allometric equations are a way of measuring forests, originally developed to measure timber volume, and then more recently they have migrated into forest carbon markets, to measure the carbon stored in forests. The book chapter Professor MacKenzie and I have been writing is precisely about this migration: how things used to calculate market commodities move from one market to another, the practical implications of it, and how we might best conceptualise migration.  The chapter, called “Allometric equations and timber markets: an important forerunner of REDD+?”, will be published later this year in a book called The Politics of Carbon Markets (Routledge), edited by Benjamin Stephan and Richard Lane, so I won’t give away the punchline just now.

However, here is the picture that originally inspired me to start researching measurement in forest carbon markets. It was taken by a colleague of mine Dr Casey Ryan, and it is from his fieldwork in the Miombo Woodlands in Africa, and

was presented by Professor Mat Williams at the final Miombo project conference,held in Edinburgh in summer 2008. This digger is harvesting a whole tree (roots and all) in order to test the accuracy of existing allometric equation parameters for these species of trees, in this part of Africa. The sheer amount of effort involved in doing this kind of destructive tree harvest powerfully demonstrates the value of allometric equations in timber and carbon markets. Essentially they save you from doing this, and in this way make the markets work.

Thoughts from the ESPA science conference

A couple of weeks ago, myself and other colleagues at Edinburgh participated in the annual Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) science conference. Some of us have been involved with this programme for a few years, but the research is now reaching exciting levels of maturity, diversity, and a certain scale. For interdisciplinary researchers at the interface of natural and social science, it was an exciting place to be. I want to highlight a few things that struck me over the two days at the conference.

Whether you speak to communities of practitioners or academics about ecosystem services, the common association people will make is about monetary valuation: these concepts give the potential to make an economic case for nature. Whilst I am not opposed to this in principle, and can see the importance of such strategies in particular for people and organisations that advocate for nature, one refreshing thing about the ESPA community is that its members tend to highlight plural and non-economic values of ecosystem services. Such values are perhaps more appropriate for thinking about the ecosystem services that flow directly in to the livelihoods of poor people in the global south: many are not bought and sold, and their importance might be high even though people’s willingness to pay for them is necessarily limited by their means. 

The ESPA community is also a refreshing place to be because when you say ‘ecosystem services’ to them, they do not necessarily say ‘payments for ecosystem services’ back to you. While there is much global hype around this policy mechanism, many researchers involved in the ESPA community have had extensive research careers in developing countries. They are keenly aware that from the point of view of the poorest, PES may have little to offer. Policy instruments do not become pro-poor by accident. Rather, it requires sustained attention to everything that perpetuates marginalisation in a local setting, and PES tend not to be motivated towards this objective nor necessarily able to achieve it on the side.

One thing that excited me about the ESPA science conference was the array of methods being used by projects, sometimes achieving impressive opportunities for triangulating different types of social and ecological data. This can tell a more complete story, but more than that, can lead to methodological innovation. One particular example of this was introduced by Katherine Homewood at the closing plenary, telling us about the ‘BEST’ project, which uses a combination of long-standing ethnographic datasets, and more novel methods such as choice experiments and experimental games to understand household (and indeed, intra-household) decision-making related to the management of East African savannas.

In the final panel discussion, we discussed the overarching theme of the conference: trade-offs. We discussed the characteristics that trade-offs take in places where people are directly dependent on ecosystem services. There was the suggestion that all ecosystem services trade-offs are fundamentally social trade-offs. Is this an attempt by social scientists to colonise the social-ecological middle ground, or is this a necessary truth? One thing about ecosystem services concepts that sometimes troubles me is their anthropocentric orientation. However, on the other hand this logic may suggest it is a necessary truth that there is no ecosystem service without a human beneficiary. Hence, every ecosystem service trade-off must be in essence a social trade-off. On this theme, one panelist wrapped up by remembering this quote from C S Lewis: 

“What we call man’s [sic] power over nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with nature as its instrument.” 

