Amy Ickowitz
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 93029 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Amy Ickowitz |
| NOMBRES | Amy |
| APELLIDO | Ickowitz |
| FIRMA | ICKOWITZ A |
| AFILIACIONES | Center for International Forestry Research |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0965-7661 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 24 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 359 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 24 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2002 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Bird community patterns and indicator species for monitoring fragmented Miombo and Mopane woodlands in southern Zambia
Biodiversity loss in subtropical dry forests and woodlands is accelerating, particularly where agricultural expansion has transformed woodland mosaics in human-modified landscapes outside protected areas. In Southern Zambia, the dry woodland biome is dominated by Miombo and locally by Mopane formations, which differ markedly in floristic composition, structure, soils, and disturbance regimes. We assessed bird assemblages across three woodland typ…
Integrated Landscape Approaches
Landscape approaches mobilize stakeholders across sectors and scales to negotiate development–conservation trade-offs and land-use allocation. Building on the concept of earth system justice, we examine how efforts to operationalize such approaches in Ghana, Zambia and Indonesia advance landscape justice. We observed contributions to procedural, recognitional and intergenerational justice, while interspecies justice remains overlooked. Yet, power…
The importance of wild meat and freshwater fish for children's nutritional intake in the Congo Basin
Wild meat and freshwater fish are widely consumed in the Congo Basin, but in some areas, they are at risk of disappearing due to unsustainable hunting and fishing and changes in their habitat. Wild meat is also at risk of being eliminated from local diets due to potential policy changes such as wild meat bans. In order to understand the impacts of these potential changes on nutrition and to design appropriate policies, it is critical to understan…
From conflict to collaboration through inclusive landscape governance
We report on a multistakeholder negotiation process to develop a theory of change. • Drivers of landscape change and barriers to reconciling conflicting aims identified. • Stakeholders agree on a shared vision of inclusive landscape governance. • Short- to long-term goals and activities identified for a pathway of change. • State actors influence the pathway of change more than community representatives. The Western Wildlife Corridor (WWC) in Gha…
Food consumption and nutritional status of sedentarized Baka Pygmies in Southern Cameroon
The sedentarization of Pygmies in the Congo Basin has triggered a profound transformation in their traditional lifestyles, particularly affecting dietary habits and food consumption. We employed 24-hour dietary recalls in 10 sedentarized Baka Pygmy villages in southeastern Cameroon, gathering data on diet composition, diversity (Household Dietary Diversity Score, HDDS), and nutrient intake per adult male equivalent (AME) from 67 homes (28% of all…
Wild foods from forests
Forests provide an immense range of benefits to people, many of which are not prioritized by forest policy because they are difficult to quantify. Wild foods from forests enhance the quality of diets for those who consume them and provide income for those who sell or trade them. The quantity of wild food collected is challenging to measure because of non‐standard units, seasonal differences in collection patterns and large numbers of species. To …
What are the links between tree‐based farming and dietary quality for rural households? A review of emerging evidence in low‐ and middle‐income countries
In most low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), conventional agricultural policy promotes specialized production systems of carbohydrate‐rich crops to address hunger and food insecurity. For rural populations, however, increased landscape uniformity can reduce both agrobiodiversity and wild biodiversity, which can contribute to diet uniformity. Although maintaining diversity in and around agricultural systems is far from a new approach, there i…
Oil palm and gendered time use
Measuring the social impact of oil palm requires the use of multiple metrics which capture different dimensions of well-being. To date, most studies have examined welfare outcomes at the household level, relying on a relatively narrow range of indicators. There is a need for a more diverse range of metrics to measure the social impacts of oil palm as well as more explicit accounting for study context and gendered effects. Here we demonstrate the …
Food for thought
