In a new guide published today and aimed at decision-makers, key policy advisors, NGOs and governmental institutions, FAO shows how agroforestry can be integrated into national strategies and how policies can be adjusted to specific conditions. The policy guide provides examples of best practices and success stories, as well as suggesting ten major tracks for policy action, including:

Article looks at a specific case of racial oppression manifesting itself within development programs. At a more general level, the article looks at how ecological project can become politicised.An example of this is South-East Asia, where valley-based states have regularly attempted to sedentarize or repress hill-dwelling ethnic minorities. Racist patterns and processes in the region have been sustained and strengthened through the activities of international environmentalists and developmentalists.

This paper reviews the impact of the Landcare Program on, farming households, communities, and the local environments in three sites in Mindanao, Philippines: Claveria in Misamis Oriental; Lantapan in Bukidnon; and Ned, Lake Sebu in South Cotabato. This paper reviews and synthesizes various studies conducted throughout the period from 1996 to 2004, during which the Landcare Program was established and matured. The key intervention studied is the landcare approach which consists basically of two components: conservation farming technologies and landcare processes and institutions.

This paper analyses the livelihoods of the Borana pastoral communities of Southern Oromiya in Ethiopia. It aims to inform policy makers, donors, and development practitioners about the best strategies for protecting and promoting sustainable livelihoods in the region. The study is based on survey data from participatory research carried out in three communities, as well as stakeholder consultations at district and regional levels.

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.

A recent eighteen-month economic study of the benefits of alternative uses of forest and in Ratanakiri province recommends the exclusion of customary forest land from current and future commercial concessions. The study compares the economic benefits of using forest land in Ratanakiri for the traditional collection of non-timber forest products by ethnic communities, with the benefits of commercial timber harvesting. The main conclusions of the study are that non-timber forest products (NTFP) are worth a lot, much more than previously thought.

This document discusses the outcome of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 17th Conference of Parties, with an explicit focus on implications for the forestry sector in the Asia-Pacific region. The report’s content is the product of a specialist workshop held in the Philippines during February 2012; the event was organized by the Centre for People and Forests (RECOFTC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and CoDe REDD. The report consists of responses to 13 key questions which were discussed during the specialist workshop.

How can integrative analysis (IA) of city systems improve understanding of the links between environmental and social problems? Can this analysis inform future decision- making? Collaborative research by the Australian National University and Mahidol University, Thailand, uses IA to analyse environmental problems, land use, and behaviour patterns in Bangkok. Do the roots of the city’s environmental problems lie in the nature of decision-making by stakeholders at every level, as the article suggests?

This report, published by the World Bank/REDD-net, examines the nature of Indonesia’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) regulatory framework. The manner in which benefits from REDD+ should be distributed amongst actors from local to national level is a contested subject; the report describes the Indonesian Government’s draft rules for REDD+ investment, an alternative or complementary approach based upon the creation of a nationally managed revenue sharing system and the relationship between national and provincial rules.

This report focuses on the promotion of economic growth and improving ecosystem protection within Brazil’s rural landscape.

Wildlife consumption is an integral part of the livelihood and trade patterns of many peoples in the developing world, and highly valued by them. Yet to date the dominant models of wildlife management in areas of high – and allegedly unsustainable – consumptive use have favoured the exclusion of the users from the resource and the denial of its local values. This gives little incentive to rural dwellers to manage wildlife sustainably.

This report evaluates the progress achieved in forest management by indigenous people and local communities, which was set as a key objective at the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.