This article recounts the worldwide search for timber undertaken by the Navy Board, the administrative body under the authority of the Admiralty responsible for the supply of naval stores and the construction and repair of ships during the Napoleonic Wars. The closure of the Baltic by France and its European allies is considered the main factor in making British North America a timber colony. Yet the process through which the forests of the Laurentian Plateau and the North Appalachians came to fuel the dockyards of England and Scotland is taken for granted. To acquire this commodity, through merchants, diplomats, and commissioned agents, the power of the British state reached globally, reshaped ecological relationships, and integrated new landscapes to the Imperial economy. Many alternatives to the Baltic were indeed considered and tentatively exploited. Only a mixture of contingency, political factors, and environmental constraints forced the Board to contract in Lower Canada and New Brunswick rather than in areas such as the Western Cape, the Brazilian coast, or Bombay's hinterland.

The harsh climatic conditions and low levels of human activity in Antarctica, relative to other regions, means few non-native species have established. However, the risk of introductions is becoming greater as human activity increases. Non-native microorganisms can be imported to Antarctica in association with fresh food, cargo and personal clothing, but the likelihood of their establishment is not well understood. In January 2015, a wooden packing crate, heavily contaminated with fungi, was imported by aircraft from Punta Arenas, Chile, to Rothera Research Station, Antarctica. Mucor racemosus Bull. and two strains of Trichoderma viridescens (A.S. Horne & H.S. Will.) Jaklitsch & Samuels were isolated from the wood. Measurements of hyphal extension rates indicated that all three strains were psychrotolerant and capable of growth at 4°C, with M. racemosus growing at 0°C. The imported fungi could grow at rates equivalent to, or faster than, species isolated from Antarctic soils, suggesting that low temperature may not be a limiting factor for establishment. It is recommended that wood heat-treatment standards, equivalent to those described in the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures No. 15, are employed by national operators importing cargo into Antarctica, and that treated wood is adequately stored to prevent fungal contamination prior to transportation.

We explore the optimal regulation of forest carbon and albedo for climate change mitigation. We develop a partial equilibrium market-level model with socially optimal carbon and albedo pricing and characterize optimal land allocation and harvests. We numerically assess the policy's market-level impacts on land allocation, harvests, and climate forcing, and evaluate how parameter choices (albedo strength, productivity of forest land, and carbon and albedo prices) affect the outcomes. Carbon pricing alone leads to an overprovision of climate benefits at the expense of food and timber production. Complementing the policy with albedo pricing reduces these welfare losses.

This study focuses on the mechanisms of contract enforcement and dispute resolution in the trade of timber in Shanghai from the 1880s to the 1930s. It shows that merchant guilds, chambers of commerce, and the court system constituted complementary institutions of contract enforcement. Timber trade guilds relied on reputation mechanisms and information sharing to maintain intra-group solidarity and monitor outside trading partners. Horizontal communications among timber guilds in different localities further enhanced their capability to respond promptly to cross-regional cases. When disputes escalated beyond the scope of a single merchant guild, chambers of commerce (after 1904) and the court system became involved. Vertical communications among these organizations strengthened the continuity from informal norms of business practices to guild regulations, and thence to adjudications in court. Whereas the typical story, drawn from European history, was one of transition toward more formal institutions, this case study shows that formal and informal institutions could complement each other and that they existed along a continuum rather than in separated spheres. The convergence of the expected outcomes as a result of resorting to different platforms of dispute resolution reinforced the consistency and credibility of the cost of defaulting.

Across much of Asia protected areas have a dual objective of conserving biodiversity and supporting rural and indigenous livelihoods. For the red panda Ailurus fulgens and other sensitive species of concern, even limited anthropogenic disturbance may influence their use of protected areas. We quantified the prevalence of timber collection and livestock grazing, and their impacts on red panda habitat use, in Phrumsengla National Park, Bhutan. Red pandas used sites with at least 20% bamboo cover, as evidenced by presence of their faecal pellets. They avoided sites disturbed by livestock, regardless of bamboo availability. Timber collection itself was not an important predictor of red panda presence but bamboo may be harvested opportunistically from sites where timber is collected. Conservation efforts for the red panda should not rely on protected areas alone but should explicitly consider and mitigate impacts of anthropogenic disturbances in protected areas.