The global food system is causing large‐scale environmental degradation and is a major contributor to climate change. Its low diversity and failure to produce enough fruits and vegetables is contributing to a global health crisis. The extraordinary diversity of tropical tree species is increasingly recognized to be vital to planetary health and especially important for supporting climate change mitigation. However, they are poorly integrated into…
Understanding Growth and Malnutrition in Baka Pygmy Children
We determined stunting, wasting, and obesity frequencies in a total 1092 2-to-12 year old Baka Pygmy children from anthropometric and health data gathered in 34 villages in the Djoum-Mintom region in southeastern Cameroon in four health campaigns in 2010 and 2017–9. We compare these to the WHO Child Growth Standards, Amazonian Tsiname growth references for inter-population comparisons and the study population itself. Population-specific growth ch…
Divergent Trajectories of BMI over Age for Adult Baka Pygmy People and their Sympatric Non-Pygmy Populations
Differences in socioeconomic conditions and health have been reported for African Pygmies and their sympatric populations of other ethnic groups. We collected anthropometric data in southern Cameroon from Baka and their Bantu neighbours, and also extracted data from the five available and representative Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in sub-Saharan African countries that have Pygmy populations. . Our results show that the Baka exhibited a w…
The extent and distribution of joint conservation-development funding in the tropics
Despite ongoing debates about the viability of sustaining economic growth while maintaining environmental integrity, international sustainability agendas increasingly propose reconciling socio-economic development and global environmental goals. Achieving these goals is impeded by limited funding and a lack of information on where financial flows to integrate environment and development are targeted. We analyze World Bank and Global Environment F…
Meeting the food security challenge for nine billion people in 2050
Majority forecasts for feeding the future global population predict an increase in a croplands at the expense of forests and pastures. • A third of the forecasts shows that it is feasible to halt further agricultural expansion and mitigate climate change. • Policy that provides economic incentives for carbon stock conservation and enhancement is the only effective option to reverse the trend of forest loss
Integrated landscape approaches in the tropics
Continued overexploitation of natural resources and the associated impacts of climate change threaten the sustainability and biodiversity of our global social-ecological systems. ‘Integrated landscape approaches’ are governance strategies that attempt to reconcile multiple and conflicting land-use claims to harmonize the needs of people and the environment and establish more sustainable and equitable multi-functional landscapes. Such approaches h…
Estimating Smallholder Opportunity Costs of Redd
Compensating forest users for the opportunity costs of foregoing deforestation and degradation was one of the original distinguishing features of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). In the early days of REDD+, such costs for tropical smallholders were believed to be quite low, but this has increasingly been questioned. A decade after the concept was proposed, direct payments to forest stakeholders remain rare, while con…
Why Would She? Polygyny and Women's Welfare in Ghana
This study examines whether polygynous marriages are beneficial to women in Ghana. While some scholars claim that women benefit from such marriages in terms of higher consumption or leisure time, others believe that such relationships can be oppressive for women, as compared to monogamous relationships. Using household data from the 2005/6 Ghanaian Living Standards Measurement Survey V and the 2008 Ghanaian Demographic Health Survey, this study f…
Improving diets with wild and cultivated biodiversity from across the landscape
This paper examines the literature on how biodiversity contributes to improved and diversified diets in developing countries. We assess the current state of evidence on how wild and cultivated biodiversity in all forms is related to healthy diets and nutrition, and examine how economic factors, knowledge and social norms interact with availability of biodiversity to influence both production and consumption choices. The paper identifies areas whe…
Dietary quality and tree cover in Africa
The relationship between forests and human nutrition is not yet well understood. A better understanding of this relationship is vital at a time when the majority of new land for agriculture is being cleared from forests. We use Demographic Health Survey data on food consumption for children from 21 African countries and Global Land Cover Facility tree cover data to examine the relationship between tree cover and three key indicators of nutritiona…
Challenging Perceptions about Men, Women, and Forest Product Use