Corporate valuation and positive externalities – results of a new study

Most economic activities involve the consumption of raw materials. But despite this clear dependency on natural capital, many businesses have in the past only paid attention to those raw materials which they had to pay for, either because these were market commodities or because the government had put a price on them (e.g. an environmental tax). Within some parts of the business community there is a growing recognition of the need to account for natural capital in order to be able to safeguard the long-term success of the company. However there has been little research to date into the most appropriate methods for this novel form of corporate accounting. Dan van der Horst, University of Edinburgh and Colm Bowe, Liverpool John Moores University, have just published a working paper which contains a detailed assessment of the agricultural externalities associated with a company’s farm extension services, using as a case study SABMiller’s malting barley production programme in Rajasthan, India. We found that farmer uptake of best practice farming advice can reduce water consumption and CO2 emissions of farming activities, whilst significantly increasing the income of small scale farmers. The company has the ability to further increase farmer income by promoting agronomic best practice for all crops, not just barley. However we also found that the level of reduction of carbon emissions and groundwater depletion which can be achieved by SABMiller through its extension services, cannot be enough to stabilise groundwater use in the area; collective action is required, involving the relevant government bodies, commercial water users and the many smaller consumers. This was one of the first studies in the world which quantified and monetised the positive socio-economic and environmental externalities associated with the collaboration between individual farmers who are craving agricultural advice, new products and new markets, and a company’s agronomic advisors, who need to build up social relations with the farmers by demonstrating both trust-worthiness and competence with regards to growing barley and other crops. Funded by the Valuing Nature Network (http://www.valuing-nature.net/ ) and coordinated by the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership who linked up academic experts with participating companies, our case study has now been used as the lead example in a new practical guide to corporate environmental externality assessment. For this practical guide or our working paper, please send an email to dan.vanderhorst@ed.ac.uk or click on http://www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk/natcap

We’re launching Carbomap!

We are very excited to share that we are launching Carbomap!

Carbomap is a new spin-out company from the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences.  We apply state-of-the-art science to the problem of measuring and mapping the world’s forest carbon.   www.carbomap.com

  

With University backing and funding, our team (Malthus, Nichol, Patenaude & Woodhouse) developed and patented a new remote sensing system, entitled ‘Multi Spectral Canopy LiDAR’ (MSCL). As an analogy (and for the non-experts), the MSCL scans forests as an MRI scans the human body.

Alongside the continued development of our unique system, we are offering specialised services in processing of remotely sensed forest data.   We have particular expertise in airborne and satellite remote sensing of forest carbon using LiDAR, but can also process hyperspectral imagery and radar.  Our team of analysts and developers can effectively process all kinds of primary forest survey data. How exciting… Well done team!

For more info:

http://www.business7.co.uk/business-news/scottish-business-news/2013/08/20/university-spin-out-in-crowd-funding-bid-106408-24001835/

http://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2013/08/university-spin-out-company-to-raise-cash-by-crowd-funding/

Join our ACES research team!

2 Postdoctoral Research Associates positions
Application closing date: 12-Sep-2013

Contact: genevieve dot patenaude at ed.ac.uk

We seek to appoint Postdoctoral Research Associates in Agriculture and Rural Development and in Tropical Land Use Change. These positions are part of an interdisciplinary project entitled Abrupt Changes in Ecosystem Services and Wellbeing in Mozambican Woodlands (ACES).

ACES will examine how woodland loss is changing ecosystem services and wellbeing of the rural poor in Mozambique. This 3-year, £2M interdisciplinary project is funded by the Ecosystems Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) Programme.

The PDRA positions details and application procedures can be accessed via the University of Edinburgh Job Vacancies? web portal:
https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk
Enter the vacancy refs 017822 or 017782

Information about the ACES project, as well as further forthcoming positions, can be found at http://miomboaces.wordpress.com.

The ESPA programme is funded through a partnership between the UK?s Department for International Development (DFID), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and is accredited as part of the Living with Environmental Change Programme (LWEC).
Further details about the ESPA Programme can be found at http://www.espa.ac.uk.