Themes

TBI's work focuses on how local livelihoods and environmental functions of tropical forests are impacted by international as well as domestic policies and markets. This information allows us to inform debates about policy design, evaluate their effectiveness, and assess the social and environmental implications of policies and practices.

Our work is organised around four general themes:

Local governance and community management of forests

From a poverty and livelihoods perspective, TBI is interested in the question to what extent and under what conditions local and indigenous authority and knowledge contribute to livelihoods benefits and improved ecosystem functions. The broader context is provided by the influence of policies and markets on local governance arrangements and institutions, and their consequences for the balance between local and central control over forests.  Read more...

Productive landscapes

Landscapes are the appropriate scale at which the effects of climate change, sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation need to be considered. Landscapes and their ecosystems perform different functions for different stakeholders at different scales. In this theme, TBI explores integrated natural resource management approaches to developing and restoring productive forest landscapes. The context is governance at different spatial scales, and strategies for increasing food security, land use, climate change adaptation and mitigation.  Read more...

Sustainable trade for domestic and international markets

International market and trade instruments are increasingly used to promote responsible production of commodities. The international dimension of timber trade is highly visible, but the importance of sustainable trade for the domestic and international markets for providing livelihoods and fuelling local development is less well-known. The theme emphasises the problems of illegal logging, forest degradation, competing claims on forest resources and inequities in the distribution of timber-related benefits. These issues are considered in the context of international initiatives to promote legal and sustainable forest management, including, e.g., FLEGT, forest certification and REDD+.  Read more...

Financing sustainable forest management

This theme addresses the problem of inadequate financial incentives for multi-purpose forest management as an important driver of deforestation and forest degradation. The context is the emergence of international frameworks of new and promising financing sources, instruments and mechanisms to enhance the financing of sustainable forest management and climate change mitigation (UNFF Facilitative process, REDD+, CBD).  Read more...

Cross-cutting interests within these themes include:

• Reducing poverty and improving local forest-dependent livelihoods
• Forest governance
• International policy and market initiatives
• Forests and climate

The TBI priority themes cover

• key global challenges for improving forest management for people, conservation and sustainable development;
• address relevant issues for local livelihoods and national forest policies and practices in the countries where we work;
• represent topics where our approaches and partnerships provide an added value;
• reflect a legacy of knowledge, experience and stakeholder recognition accumulated over the years.