Impacts of Community-Based Natural Resource Management on Wealth, Food Security and Child Health in Tanzania.

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a major global strategy for enhancing conservation outcomes while also seeking to improve rural livelihoods; however, little evidence of socioeconomic outcomes exists. We present a national-level analysis that empirically estimates socioeconomic impacts of CBNRM across Tanzania, while systematically controlling for potential sources of bias. Specifically, we apply a difference-in-differences model to national-scale, cross-sectional data to estimate the impact of three different CBNRM governance regimes on wealth, food security and child health, considering differential impacts of CBNRM on wealthy and poor populations. We also explore whether or not longer-standing CBNRM efforts provide more benefits than recently-established CBNRM areas. Our results show significant improvements in household food security in CBNRM areas compared with non-CBNRM areas, but household wealth and health outcomes in children are generally not significantly different. No one CBNRM governance regime demonstrates consistently different welfare outcomes than the others. Wealthy households benefit more from CBNRM than poor households and CBNRM benefits appear to increase with longer periods of implementation. Perhaps evidence of CBNRM benefits is limited because CBNRM hasn't been around long enough to yield demonstrable outcomes. Nonetheless, achieving demonstrable benefits to rural populations will be crucial for CBNRM's future success in Tanzania.

How you count carbon matters: implications of differing cookstove carbon credit methodologies for climate and development cobenefits.

The opportunity to apply for carbon credits for cookstove projects creates a source of funding that can be leveraged to promote the "win-win" environmental and development benefits of improved cookstoves. Yet, as in most environment-development efforts, unacknowledged trade-offs exist under the all-encompassing "win-win" claims. This study therefore compares different scenarios for calculating cookstove carbon credits, including comparing different types of stoves using different fuels, different methodologies and theoretical scenarios to account for a range of climate-relevant emissions. The results of the study highlight the following: 1) impacts of different assumptions made within carbon credit methodologies, 2) discussion around potential trade-offs in such projects, and 3) considerations needed to truly promote sustainable development. The Gold Standard methodology was more comprehensive in its accounting and generally calculated more carbon credits per scenario than the Clean Development Mechanism methodology. Including black carbon in calculations would be more reflective of climate-relevant stove emissions and greatly increase the number of credits calculated. As health and other development benefits are not inherently included in carbon credit calculations, to achieve "win-win" outcomes, deliberate decisions about project design need to be made to ensure objectives are met and not simply assumed.