Forests, Environment and Climate Change Programme research falls into the following areas:

Environmental governance

Forestry provides an important entry point for governance initiatives. The very factors that make forestry such a challenging sector also mean that it offers valuable ways of understanding governance, governance failures, and assessing the impacts of public policies on the poor and the environment.

Forests, markets and the poor

Forests provide important economic resources for the rural and urban poor, providing everything from fuelwood and timber, cooking oils and bushmeat to agricultural inputs and medicinal products. They are also the source of globally-valued products and services.

Carbon markets and climate change

Forests feature in a number of approaches being employed to tackle climate change. We are interested in the potential of the land use sector to benefit from carbon finance, through tree planting and bioenergy, and in how emerging proposals such as payments for avoided deforestation might impact on the poor.