Photo: CI

Forests as Pathways out of Poverty and to Broader Prosperity: Empirical

Insights and Conceptual Advances

Daniel C. Miller, University of Illinois Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science

October 24, 2018

Photo: K. Nakamura

Roadmap

• Research motivation

• Research approach and results

– Traditional review

– Systematic mapping and review

• Moving forward

– A new tool for evidence synthesis

– Conclusions

Study motivation• Forests provide goods and services vital to human well-being

• Forest-poverty literature shows significance of forests for basic consumption and, in some cases, a safety net

• Much less known about whether and how forests can provide a pathway out of poverty in developing countries.

• Even less known about forests as providing pathway to broader prosperity, including more widely shared economic benefits and other aspects of human well-being

Study questions

• Can forests provide a pathway out of poverty?

• Can forests provide a pathway to broader-based prosperity?

• What specific mechanisms/pathways does literature identify in answering these questions?

Forest-poverty linkages1. Support for current consumption (subsistence)

2. Safety nets

3. Income & increase in available assets as means to escape poverty

Photos: PROFOR

Major focus of forest-poverty literature

Material living standards

Economic living standards - general

Economic living standards - asset accumulation

Subsistence & safety nets

Pathway out of poverty

Conceptualizing Prosperity

Material living standards

Economic living standards - general

Economic living standards - asset accumulation

Economic equity

Health

Education

Social Relations

Security and Safety

Governance

Subjective Well-Being

Culture and Spirituality

Freedom of Choice and Action

Subsistence & safety nets

Pathway out of poverty

Broader prosperity

Sources: Angelsen & Wunder2003; Sunderlin et al. 2005; McKinnon et al. 2016

Methods

Keyword search using Web of Science for most-cited forest-livelihoods papers:

• Forest* and econ*• Forest* and economic*• Forest* and livelihood*• Forest* and poverty• Forest* and prosper*• Forest* and (“well-being” or “wellbeing” or “well being”)

Top 100 cited papers for each search string for two periods to avoid bias toward older papers:

• 1990-2016• 2012-2016

Search Results

Geographic distribution of empirical studies reviewed

Total n = 150 studies with cases in 56 countries

Distribution of studies by outcome focus

N = 150 studies in 56 countries

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Health

Social relations

Culture and spirituality

Subjective well-being

Economic equity

Security and safety

Governance

Economic living standards - Asset accumulation

Material living standards

Economic living standards - general

Outcomes examined

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Economic/material + otheroutcome(s)

Economic + material outcomes

Material living standards

Economic living standards-general

# of studies

Very few studies examine economic/material well-being andanother dimension of prosperity

Poverty dynamics

• Many studies say forests provide income or benefits to poor, but don’t say whether and how forests help them escape from poverty

• 25 of 150 studies examined forest-poverty dynamics: – 12 described a social group (e.g. household, community, or

region) as moving out of poverty due at least in part to forests

– 2 found movement into poverty.

– 0 studies on broader prosperity analyzed a mechanism.

Moving out of poverty: mechanisms

• Harvest and sale of wood

• External payment for forest conservation and restoration (government, market)

• NTFPs (but likely relevant for only certain crops)

• Growing and sale of tree crops (oil palm, fruit)

• Relative increase in “off-forest” income

• ecosystem services to improve agricultural production

Moving into/staying in poverty: mechanisms

• Dependence on unprofitable and/or degrading forest resources

• Interventions exacerbate existing inequalities (e.g. land reforms)

• Plantations crowd out smallholder agricultural activity & erode ecosystem services

Study conclusions

• Main finding: Empirical studies of 1) movement out of poverty and 2) economic poverty and other dimensions of human well-being (broader prosperity) remain rare

• Research need: panel data studies to shed light on how forests may affect poverty and broader-based prosperity over time

• Policy implication: Broaden dialogue about forests’ contribution to development – not just about (extreme) poverty

Another approach: Systematic mapping

Research question

What evidence exists on the contribution of forest-based productive activities to poverty alleviation?

Aims of systematic map

-locate, characterize and assess empirical studies

-identify the type and frequency of forest-based activities and poverty outcomes being studied

-assess the overall quality of the evidence base

-identify indicators commonly used to measure poverty outcomes

METHODOLOGY

Scope literature

Set inclusion criteria

Draft protocol

Conduct search strategy

Screen & assess results

Extract relevant data

Analyse trends/impacts

INCLUDED

FOREST

ACTION

TYPES

Shyamsundar et al. in review

INCLUDED/EXCLUDED STUDY TYPES

INCLUDED/EXCLUDED POVERTY OUTCOMES

Included evidence

Growth in the evidence base

Frequency and geographic distribution of studies

Evidence map

Summary of findings

• Knowledge gaps exist:– Predominance of economic constructs of poverty– Geographic bias in research effort– Differential impacts between demographic groups

• Further synthesis possible on:– Impacts of forest management on poverty– Impacts of governance types on poverty – we are

in fact now doing this…

Recommendations for using the map based on evidence occurrence

www.natureandpeopleevidence.org

You can access these– and other– data for your own use

A new tool to facilitate evidence synthesis

www.colandrapp.com

Motivation

• Systematic reviews and maps increasingly used to shed light onforest-livelihoods (and many other) issues

• BUT they are usually very labor intensive & time consuming

• Careful, repetitive work required is prone to errors andinconsistencies

• Average environmental systematic review = 164 days (full‐timeequivalent) (SD 23) and systematic map = takes 211 days (SD 53)(Haddaway and Westgate, 2018).

Question: Can technology help?CAN TECHNOLOGY HELP?

colandrapp.com

• Open access, machine-learning assisted tool for conducting evidence synthesis

• Uses machine learning, natural language processing, and text-mining functions:

• partially automate finding relevant citations

• extract desired data from PDFs.

See: Cheng et al. 2018; colandrapp.com

Key results from experiment testing Colandr

Colandr can make screening literature for evidence more efficientand less painful

Example from agroforestry systematic map (Miller et al. 2018):

– Compare time to screen articles using traditional method vs. Colandr

– N = 207

If we used Colandar results indicate we could have saved:

– ~100 hrs

– ~$20,000

This is likely an understatement of savings as only pertains toscreening of 200 studies and gains come as more studies screened

Summary

Evidence on forest-poverty linkages increasing, but major gaps remain.

Studies of movement out of poverty and to greater prosperity remain rare

New technology can help build evidence base

Need for panel studies to understand dynamics

More general need to include broader dimensions of human well-being in debate about forest contributions

Thank you!

Email: dcmiller@illinois.edureem.hajjar@oregonstate.edu

Acknowledgements: This research was supportedby the USDA National Institute of Food andAgriculture Hatch project 1009327 and PROFOR atthe World Bank. We gratefully acknowledgeexcellent research assistance by Roberta Afonsoand Katia Nakamura. We thank Arun Agrawal, DijiChandrasekharan, and Nalin Kishor for initialdiscussion that helped spark this work. DuncanMacQueen, Sofia Ahlroth, Gill Shepherd, PriyaShymsandar, and several author contributors to aforthcoming volume on this topic provided valuablecomments.