This study uses a multi-case dataset to question current assumptions about the gender differentiation of forest product use. We test some of the commonly held ideas on how men and women access, manage, and use different forest products. Overall, we found significant gender differentiation in the collection of forest products, which seems to support the claim that there are distinctive "male" and "female" roles associated with the collection of fo…
Trends, drivers and impacts of changes in swidden cultivation in tropical forest-agriculture frontiers
Agricultural intensification and changes in cultivated areas, 1970–2005
Does the intensification of agriculture reduce cultivated areas and, in so doing, spare some lands by concentrating production on other lands? Such sparing is important for many reasons, among them the enhanced abilities of released lands to sequester carbon and provide other environmental services. Difficulties measuring the extent of spared land make it impossible to investigate fully the hypothesized causal chain from agricultural intensificat…
Shifting Cultivation and Deforestation in Tropical Africa
Shifting cultivation is the agricultural technique employed by the majority of farmers in the tropical regions of Africa. The dominant narrative recited by policy experts, non-governmental organizations and many scientists is that this practice is a principal cause of deforestation in tropical Africa. This article unpacks the various elements of this narrative and explores whether there is any evidence to substantiate it in West and Central Afric…
In Defence of Neo-Classical Neo-Populism
This paper is a response to the discussion in the special issue of this Journal onRedistributive Land Reform Today(Vol. 4, Nos. 1 and 2). We begin by attempting to clarify the methodological debate, differentiating our approach, which our critics call neo-classical neo-populism, from mainstream neo-classical economics and historical materialism. We then distinguish between land tenure reforms and redistributive land reforms, and argue that it is …
Poverty and the Distribution of Land
Redistributive land reforms have begun to attract the attention of scholars and policy makers once again. In this paper, we review old arguments and bring them up-to-date in the light of recent research. We begin with the case in favour of redistributive reforms focusing on fragmented factor markets and systems of labour control, of which concentration of land ownership is but one aspect. We then examine land reform in practice, focusing on disti…
Trends, drivers and impacts of changes in swidden cultivation in tropical forest-agriculture frontiers
Poverty and the Distribution of Land
Redistributive land reforms have begun to attract the attention of scholars and policy makers once again. In this paper, we review old arguments and bring them up-to-date in the light of recent research. We begin with the case in favour of redistributive reforms focusing on fragmented factor markets and systems of labour control, of which concentration of land ownership is but one aspect. We then examine land reform in practice, focusing on disti…
Challenging Perceptions about Men, Women, and Forest Product Use
This study uses a multi-case dataset to question current assumptions about the gender differentiation of forest product use. We test some of the commonly held ideas on how men and women access, manage, and use different forest products. Overall, we found significant gender differentiation in the collection of forest products, which seems to support the claim that there are distinctive "male" and "female" roles associated with the collection of fo…
Improving diets with wild and cultivated biodiversity from across the landscape
This paper examines the literature on how biodiversity contributes to improved and diversified diets in developing countries. We assess the current state of evidence on how wild and cultivated biodiversity in all forms is related to healthy diets and nutrition, and examine how economic factors, knowledge and social norms interact with availability of biodiversity to influence both production and consumption choices. The paper identifies areas whe…
Dietary quality and tree cover in Africa
The relationship between forests and human nutrition is not yet well understood. A better understanding of this relationship is vital at a time when the majority of new land for agriculture is being cleared from forests. We use Demographic Health Survey data on food consumption for children from 21 African countries and Global Land Cover Facility tree cover data to examine the relationship between tree cover and three key indicators of nutritiona…
In Defence of Neo-Classical Neo-Populism
This paper is a response to the discussion in the special issue of this Journal onRedistributive Land Reform Today(Vol. 4, Nos. 1 and 2). We begin by attempting to clarify the methodological debate, differentiating our approach, which our critics call neo-classical neo-populism, from mainstream neo-classical economics and historical materialism. We then distinguish between land tenure reforms and redistributive land reforms, and argue that it is …
