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\"In Big Money in Franchising, franchise thought leader, board advisor, franchise investor, and private equity consultant Alicia Miller shows how private equity is profoundly transforming the business of franchising, and how franchisors and franchisees can benefit from private equity's investment and guidance. Charting the evolution of private investment's role in franchising, from its nascent origins to the operational intricacies of today's high-growth franchises, Miller offers a deep-dive into the mechanics that drive this complex, fascinating sector. Packed with current case studies and thoughtful exploration of financial strategies, Big Money in Franchising reveals how to build brands and unlock value by learning private equity's growth playbook; shows both franchisors and franchisees how they can attract and work successfully with private equity investors; and shares valuable inside information about private equity's investing process, selection criteria, due diligence process, trading dynamics, and mindset. To aid the decision and planning process, Miller provides a detailed description of the broad landscape of different types of private capital players. The book also tracks the top challenges private capital has experienced in franchise investing, providing a roadmap to vet potential capital partners and how to avoid problems and flawed strategies. Highlighting best practices in both franchising and private equity, and featuring examples from the worlds of franchising and private equity as well as interviews with franchise business owners, brand founders, and private equity executives, Big Money in Franchising shows how working with private capital can challenge the thinking of founders and franchisees alike, empowering them to take their businesses to the next level of performance.\"-- Provided by publisher.

A multifunctional landscape approach to forest protection has been advocated for tropical countries. Designing such landscapes necessitates that the role of different land uses in protecting forest be evaluated, along with the spatial interactions between land uses. However, such evaluations have been hindered by a lack of suitable analysis methodologies and data with fine spatial resolution over long time periods. We demonstrate the utility of a matching method with multiple categories to evaluate the role of alternative land uses in protecting forest. We also assessed the impact of land use change trajectories on the rate of deforestation. We employed data from Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) at three different time periods during 2000-2012 to illustrate our approach. Four single land uses (protected areas (PA), natural forest logging concessions (LC), timber plantation concessions (TC) and oil-palm plantation concessions (OC)) and two mixed land uses (mixed concessions and the overlap between concessions and PA) were assessed. The rate of deforestation was found to be lowest for PA, followed by LC. Deforestation rates for all land uses tended to be highest for locations that share the characteristics of areas in which TC or OC are located (e.g. degraded areas), suggesting that these areas are inherently more susceptible to deforestation due to foregone opportunities. Our approach provides important insights into how multifunctional landscapes can be designed to enhance the protection of biodiversity.

Negotiation is a joint decision making process involving making concessions by the parties. Concession-making may involve giving up negotiator's utility and is an essential activity in the negotiation process. In the past it has been suggested by some authors that negotiators utility functions over the issues may not be linear. In this case, a phenomenon called \"concession crossover\" takes place, in which a negotiator may switch issues on which they choose to make concessions at some point in negotiations. This work sets to investigate the validity of such claims. To this end we introduce several concession-making models and use them for testing hypotheses. We have used a dataset from online negotiation experiments featuring a contract-signing case. The results support the claim that concession crossover does indeed occur.

\"The construction in the 1940s of hydroelectric dams and reservoirs, Lakes Manouan and Passe Dangereuse, were enormous projects that had consequences not only on the environment but also on international affairs. Built by the Aluminium Company of Canada (Rio Tinto Alcan), the project helped meet the American and Allied Forces demand for electrical power and aluminium ingot during the Second World War but also forced Innu/Montagnais hunter-trappers from their ancestral lands.

The Government of Liberia is in the process of developing a new Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) that is intended to determine its path toward middle-income status. One central aspect of the strategy is likely to be a stronger focus on inclusive growth. This will mean that higher priority will be placed on growing the local private sector, and broadening the base of the economy. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure and services can be a key instrument for achieving these goals especially in an economy like Liberia. The analysis contained in this study identifies the steps toward establishing PPPs as both a policy instrument and method for deepening private sector investment in Liberia. Liberia's rich natural resource endowments have played a fundamental role in the way in which the economy has developed, and in the way in which Government manages private investment in extractive industries. The Government itself has a long history of entering into concession contracts with private investors and operators. Firestone rubber first signed a concession agreement in 1926, and re-signed their concession to last until 2041. More recently, the Government of Liberia has entered into several large natural resource and mining concession contracts that will see large sums of private sector capital invested onshore. This study is one element of a multi-faceted effort to support local private sector and financial sector development in Liberia. It takes into close account the Government's focus on job-creation, the post-conflict dynamics in the country, and Liberia's reliance on extractive industries as a primary source of revenue. The analysis also builds on previous economic sector work that has looked closely at how to stimulate private sector growth and investment, how to support small and medium-size enterprise (SME), and how to leverage existing private sector investment to generate deeper local markets and create new jobs.

Tropical forests are vital for global biodiversity, carbon storage and local livelihoods, yet they are increasingly under threat from human activities. Large-scale land acquisitions have emerged as an important mechanism linking global resource demands to forests in the Global South, yet their influence on tropical deforestation remains unclear. Here we perform a multicountry assessment of the links between large-scale land acquisitions and tropical forest loss by combining a new georeferenced database of 82,403 individual land deals—covering 15 countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia—with data on annual forest cover and loss between 2000 and 2018. We find that land acquisitions cover between 6% and 59% of study-country land area and between 2% and 79% of their forests. Compared with non-investment areas, large-scale land acquisitions were granted in areas of higher forest cover in 11 countries and had higher forest loss in 52% of cases. Oil palm, wood fibre and tree plantations were consistently linked with enhanced forest loss while logging and mining concessions showed a mix of outcomes. Our findings demonstrate that large-scale land acquisitions can lead to elevated deforestation of tropical forests, highlighting the role of local policies in the sustainable management of these ecosystems.Tropical deforestation rates are linked to large-scale land investments, according to georeferenced land deal records and remote sensing of forest loss over the past two decades.

