Tom Clements
Wildlife Conservation Society
c/o Conservation Programmes
Zoological Society of London
Regent's Park
London, NW1 4RY
My interests focus on how incentives for environmental conservation operate and affect human behaviour across multiple scales and different institutional arrangements. Over the past 10 years I have worked on the design, implementation and evaluation of conservation and development projects throughout Southeast Asia, including community conservation, Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) type mechanisms, land reform and protected area management, mainly for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). My experience has taught me that there are no panaceas in conservation and development, and that achieving locally-appropriate solutions requires an in-depth understanding of how incentives, motivations and politics operate across multiple scales. I am particularly interested in understanding the impacts of conservation and development projects, and how project design affects the behaviour of local people, government institutions, and organisations.
I work as an advisor for the WCS’s Global Conservation Program, focusing on forest and conservation policy in Southeast Asia. In particular, I have worked in Cambodia for the past nine years and advise the Government institutions on the design of the National REDD+ Programme. REDD stands for ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation’ and the ‘+’ incorporates conservation of existing forest carbon stocks, sustainable forest management and activities to enhance forest carbon stocks through, for example, reforestation. Payments and positive incentives to governments and communities to achieve REDD+ are likely to be an important element of future agreements to mitigate global climate change, and may significantly alter incentives for tropical forest conservation. I also advise on the design and implementation of community conservation initiatives.
PhD research: Influence of Institutional Arrangements on the outcomes of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs
Although the global benefits of conservation and environmental services are well recognised, this can translate into much reduced benefits at the local scale, for developing countries and their peoples. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) has been proposed as a new model for environmental conservation that could correct for externalities in conventional economic markets in a manner that provides a sufficient incentive to Governments, private sector or local actors to deliver an environmental conservation outcome. My PhD research aims to investigate different institutional arrangements for Payments for Ecosystem Services in order to evaluate how institutions and incentives influence human behaviour and affect conservation and development outcomes. The research is based on three different PES mechanisms that I established during the period 2002-2008 whilst working for WCS in Cambodia, and include direct payments to local people to protect biodiversity, community-managed ecotourism, and wildlife-friendly farming contracts with communities and local farmers. During the research, I am evaluating the impacts of the programs on conservation, livelihood and governance indicators, and analysing how the changing incentives influence local attitudes and behaviour.
The research is funded by a Miriam Rothschild PhD Scholarship from the University of Cambridge, and WCS through TransLinks, a 5-year Leader with Associates cooperative agreement funded by USAID (www.translinks.org). I am also a visiting researcher at Imperial College London.
Brief CV
2008-(ongoing) Advisor to the Forestry Administration and National REDD+ Taskforce of the Royal Government of Cambodia on REDD+ and forest policy, including:
- Attending UNFCCC negotiations on REDD+.
- Facilitating the development of the Cambodia REDD+ readiness plan, including public consultation and validation by all in-country stakeholders. The plan has since been rated highly by independent reviews.
- Facilitating the preparation of the Cambodia UN-REDD National Programme ($4.4 million) and the Cambodia Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP) for the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) ($3.6 million).
- Advising and coordinating with development partners: Danida, EC, FAO, JICA, UNDP, USAID, World Bank.
2008-(ongoing) - Research and Policy Advisor, Wildlife Conservation Society – Global Conservation Program. Responsible for development of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) programs, including ecotourism, certified products and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in Southeast Asia. Project developer for forest carbon projects in Cambodia. Design of new programmes on REDD and PES in Lao PDR and Papua New Guinea.
2002-2008 - Technical Advisor, Wildlife Conservation Society – Cambodia Program. Designed and managed a 7-year $4.6 million UNDP-GEF project aiming to establish effective models of conservation across the Northern Plains landscape of Cambodia. Development of pilot models for community conservation, Payments for Environmental Services (PES), eco-tourism and establishment of two protected areas. Manager of conservation and development project grants for DFID (fisheries), DFID/Danida/NZAID (natural resource management), World Bank. Established species conservation programmes for large waterbirds, vultures, tigers and elephants. Development of biological monitoring programmes for three large landscapes in Cambodia, covering four protected areas. Member of WCS’s International Conservation Program Strategic Planning Team.
2000-2001 - Researcher at Oxford Forestry Institute, Department of Plant Sciences, Oxford University. Forestry Research in the Brazilian Amazon, The Philippines and the UK.
1997-2000 - BA (Hons) Biological Sciences, Oxford University. 1st Class. Undergraduate research project on mahogany in the Brazilian Amazon.