Estimating Smallholder Opportunity Costs of Redd
Compensating forest users for the opportunity costs of foregoing deforestation and degradation was one of the original distinguishing features of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). In the early days of REDD+, such costs for tropical smallholders were believed to be quite low, but this has increasingly been questioned. A decade after the concept was proposed, direct payments to forest stakeholders remain rare, while con…
Shifting Cultivation and Deforestation in Tropical Africa
Shifting cultivation is the agricultural technique employed by the majority of farmers in the tropical regions of Africa. The dominant narrative recited by policy experts, non-governmental organizations and many scientists is that this practice is a principal cause of deforestation in tropical Africa. This article unpacks the various elements of this narrative and explores whether there is any evidence to substantiate it in West and Central Afric…
Meeting the food security challenge for nine billion people in 2050
Majority forecasts for feeding the future global population predict an increase in a croplands at the expense of forests and pastures. • A third of the forecasts shows that it is feasible to halt further agricultural expansion and mitigate climate change. • Policy that provides economic incentives for carbon stock conservation and enhancement is the only effective option to reverse the trend of forest loss
Integrated landscape approaches in the tropics
Continued overexploitation of natural resources and the associated impacts of climate change threaten the sustainability and biodiversity of our global social-ecological systems. ‘Integrated landscape approaches’ are governance strategies that attempt to reconcile multiple and conflicting land-use claims to harmonize the needs of people and the environment and establish more sustainable and equitable multi-functional landscapes. Such approaches h…
Oil palm and gendered time use
Measuring the social impact of oil palm requires the use of multiple metrics which capture different dimensions of well-being. To date, most studies have examined welfare outcomes at the household level, relying on a relatively narrow range of indicators. There is a need for a more diverse range of metrics to measure the social impacts of oil palm as well as more explicit accounting for study context and gendered effects. Here we demonstrate the …
From conflict to collaboration through inclusive landscape governance
We report on a multistakeholder negotiation process to develop a theory of change. • Drivers of landscape change and barriers to reconciling conflicting aims identified. • Stakeholders agree on a shared vision of inclusive landscape governance. • Short- to long-term goals and activities identified for a pathway of change. • State actors influence the pathway of change more than community representatives. The Western Wildlife Corridor (WWC) in Gha…
Poverty and the Distribution of Land
Redistributive land reforms have begun to attract the attention of scholars and policy makers once again. In this paper, we review old arguments and bring them up-to-date in the light of recent research. We begin with the case in favour of redistributive reforms focusing on fragmented factor markets and systems of labour control, of which concentration of land ownership is but one aspect. We then examine land reform in practice, focusing on disti…
In Defence of Neo-Classical Neo-Populism
This paper is a response to the discussion in the special issue of this Journal onRedistributive Land Reform Today(Vol. 4, Nos. 1 and 2). We begin by attempting to clarify the methodological debate, differentiating our approach, which our critics call neo-classical neo-populism, from mainstream neo-classical economics and historical materialism. We then distinguish between land tenure reforms and redistributive land reforms, and argue that it is …
Shifting Cultivation and Deforestation in Tropical Africa
Shifting cultivation is the agricultural technique employed by the majority of farmers in the tropical regions of Africa. The dominant narrative recited by policy experts, non-governmental organizations and many scientists is that this practice is a principal cause of deforestation in tropical Africa. This article unpacks the various elements of this narrative and explores whether there is any evidence to substantiate it in West and Central Afric…
Agricultural intensification and changes in cultivated areas, 1970–2005
Does the intensification of agriculture reduce cultivated areas and, in so doing, spare some lands by concentrating production on other lands? Such sparing is important for many reasons, among them the enhanced abilities of released lands to sequester carbon and provide other environmental services. Difficulties measuring the extent of spared land make it impossible to investigate fully the hypothesized causal chain from agricultural intensificat…
Trends, drivers and impacts of changes in swidden cultivation in tropical forest-agriculture frontiers
