The EU has set itself ambitious objectives for combatting climate change. In addition to efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change, the European Commission is also advancing efforts to strengthening climate adaptation in the EU, primarily by facilitating better exchange of information and practices as well as coordinating relevant activities such as in the case of trans-boundary impacts. Two...Read more
From 11 to 16 March 2012 Ecologic Institute and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) hosted a one-week study tour in New Zealand for European foresters and forest policy experts to inform them about the integration of the forestry sector into its national emissions trading scheme. Traveling the length of New Zealand's north island, the participants met with forest landowners and managers (including from the indigenous Maori tribes), carbon trading experts, forestry policy think tanks, and regional and national policymakers to gain a well-rounded perspective of how the current policies wereRead more
The pressure on land and natural resources is increasing worldwide. While there are many sectoral policies tackling different environmental problems, land use is not regulated in an integrated and overarching way. The discussion on sustainable biofuels and biomass highlights the continued lack of an effective and innovative framework to deal with complex land-use issues. The aim of the GLOBALANDS project is to identify existing land use policies and develop possible governance tools towards a more resource efficient and sustainable global land use.Read more
In this article, the authors provide for the first time a definition of the "Footprint Family" as a suite of indicators to track human pressure on our planet and under different angles. It builds on the premise that no single indicator per se is able to comprehensively monitor human impact on the environment, but indicators rather need to be used and interpreted jointly.Read more
A new publication in the journal “Ecological Indicators” by Tanja Srebotnjak, from Ecologic Institute, and Peter Hardi, from the Central European University in Hungary, examines the potentials for sustainable bioenergy production in Bulgaria, Romania and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. The study draws on official statistics and modeling results and concludes that bioenergy potentials are highest in Bulgaria, Romania, and Kazakhstan but depend on several factors including crop choice, climatic conditions, availability of suitable land, and the institutional andRead more
The Ecologic Institute is a part of LEDDRA consortium. Launched in April 2010, the project will add new and will refine existing scientific and policy-relevant knowledge, especially within a cross-national context in the perspective of elaborating scientifically sound practices and informed policies to combat land andRead more
Illegal fishing and logging, and the international trade in illegally sourced fish and wood products cause enormous environmental and economic damage. Consumer countries contribute to the problem by importing fish and timber without ensuring legality – a problem the EU tries to address with two new regulations. In this briefing paper, Duncan Brack, Heike Baumüller and Katharina Umpfenbach compare the recently adoptedRead more
What is the state of sustainable development in the European Union? The 2009 Eurostat monitoring report reviews the progress and implementation of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy.
The 2009 monitoring report was published on the Eurostat website. As partner in a consortium with the Vienna University of Economic and Business (RIMAS), INFRAS, and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), the Ecologic Institute played aRead more
Deforestation is responsible for roughly one fifth of global carbon emissions, most of it in the tropical forests of the developing world. At the Copenhagen climate talks, negotiators discussed a potential new mechanism to compensate nations for keeping their forests intact. The article by Duncan Brack and Katharina Umpfenbach looks at these REDD proposals (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), arguing that carbon finance alone might not be enough to stop deforestation – unless part of it is spent upfront on improving forest governance.Read more
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) can be an important source of income for rural inhabitants of Laos. One such NTFP, which has been promoted by the government of Laos, is the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera (L) Vent). This study was performed to understand the factors influencing the commercialisation of paper mulberry bark in Oudomxay province (Northern Laos) and to investigate the potential of the paper mulberry tree as a source of steady income.Read more