Publications
- Clements, T., Garrett, L., John, A., Kongkim, S., Pech, B., Rours, V., Tan, S., Thong, S. and Rainey, H. 2010. Payments for bird nest protection in the Northern Plains of Cambodia. Submitted to Oryx.
- Clements, T., Eames, J., Gilbert, M., Pech, B., Rainey, H., Seng, T., Song, C. and Tan, S. 2010. Vultures in Cambodia: population, threats and conservation. Submitted to Bird Conservation International.
- Travers, H., Clements, T., Keane, A. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. 2010. Incentives for Cooperation: the effects of institutional controls on common pool resource extraction in Cambodia. Submitted to Ecological Economics.
- Clements, T. 2010. Reduced Expectations: the political and institutional challenges of REDD+. Oryx 44: 309-310. (Invited editorial). PDF
- Clements, T., John, A., Nielsen, K., An, D., Tan, S. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. 2010. Direct payments for biodiversity conservation: comparison of three schemes from Cambodia. Ecological Economics 69: 1283-1291. PDF
- Nicholson, E. et al. 2009. Priority research areas for ecosystem services in a changing world. Journal of Applied Ecology 46: 1139–1144.
- Rawson, B.M., Clements, T.J. and Hor, N.M. 2008. Status and Conservation of Yellow-cheeked Crested Gibbons (Nomascus gabriellae) in Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area, Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. In: The Gibbons: new perspectives on small ape socioecology and population biology, Eds Susan Lappan, Danielle Whittaker and Thomas Geissmann.
- McShea, W.J., Koy, K., Clements, T., Johnson, A., Vongkhamheng, C. and Aung, M. 2005. Finding a needle in the haystack: Regional analysis of suitable Eld’s deer (Cervus eldi) habitat in Southeast Asia. Biological Conservation 125: 101-111.
- Bailey, N., Clements, T., Lee, J.T. and Thompson, S. 2003. Modelling soil series data to facilitate targeted habitat restoration: a polytomous logistic regression approach. Journal of Environmental Management 67, 395-407.
- Brown, N.D., Jennings, S.B. and Clements, T. 2003. The ecology, silviculture and biogeography of mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla): a critical review of the evidence. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 6, 37-49.
Symposia / Conference Presentations, Lectures and Training Courses
- Design of Payments for Ecosystem Services: Examples from Cambodia”. USAID Seminar, Washington DC, USA. November 2010.
- Realities of REDD+ and PES”. Lecture to Imperial College MSc Masters course in Conservation Science, London, UK. November 2009 and November 2010.
- REDD+ and FLEGT”. Presentation given to the EU FLEGT Seminar, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. October 2010.
- Cambodia UN REDD National Programme”. Presentation given to the public consultation meetings on the Cambodia National Readiness Plan Proposal on REDD+. Phnom Penh, Cambodia. July, August and September 2010.
- PES experience in SE Asia: Stacking and Bundling”. Presentation at the Katoomba Southeast Asia conference, Hanoi, Vietnam. June 2010.
- Seima REDD+ Demonstration Project”. Presentation at the first Lao National Conference on PES, Vientiane, Lao PDR. February 2010.
- REDD+: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”. Designed and led a 3-day training course for 20 participants from WCS country programs in Asia. October 2009, Bangkok, Thailand.
- Reconciling Poverty, Conservation and Governance”. German Government (BMU/GTZ/KfW) seminar: Balancing the needs of conservation, poverty reduction, equity and governance. Vilm, Germany, July 2009.
- Overview of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation)”. German Government (BMU/GTZ/KfW) seminar: Balancing the needs of conservation, poverty reduction, equity and governance. Vilm, Germany, July 2009.
- Direct payments for biodiversity conservation: comparison of three schemes from Cambodia”. Society for Conservation Biology annual meeting, Beijing, China, July 2009.
- PES tools and challenges: Examples from Cambodia”. Conference presentation at the first Regional SE Asia workshop on PES, Bangkok, Thailand.
- Social Impact Assessment in Biodiversity Conservation Projects”. June 2009. In: Biodiversity monitoring and conservation: bridging the gaps between global commitment and local action. Zoological Society of London & Wildlife Conservation Society Symposum, London, UK. Conference Organisers: Collen, B., Pettorelli, N., Durant, S., Krueger, L., Hatchwell, M. and Baillie, J.
- Long-term monitoring of Black-shanked Douc Langur (Pygathrix nigripes) and Yellow-cheeked Crested Gibbon (Nomascus gabriellae), in the Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area, Cambodia. International Primatological Society, 2008 Congress.
