PEN: How global-comparative data challenges conventional wisdom

Editor's Notes

1. Approach: a network Collaborative effort between CIFOR & 40+ universities & other institutions PhD students: Long fieldwork & student enthusiasm Capacity building Most partners from developing countries
2. The standardised definitions, questionnaires and methods used by PEN Partners across multiple sites represent a new approach to data collection, and enabled direct comparison between sites and the subsequent integration of case studies into a compatible global data set. Our methodological advances have already influenced a number of high profile research projects (e.g. CIFOR’s REDD multimillion GBP global-comparative project) and some significant donors/actors (e.g. the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Forestry program).
3. This is the global average results. Forest (natural) income = 21.1% Forest (plantation) income = 1% Non-forest environmental income = 6.4 Environmental income (natural forest & non-forest environmental) = 27.5, about the same as crop income 28.7%
4. The poor are more reliant on forest income, env income, and subsistence income
5. These findings (all published in the WD Special issue) confirmed some suspicions & challenged some conventional wisdom about environmental income. The world’s rural poor are more dependent on forest & environmental resources than is commonly realized. Income from natural forests & other natural areas ~28% of total household income, nearly as much as crops. Men generated at least as much income from forests as women do, contradicting long-held assumptions. Forests were less important as “safety nets” in response to shocks and as gap fillers between seasonal harvests than previously believed. State forests generated more income than private or community forests. While the most destitute of poor farmers are often blamed for deforestation, they played only a modest role in forest clearing.
6. The complete PEN dataset has been shared with
7. 7 PEN articles: 1 summary/overview article (Wunder et al. 2014), 5 thematic global articles, 1 regional case study (Duchelle et al. 2014), 6
8. One of the key knowledge products generated from the PEN project is the PEN global dataset, which consists of data from ~8,000 households from 333 villages in 58 sites, in 24 countries. As part of CIFOR’s open-access policy and mandate to share global public goods, this dataset is now being made available to share with others from outside of the PEN project. The data has thus far been shared with a total of 10 ‘external’ parties, who are currently analyzing the data with the aim of producing a range of publications that will acknowledge the use of PEN data. Promotion of the dataset’s availability has currently been limited to ‘word-of-mouth’, however it is expected that in the near future its availability will be promoted more broadly, and even made available for public download from our website.
9. The complete PEN dataset has been shared with
10. Largely funded by Difid, although it involved very many partners.
11. Layout: Closing Slide Variation: none