Soil erosion has conventionally been perceived as the chief cause of land degradation, yet the limited effectiveness and poor uptake of widely promoted physical and biological anti-erosion methods challenges this logic. An alternative perception focusing on prior land damage - notably to soil cover, architecture and fertility - permits an holistic, farmer-centred approach which has generated positive response to date.

This African atlas is the first publication to use satellite photos to depict environmental change in each and every African country during the last thirty years. Through an array of satellite images, graphs, maps, and photographs, this Atlas presents a powerful testament to the adverse changes taking place on the African landscape as a result of intensified  natural and human impacts. The atlas is composed of three parts:

Population pressures play less of a role in deforestation than earlier studies of Thailand found. Between 1976 and 1989, Thailand lost 28 percent ofits forest cover. To analyze how road building, population pressure,and geophysical factors affected deforestation in Thailand during that period, Cropper, Griffiths, and Mani develop a model in whichthe amount of land cleared, the number of agricultural households,and the size of the road network are jointly determined.The model assumes that the amount of land cleared reflects an equilibrium in the land market.

report considers the potential, constraints, successes and weaknesses of EIS (environment and land information systems, geographical information systems (GIS)), based on practical approaches in Zimbabwe were assessed and lessons-learnt were developed.The process of developing a national EIS in Zimbabwe is also in the evolutionary phase. The country does not yet have a comprehensive nationally co-ordinated EIS. At the time of this study, several information systems co-exist which can be considered EIS sub-systems.

This paper considers the evidence surrounding the popular view that common property management regimes (CPMRs) of forest management in Latin America must inevitably break down in the face of economic and demographic pressures. The evidence shows that there have been both positive and negative experiences, with a number of policy implications. The over-riding need is to correct for institutional and policy failures which have catalysed the erosion of CPMRs.

Grey literature collection includes documents from India over the last twenty years, the collection traces the process of social forestry, which aimed to satisfy local needs through fuelwood plantations and to divert pressure from natural forest through the participation of private framers and communities.The papers included are as follows:Village-level management of common property resources, especially fuelwood and fodder resources in Karnataka, IndiaBrokensha, D. 1988Women and wasteland development - policy issues.

In this paper, the results of a recent case study of forest conservation and management in Sariska Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan, India are reported. Changes in land use, grazing, household fuelwood collection and inadequate management institutions are identified as key factors causing forest degradation. The paper demonstrates that quantitative analysis, employing data from fairly large samples of households and villages, is a useful supplement to the qualitative methods dominating in studies of conservation and natural resource management institutions.

This paper assesses the underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation and the forces behind unsustainable agriculture. It demonstrates the far-reaching consequences of globalisation, in terms of land tenure policies and inequalities. It examines consumption and production patterns and the global problem with many actors.

Paper examines domestic energy supply and demand in Northwest India. A household model is set up to analyse the links between forest scarcity and household energy consumption, focusing on the substitution of fuels from the forests and commons and the private domain. The model is estimated using recently collected data from villages bordering Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, India. A novel maximum entropy approach is used for estimation.

Will intensifying the road network around market areas produce greater economic returns and less environmental damage than extending the road network into new areas?Rural roads promote economic development but also facilitate deforestation. To explore the trade-offs between development and environmental damage posed by road building, Chomitz and Gray develop and estimate a spatially explicit model of land use.

This is a compilation of twenty seven articles focusing on the interactions, impacts and effects of the changing climate on the Amazon region. Each article examines a specific area, providing a multidisciplinary analysis of climate change impacts. Areas discussed include:

This toolkit provides a practical guide on designing climate change mitigation activities. The toolkit aims to enhance synergies between climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation policies.The first part of the toolkit gives an overview of possible climate change mitigation activities, especially in the land use, land use change and forestry sector.