This study compares equivalent annual rents for two alternative land uses in a region where farming and timber plantations coexist. The comparison is motivated by the possibility that rising timber prices may stimulate timber processors to compete for farmland. Prices, costs, and market rents are assumed to first follow existing trends and then to reach steady state values. Market rents are projected and capitalized for agriculture. Internal soil rents are capitalized for timber. The results show timber to have a comparative advantage on high fertility sites and suggest that timber might become a competitive land use at the intensive margin of the region's farmland base.

L’objectif principal de cet article est la mise au point d’une méthodologie numérique deprévision du comportement local d’un procédé de renforcement des poteaux en bois par lafibre de carbone. En particulier, on s’intéresse à l’étude du comportementélasto-plastique du matériau bois avec effet du renforcement. Une modélisation basée surla thermodynamique des processus irréversibles avec variables d’état est utilisée pourtraduire le couplage entre le comportement plastique à écrouissage isotrope et l’effet durenforcement. Les aspects théoriques et numériques de cette formulation sont décrits endétail. La résolution du problème d’équilibre global est assurée par un schéma DynamiqueExplicite. La validation de la procédure de calcul implémentée dans ABAQUS/Explicit estfaite sur la simulation d’un essai de compression des éprouvettes circulaires en boisrenforcées par la fibre de carbone. Les résultats des simulations sont confrontés à ceuxde l’expérience.

Palisaded enclosures were huge enclosed spaces with timber boundaries found across Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia in the Neolithic. Five such sites have been identified in Scotland dating to the later Neolithic, four of which have been excavated to varying degrees. These sites form the main focus of this paper, which draws in particular on interim results from the authors' excavations at Forteviot, Perth and Kinross, during 2007–2009. The palisaded enclosures of Scotland are part of a wider British and Irish tradition and there are a number of European parallels, the closest of which lie in southern Scandinavia. The palisaded enclosures in Scotland are tightly clustered geographically and chronologically, constructed in the centuries after 2800 cal BC. This paper explores the function, role, and meaning of palisaded enclosures in Scotland and more generally, drawing not just on the architecture of the monuments, but also the individual posts that were used to create the enclosures. The role of these monuments in reconstituting nature is also considered.

Tree species have been the focus of increasing interest regarding the so-called conservation-through-use approach, which aims to achieve conservation by increasing the value of wild resources to local communities. Although tree species display many characteristics that increase their potential for sustainable use, the approach is rarely successful in practice. The reasons for this are examined with reference to case studies, considering five conditions needed for success: (1) sustainable harvesting, (2) no interaction between threats, (3) successful commercialization, (4) economic benefits received by producers, and (5) use of financial income to support conservation action. Case studies illustrate that even when the first four of these conditions are met, trade in forest products often provides insufficient financial returns to protect the forest against other threats. This highlights the importance of understanding the interactions between threats for conservation-through-use to be achieved, an issue illustrated by a conceptual model. Recommendations are presented indicating how the conservation of tree species through sustainable use may be achieved in practice. Critically, financial rewards of sustainable use need to be large enough to support practical conservation action, which is required to counter the many threats to which tree species are exposed.

Competition for coastal land use and overexploitation have reduced or degraded mangrove coverage throughout much of their distribution, especially in South-east Asia. Timber production was the initial motivation for early mangrove reforestation projects. More recently, benefits from protection against erosion and extreme weather events and direct improvements in livelihoods and food security are perceived as justifications for such restoration efforts. This study examines the socioeconomic impacts of a community-led reforestation project in the Philippines through a survey of the local fishers. Revenues from mangrove fisheries, tourism and timber result in an annual benefit to the community of US$ 315 ha−1 yr−1. This figure is likely to be considerably more if the contribution of the mangrove to the coastal catch of mangrove-associated species is included. This estimate only includes direct benefits to the community from mangroves, and not intangible benefits such as coastal protection, which paradoxically is perceived by the community as one of the most important functions. More than 90% of all fishers, regardless of where they fished, thought the mangrove provided protection from storms and typhoons and acted as a nursery site and should be protected. Those fishing only in the mangrove perceived more benefits from the mangrove and were prepared to pay more to protect it than those fishing outside. This study concludes that replanting mangroves can have a significant economic impact on the lives of coastal communities. Acknowledgement of the value of replanted mangroves compared with other coastal activities and the benefits they bring to the more economically-vulnerable coastal dwellers should support better informed policy and decision-making with regard to coastal habitat restoration.