This paper reviews the development of oil palm with linkages to biofuel in Indonesia and analyzes the associated environmental and socioeconomic impacts. We selected three plantation study sites in West Papua (Manokwari), West Kalimantan (Kubu Raya), and Papua (Boven Digoel) to assess the impacts. Research findings indicate that the development of oil palm in all three sites has caused deforestation, resulting in significant secondary external impacts such as water pollution, soil erosion, and air pollution. In terms of social impacts, many stakeholder groups, i.e., employees, out-growers, and investing households, report significant gains. However, we found these benefits were not evenly distributed. Other stakeholders, particularly traditional landowners, experienced restrictions on traditional land use rights and land losses. We observed increasing land scarcity, rising land prices, and conflicts over land in all sites. Three major trade-offs are associated with the development of oil palm plantations, including those related to biofuels: unevenly distributed economic benefits are generated at the cost of significant environmental losses; there are some winners but also many losers; and economic gains accrue at the expense of weak rule of law. To reduce the negative impacts and trade-offs of oil palm plantations and maximize their economic potential, government decision makers need to restrict the use of forested land for plantation development, enforce existing regulations on concession allocation and environmental management, improve monitoring of labor practices, recognize traditional land use rights, and make land transfer agreements involving customary land more transparent and legally binding.

Forest degradation in the tropics is often associated with roads built for selective logging. The protection of intact forest landscapes (IFL) that are not accessible by roads is high on the biodiversity conservation agenda and a challenge for logging concessions certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). A frequently advocated conservation objective is to maximize the retention of roadless space, a concept that is based on distance to the nearest road from any point. We developed a novel use of the empty-space function - a general statistical tool based on stochastic geometry and random sets theory - to calculate roadless space in apart of the Congo Basin where road networks have been expanding rapidly. We compared the temporal development of roadless space in certified and uncertified logging concessions inside and outside areas declared IFL in 2000. Inside IFLs, road-network expansion led to a decrease in roadless space by more than half from 1999 to 2007. Afler 2007, loss leveled out in most areas to close to 0 due to an equilibrium between newly built roads and abandoned roads that became revegetated. However, concessions in IFL certified by FSC since around 2007 continuously lost roadless space and reached a level comparable to all other concessions. Only national parks remained mostly roadless. We recommend that forest-management policies make the preservation of large connected forest areas a top priority by effectively monitoring - and limiting - the occupation of space by roads that are permanently accessible. La degradación de bosques en los trópicos comúnmente se asocia con las carreteras construidas para la tala selectiva. La protección de los paisajes de bosques intactos (PBI) que no son accesibles por carretera es una prioridad en la agenda de conservación de la biodiversidad y un reto para las concesiones de tala certificadas por el Consejo de Administración Forestal (FSC). Un objetivo de conservación por el que se aboga frecuentemente es la maximización de la retención de los espacios sin carreteras, un concepto que está basado en la distancia a la carretera más cercana desde cualquier punto. Desarrollamos un uso novedoso de la función de espacio vacío - una herramienta estadística general basada en la geometría estocástica y la teoría de conjuntos aleatorios - para calcular el espacio sin carreteras en una parte de la Cuenca del Congo en donde las redes de caminos han estado expandiéndose rápidamente. Comparamos el desarrollo temporal del espacio sin carreteras en las concesiones de tala certificadas y no certificadas dentro y fuera de las áreas declaradas PBI en el 2000. Dentro de los PBI, la expansión de las redes de caminos resultó en una disminución del espacio sin carreteras de más de la mitad desde 1999 hasta 2007. Después de 2007, la pérdida se niveló en la mayoría de las áreas cercanas al cero debido a un equilibrio entre las carreteras recién construidas y las carreteras abandonadas que se repoblaron con especies de plantas. Sin embargo, las concesiones certificadas por el FSC que se encontraban dentro de los PBI desde alrededor de 2007 perdieron continuamente espacio sin carreteras y alcanzaron un nivel comparable a todas las otras concesiones. Sólo los parques nacionales permanecieron sin carreteras en su mayoría. Recomendamos que las políticas de manejo de bosques hagan que la preservación de áreas grandes y conectadas de bosque sea una prioridad principal al monitorear efectivamente - y limitar - la ocupación del espacio por carreteras que son accesibles permanentemente.

Indonesia contributes significantly to deforestation in Southeast Asia. However, much uncertainty remains over the relative contributions of various forest‐exploiting sectors to forest losses in the country. Here, we compare the magnitudes of forest and carbon loss, and forest and carbon stocks remaining within oil palm plantation, logging, fiber plantation (pulp and paper), and coal mining concessions in Indonesia. Forest loss in all industrial concessions, including logging concessions, relate to the conversion of forest to nonforest land cover. We found that the four industries accounted for ∼44.7% (∼6.6 Mha) of forest loss in Kalimantan, Sumatra, Papua, Sulawesi, and Moluccas between 2000 and 2010. Fiber plantation and logging concessions accounted for the largest forest loss (∼1.9 Mha and ∼1.8 Mha, respectively). Although the oil palm industry is often highlighted as a major driver of deforestation, it was ranked third in terms of deforestation (∼1 Mha), and second in terms of carbon dioxide emissions (∼1,300–2,350 Mt CO2). Crucially, ∼34.6% (∼26.8 Mha) of Indonesia's remaining forests is located within industrial concessions, the majority of which is found within logging concessions (∼18.8 Mha). Hence, future development plans within Indonesia's industrial sectors weigh heavily on the fate of Southeast Asia's remaining forests and carbon stocks.