Dietary quality and tree cover in Africa
The relationship between forests and human nutrition is not yet well understood. A better understanding of this relationship is vital at a time when the majority of new land for agriculture is being cleared from forests. We use Demographic Health Survey data on food consumption for children from 21 African countries and Global Land Cover Facility tree cover data to examine the relationship between tree cover and three key indicators of nutritiona…
Challenging Perceptions about Men, Women, and Forest Product Use
This study uses a multi-case dataset to question current assumptions about the gender differentiation of forest product use. We test some of the commonly held ideas on how men and women access, manage, and use different forest products. Overall, we found significant gender differentiation in the collection of forest products, which seems to support the claim that there are distinctive "male" and "female" roles associated with the collection of fo…
Why Would She? Polygyny and Women's Welfare in Ghana
This study examines whether polygynous marriages are beneficial to women in Ghana. While some scholars claim that women benefit from such marriages in terms of higher consumption or leisure time, others believe that such relationships can be oppressive for women, as compared to monogamous relationships. Using household data from the 2005/6 Ghanaian Living Standards Measurement Survey V and the 2008 Ghanaian Demographic Health Survey, this study f…
Improving diets with wild and cultivated biodiversity from across the landscape
This paper examines the literature on how biodiversity contributes to improved and diversified diets in developing countries. We assess the current state of evidence on how wild and cultivated biodiversity in all forms is related to healthy diets and nutrition, and examine how economic factors, knowledge and social norms interact with availability of biodiversity to influence both production and consumption choices. The paper identifies areas whe…
Estimating Smallholder Opportunity Costs of Redd
Compensating forest users for the opportunity costs of foregoing deforestation and degradation was one of the original distinguishing features of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). In the early days of REDD+, such costs for tropical smallholders were believed to be quite low, but this has increasingly been questioned. A decade after the concept was proposed, direct payments to forest stakeholders remain rare, while con…
Food for thought
The global food system is causing large‐scale environmental degradation and is a major contributor to climate change. Its low diversity and failure to produce enough fruits and vegetables is contributing to a global health crisis. The extraordinary diversity of tropical tree species is increasingly recognized to be vital to planetary health and especially important for supporting climate change mitigation. However, they are poorly integrated into…
Understanding Growth and Malnutrition in Baka Pygmy Children
We determined stunting, wasting, and obesity frequencies in a total 1092 2-to-12 year old Baka Pygmy children from anthropometric and health data gathered in 34 villages in the Djoum-Mintom region in southeastern Cameroon in four health campaigns in 2010 and 2017–9. We compare these to the WHO Child Growth Standards, Amazonian Tsiname growth references for inter-population comparisons and the study population itself. Population-specific growth ch…
Divergent Trajectories of BMI over Age for Adult Baka Pygmy People and their Sympatric Non-Pygmy Populations
Differences in socioeconomic conditions and health have been reported for African Pygmies and their sympatric populations of other ethnic groups. We collected anthropometric data in southern Cameroon from Baka and their Bantu neighbours, and also extracted data from the five available and representative Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in sub-Saharan African countries that have Pygmy populations. . Our results show that the Baka exhibited a w…
The extent and distribution of joint conservation-development funding in the tropics
Despite ongoing debates about the viability of sustaining economic growth while maintaining environmental integrity, international sustainability agendas increasingly propose reconciling socio-economic development and global environmental goals. Achieving these goals is impeded by limited funding and a lack of information on where financial flows to integrate environment and development are targeted. We analyze World Bank and Global Environment F…
Meeting the food security challenge for nine billion people in 2050
Majority forecasts for feeding the future global population predict an increase in a croplands at the expense of forests and pastures. • A third of the forecasts shows that it is feasible to halt further agricultural expansion and mitigate climate change. • Policy that provides economic incentives for carbon stock conservation and enhancement is the only effective option to reverse the trend of forest loss
