Skip to main content

Day 18: CIFOR

We spent the day at CIFOR where we met with a couple of people and discussed different aspects of forestry conservation:
  • Forest fires: cheapest way to convert secondary forests into oil palm plantations
    • Value of forest fire conversion is much higher than any potential benefit from using other method
    • Forests are improving and stabilizing
    • Cycles of burning affects Malaysia and Singapore;
    • nothing done: policy is reactive
    • Costs $47b due to haze
    • Swidden
      • Ancient practice for restoring soil fertility
      • It has been sustainable, all along; not the cause of the haze??
      • 3-4 years' cycle
  • Sustainable palm oil:  EU report on Indonesian palm oil not being sustainable
    • Tension btn US/EU priorities on sustainability, with agenda of Indonesia on development
  • REDD+ policy: struggle because of financial flow problems
    • Policy in Brazil not automatically transferrable because of the different contexts
    • Subnational government doing more than the national govt.
  • Social forestry:
    • Customary forests managed by communities
    • Indicative Map of Social Forestry: hand in hand with One Map
    • Participatory mapping by involving communities
    • Work with donors and civil society
    • Principles: Justice, sustainability, legal certainty, participatory, accountable 



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

On thinking

Why do I believe what I believe? Why are my values what they are? Where do my thoughts come from? Are my ideals 'mine'? The question of thought, is a complex one, not least because thinking is so difficult. Many of us do not think, we take the thoughts of others and use them as the foundations, walls, or thatching of our mental structures. But we rarely think, and deep enough on important matters anyway. Thinking involves the admission that we do not know, an admission coming from a place of humility that we are ignorant and could do better. It does not, as is usually thought, have to be from a place of knowledge, even though knowledge can inform thoughts. If it was, then we would not necessarily be thinking, but just reorganizing previously known ideas. It begins with asking the question, why. Why do we go to school? Why do we marry and have children? Why do we work to earn money in order to buy things? Why do we elect leaders? Why do we go to places of worship and perfo...

How well-meaning parents ruined us

Growing up, it was common for our parents to encourage us and tell us how we could be anything we wanted in life. "You can do anything you set your mind to do!" They would cheer us on. "Even the president?" We'd ask unconvinced. "Yes, you could even become the richest man in the world!" All this fascinated us. We vowed to ourselves that we'd in fact become people of substance who would be recognized in the entire world for our achievements. We'd ride in super-yachts like Abramovich and the rest of the mega-rich. We would produce life changing inventions, innovating our way to stardom. We'd become the next prodigy in music and sports. All this is well and good, meant to lift our spirits. Assessing our lives however, no matter how much effort we have put in to realize our dreams and visions, they have eluded us. We have become adept at doing other things though: commenting on FB posts, retweets, identifying the hottest political issue...

Analyzing a carry trade proposal: Short USD, go long on bitcoin

I recently completed an assignment for an International Economics Policy class which entailed designing a carry trade. A carry trade is a financial transaction that involves borrowing (short) in a low interest currency, and lending (go long) in a high interest (yield) currency. For instance from Bloomberg 's rates for bonds, this would involve borrowing in Swiss francs (rate is -0.15 percent) and lend in New Zealand dollars (rate is 2.83 percent). All else remaining equal, the carry trade would yield a rate differential of 2.83+0.15 = 2.98 percent. Note: this is an unusual case where the interest rate we are borrowing from is negative; usually, this would involve subtracting the first interest rate from the second. For instance, borrowing in Japanese yen (0.04 percent) and lending in Kiwi dollars (at 2.83 percent) would yield 2.79 percent as profit. My carry trade in this case involves borrowing in USD at a rate of 2.33 percent, and buying bitcoins. But, what, you may ask, is the...