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.

Report draws attention to the structure of landholding as a set of mechanisms through which demographic changes in agrarian societies can alter the natural environment: demographically-induced change in the structure of landholding: farm holdings generally become smaller as an ever-increasing number of households enter the agricultural work force and seek to derive their livelihood from this fixed resource base holdings tend to become more fragmented, not simply in the number of parcels operated but in the distances between parcels, as farmers look harder and farther for whatever bits and p

The economic advantages of improved agro forestry fallow systems over traditional continuous cropping systems are important tools that can be used to influence the choice of land use options at household levels. In Kigezi highlands Uganda, the upper parts of farmers’ crop field terraces are degraded due to continuous cropping. Improved fallows are being promoted in order to increase soil productivity while increasing fuelwood production.

Social forestry emerged amidst important changes in thinking about the role of forestry in rural development and a growing need for fuelwood. In an attempt to alleviate the fuelwood crisis, the World Bank encouraged the planting of Eucalyptus species in its social forestry programs in the 1980s. Eucalypts were the chosen tree species for the majority of social forestry projects because they survive on difficult sites and out-perform indigenous species and most other exotics in height and girth increment, producing wood for poles, pulp and fuel more rapidly.

This paper is a regional synthesis highlighting the linkages between land usage, land degradation and biodiversity across East Africa identified from research done over a 30 year period.

Desertification has had an acute impact in Africa, particularly in the Community of the Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), which is characterised by climate ranging from hyper-arid to dry sub-humid. The local communities and their livelihoods are heavily dependent on the increasingly fragile natural resources. This note, conducted by the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) on the request from CEN-SAD, summarises the results obtained from available documentation and consultations from experts and practitioners for the preparation and implementation of the Great Green Wall in the region.

In the face of trends towards a widening “food gap” and general poverty, this paper attempts to address the problem by discussing the methodologies necessary for sustainable land management to ensure improved food security, rapid economic development and poverty reduction in developing countries of Africa. The authors explain that the population of the world has been increasing at an exponential rate over the past few decades. Present projections suggest that it will be 11 billion by the year 2100.

Utilises a number of situations observed in tropical Asia to motivate a simple trade-theoretical analysis of the implications of technological progress in agriculture.

Argues for certain basic re-thinking in the policy options for viable watershed management by combining local knowledge with the formal science through rejuvenated or revitalized traditional institutions. Part one reviews the policy environment in the light of some of the recent reports in India which have a major bearing on watershed development programs.

This study provides a concise overview of the information available on the land rights of indigenous peoples, with a focus on those in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. Successive chapters summarise the rights of indigenous peoples in international law and then examine how these rights are being recognised, or not, in Latin America, Africa and the Asia-Pacific.