Forests potentially contribute to global climate change through their influence on the global carbon (C) cycle. They store large quantities of C in vegetation and soil, exchange C with the atmosphere through photosynthesis and respiration, are sources of atmospheric C when they are disturbed, become atmospheric C sinks during abandonment and regrowth after disturbance, and can be managed to alter their role in the C cycle. The world's forest contain about 830 Pg C (1015 g) in their vegetation and soil, with about 1.5 times as much in soil as in vegetation.

The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill of 2013 (MPRD-AB) has generated fresh debate regarding the appropriate system for allocating mineral prospecting and mining rights in South Africa. The draft bill no longer specifies that mining rights are to be allocated according to the first-in, first-assessed (FIFA) principle.

What factors motivate developing countries to prevent deforestation, which can cause serious environmental damage, such as flooding? Do democratic states take action more effectively than authoritarian states?

This paper, which focuses on the Chinyanja Triangle (CT), an area inside the Zambezi River Basin, characterises three distinct farming subsystems across rainfall gradients, namely maize-beans-fish, sorghum-millet-livestock and the livestock-dominated subsystem. It presents the socioeconomic characteristics, historical drivers of change, resources use and management (water, land, forestry) and the institutional disincentives affecting agricultural production and productivity in the region.

This review explores environmental change in northern and south-central Kenya, roughly covering three decades from the 1960s to the 1990s. The report answers three questions:has vegetation change occurred in these districts?if vegetation change has occurred, why and how has this happened?what are the trends for livestock populations?The article concludes that:rangeland sites have been fundamentally altered by woody encroachment over the past 40 years.

Across vast areas of the world, human activity has degraded once fertile and productive land. Deforestation, overgrazing, continuous farming and poor irrigation practices have affected almost 2 billion hectares worldwide, threatening the health and livelihoods of over one billion people. In this edition of New Agriculturist, a collection of articles explores some of the approaches and policies that can help to successfully rehabilitate degraded land.

Extractive Industries (EI) explore, find, extract, process and market sub-soil assets – oil, gas and mined minerals. EI represent a large and growing activity in many less-developed countries. But natural resource wealth does not always lead to sustainable and inclusive growth. This guide sets out the recent rise in importance of EI to less-developed countries. It provides a framework for thinking about (i) the socio-economic impacts of these industries and (ii) the relationship between EI, host country public policies and donor activities.

The guide:

Notwithstanding China highlighted ecological compensation systems and policies, it hasn't issued a specialised and guiding ecological compensation law since commencement of pilot work of watershed eco-compensation policies in 2007.

This is a feature report on legislation for watershed eco-compensation and designed for analysing problems existing in the practice of watershed eco- ompensation, aiming to provide suggestions for the legislation for watershed eco-compensation under Regulations on Ecological Compensation.

Contents of this paper:

The key messages of this presentation are:

Increasing competition for water severely limits irrigation and constrains food production

Slow progress in extending access to safe drinking water; water quality will decline; amount of water for environmental uses will be inadequate

Moderate worsening in current water policies and investments could lead to full-blown water crisis

Fundamental changes in water management and policy can produce a sustainable future for water and food

This report assesses the role of the World Bank in the funding and management of the Chad-Cameroon oil and pipeline project. The report argues that the project has fueled violence, impoverished people in the oil fields and along the pipeline route, exacerbated the pressures on indigenous peoples and created new environmental problems. The report highlights how the World Bank’s Implementation Completion Report (ICR) is inconsistent with other independent reports on the project.

Burma is resource rich, and principal among these resources is timber. This report, based on research and fieldwork carried out by Global Witness in Burma, Thailand and China, examines the roots of the civil war and how conflict and an authoritarian regime (the State Peace and Development Council - SPDC) have been sustained through the exploitation of Burma’s natural resources.The paper argues that Burma is the epitome of unrealised potential - a poor country rich in natural resources and social capital.