Integrated landscape approaches in the tropics
Continued overexploitation of natural resources and the associated impacts of climate change threaten the sustainability and biodiversity of our global social-ecological systems. ‘Integrated landscape approaches’ are governance strategies that attempt to reconcile multiple and conflicting land-use claims to harmonize the needs of people and the environment and establish more sustainable and equitable multi-functional landscapes. Such approaches h…
Wild foods from forests
Forests provide an immense range of benefits to people, many of which are not prioritized by forest policy because they are difficult to quantify. Wild foods from forests enhance the quality of diets for those who consume them and provide income for those who sell or trade them. The quantity of wild food collected is challenging to measure because of non‐standard units, seasonal differences in collection patterns and large numbers of species. To …
What are the links between tree‐based farming and dietary quality for rural households? A review of emerging evidence in low‐ and middle‐income countries
In most low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), conventional agricultural policy promotes specialized production systems of carbohydrate‐rich crops to address hunger and food insecurity. For rural populations, however, increased landscape uniformity can reduce both agrobiodiversity and wild biodiversity, which can contribute to diet uniformity. Although maintaining diversity in and around agricultural systems is far from a new approach, there i…
Oil palm and gendered time use
Measuring the social impact of oil palm requires the use of multiple metrics which capture different dimensions of well-being. To date, most studies have examined welfare outcomes at the household level, relying on a relatively narrow range of indicators. There is a need for a more diverse range of metrics to measure the social impacts of oil palm as well as more explicit accounting for study context and gendered effects. Here we demonstrate the …
The importance of wild meat and freshwater fish for children's nutritional intake in the Congo Basin
Wild meat and freshwater fish are widely consumed in the Congo Basin, but in some areas, they are at risk of disappearing due to unsustainable hunting and fishing and changes in their habitat. Wild meat is also at risk of being eliminated from local diets due to potential policy changes such as wild meat bans. In order to understand the impacts of these potential changes on nutrition and to design appropriate policies, it is critical to understan…
From conflict to collaboration through inclusive landscape governance
We report on a multistakeholder negotiation process to develop a theory of change. • Drivers of landscape change and barriers to reconciling conflicting aims identified. • Stakeholders agree on a shared vision of inclusive landscape governance. • Short- to long-term goals and activities identified for a pathway of change. • State actors influence the pathway of change more than community representatives. The Western Wildlife Corridor (WWC) in Gha…
Food consumption and nutritional status of sedentarized Baka Pygmies in Southern Cameroon
The sedentarization of Pygmies in the Congo Basin has triggered a profound transformation in their traditional lifestyles, particularly affecting dietary habits and food consumption. We employed 24-hour dietary recalls in 10 sedentarized Baka Pygmy villages in southeastern Cameroon, gathering data on diet composition, diversity (Household Dietary Diversity Score, HDDS), and nutrient intake per adult male equivalent (AME) from 67 homes (28% of all…
Bird community patterns and indicator species for monitoring fragmented Miombo and Mopane woodlands in southern Zambia
Biodiversity loss in subtropical dry forests and woodlands is accelerating, particularly where agricultural expansion has transformed woodland mosaics in human-modified landscapes outside protected areas. In Southern Zambia, the dry woodland biome is dominated by Miombo and locally by Mopane formations, which differ markedly in floristic composition, structure, soils, and disturbance regimes. We assessed bird assemblages across three woodland typ…
Integrated Landscape Approaches
Landscape approaches mobilize stakeholders across sectors and scales to negotiate development–conservation trade-offs and land-use allocation. Building on the concept of earth system justice, we examine how efforts to operationalize such approaches in Ghana, Zambia and Indonesia advance landscape justice. We observed contributions to procedural, recognitional and intergenerational justice, while interspecies justice remains overlooked. Yet, power…
Geography (19 obras) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (14 obras) · Biology (11 obras) · Economics (11 obras) · Agriculture (10 obras) · Ecology (9 obras) · Environmental Science (8 obras) · Agroforestry (7 obras) · Political science (7 obras) · Population (7 obras)