Please see www.fonaso.eu for the current FONASO (Forest and Nature for Society) fully funded PhD scholarships (deadline: 1 November 2011). Students from anywhere in the world are eligible (although students can't apply to be based in the same country as they obtained their last degree from I believe). The studentships must be held at two of a consortium of seven European Institutions.

I am involved in two projects (abstracts pasted below). If anyone is interested in applying for either of these topics then I am happy to discuss their application (please send me a CV and draft proposal). However I encourage anyone interested to look at the full list of topics on the web.

Deforestation and degradation of forest ecosystems are important sources of green-house gas emissions world-wide. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) offers financial incentives for tropical forest countries to reduce emissions from forested lands through forest conservation, forest management or enhancement. Many forest ecosystems also harbour important biodiversity and the growing voluntary market in REDD+ carbon credits frequently uses co-benefits, such as biodiversity conservation, as part of their marketing. Key research questions in this PhD include: (i) What is the market for ‘biodiversity-friendly’ credits and what elements of biodiversity are valued by buyers, (ii) How does the degree of congruence between biodiversity and carbon stocks vary depending on the measure of biodiversity used, and (iii) How does the cost of directly monitoring elements of biodiversity of interest to buyers influence which co-benefits can be marketed. This project will involve desk-based analysis, interviews with buyers and other stakeholders, as well as field work in tropical forest countries. Case studies will be finalised in associated with the successful student but may include Madagascar, Costa Rica or Indonesia. P

Principal Supervisor at Bangor University, Co-supervisor at University of Copenhagen

Reconciling community-based institutions with emerging market-based mechanisms for forest management

Over the last two decades the key-role of community-based institutions in sustainable forest management has been increasingly recognised (e.g. prevalence of policies such as Joint Forest Management and Community-Forest Management in many countries). Recently, there has been an explosion of interest in the potential of substantial financial resources being made available for forest management through market-based mechanisms, such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) and other Payments for Environmental Services (PES). Project-related activities to effectively deliver environmental services (in REDD+, avoided deforestation) need to be undertaken on the ground and strengthening existing community-based institutions and related governance mechanisms may be a valuable means to achieve this. Nevertheless, our understanding of the extent to which existing institutions can be adapted to the emerging market-based paradigm is limited. This PhD will use a combination of literature-based analysis and field work in case-studies to investigate whether and how community-based institutions are adapting to new models of funding for forest management. Key research questions are: (i) to which extent participation and other good governance mechanisms can reduce the costs of projects, and (ii) the understanding of conditionality by community members and the degree to which this can be delivered.

Principal Supervisor at University of Padova, Co-supervisor at Bangor University