Thinking beyond the canopy

Publications

Measuring Livelihoods and Environmental Dependence: Methods for Research and Fieldwork

Governing Africa's Forests in a Globalized World

Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services

Primary school children at one of the PEN sites in Tianlin County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. © CIFOR/Nick Hogarth

A local resident in Pangkalan Limus village collects wood from the forest to sell, West Java, Indonesia. © CIFOR/Aulia Erlangga

The Poverty and Environment Network (PEN) is an international research project and network. Launched in 2004, PEN is the largest and most comprehensive global analysis of tropical forests and poverty. Its database contains survey data on 8000+ households in 40+ study sites in 25 developing countries. At the core of PEN is comparative, detailed socio-economic data that was collected quarterly at the household and village level by 50+ research partners using standardised definitions, questionnaires and methods. The study sites were chosen to obtain widely representative coverage of different geographical regions, forest types, forest tenure regimes, levels of poverty, infrastructure and market access, and population density.

The study aims to put forests more firmly onto the poverty agenda by informing and influencing mainstream forest policy formulation and implementation on a regional and global scale. Preliminary results from the global analysis strengthen the case for more systematic data collection on the ways that poor people depend on natural resources.

The PEN project is currently in an analysis and writing stage. As the main output, we are working on a World Development Special Issue, entitled "Forests, livelihoods and conservation: adding empirical evidence". This publication will use the PEN data from almost 8,000 household to produce analyses on livelihoods, on safety nets, land tenure, gender, and forest clearing. Besides these five core PEN articles, the Special Issue will include 7-9 articles based on other research that also addresses quantitative forest – livelihoods issues, but builds on data other than that gathered by PEN. We expect the Special Issue to be published in mid-2013.

PEN Video

An international network and research project on poverty, environment and forest resources

The core of PEN is the tropics-wide collection of uniform socio-economic and environmental data at the household and village level by 38 PEN partners (mainly PhD students), generating a global database with 8,000+ households and 360 villages from 25 countries. Several PEN partners received fieldwork support from the International Foundation of Science (IFS) and from CIFOR. All income data were collected through four quarterly surveys to shorten recall periods and increase accuracy.