This study looks at wood curio carving in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Africa. Although the local people, Ndebele and Shona, have always carved, they now face a weakened economy, due in large part to land reforms in 2000. Thus, more people sculpt wood as a form of livelihood. As one man said “Starvation taught me art”. As a result, gender roles are shifting as men and women begin to enter realms previously reserved for the other. Environmentally, carvers poaching trees deforests the woodlands. As more individuals turn to making crafts sustainability deteriorates.

This paper aims to contribute to the debates on communal rangelands and analyses the gendered dimension of land rights and land access in the rural areas of Namaqualand. The actual gender relations within rural communities and the emergence of strategies that are being pursued in communal land processes are obscured and often ignored in policies about communal rangelands, which overemphasise ‘the ecological and economic impact’ and the balancing of these dimensions.

The implementation and effective management of watershed-development projects is recognised as a strategy for rural development throughout the developing world. Several government and non-government agencies have launched watershed-development projects to tackle the challenges of soil conservation, improving land productivity, and economic upliftment of the rural poor for efficient use of natural resources. Participatory community-driven institutions of integrated watershed management are considered vital for the sustainability of natural resources.

This paper provides empirical evidence on the gendered impact of the 2007–2008 food price crisis using panel data on 1400 households from rural Ethiopia that were initially surveyed before the onset of the crisis, in 1994–1995, 1997, and 2004, and after food prices spiked, in 2009. It investigates whether female-headed households are more likely to report experiencing a food price shock, and whether female-headed households experiencing a shock are more (or less) likely to adopt certain coping strategies, controlling for individual, household, and community characteristics.

India has a maximum area (21.6%) under cashew nut and is the third largest producer (17.3%) of raw nuts in the world. The country is the second largest exporter, accounting for 34% of the world’s export of cashew kernels having a comparative advantage in production and processing on account of its cheap and skilled labour force. The yields in India are poor at 860 kg/ha as compared to 4,125 kg/ha in Vietnam and 2,000 kg/ha in Nigeria.

The study assessed poverty in rural areas of Ogun State, Nigeria through the food energy (calorie) intake approach. A sample of 60 households (comprising of 346 members) were selected using a multistage sampling technique and were interviewed with the aid of well‐structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using nutrient estimation techniques, cost of calorie method and poverty index. The estimated food poverty line was 64.72 naira.

Goats account for about 30% of Africa’s ruminant livestock and produce about 17 and 12% of its meat and milk, respectively. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for over 60% of the total goat population in Africa, with an estimated 147 million goats representing about 80 indigenous breeds or strains distributed across all agro-ecological zones and ruminant livestock production systems. Goats are particularly important in marginal agricultural land areas, especially in arid and semi-arid areas, which together hold 64% of the goat population.

Development projects bring tremendous changes in patterns of use of land, water, and other natural resources which leads to a range of resettlement effects. This process of economic and social dislocation most often exacerbates existing gender disparities and inequalities in affected areas. When gender differences are overlooked in project planning phase, projects are unlikely to respond to women’s need and may even have negative consequences.

Previous studies in drylands have shown that while gender roles are becoming more flexible, privatization and formalization of land tenure tends to marginalize women in drylands while environmental degradation leads to differential changes in gender workload. Chepareria, a ward in West Pokot County, has undergone the above-mentioned tenure and environmental changes and is nowadays dominated by private enclosures as a land management approach.

Recent years have witnessed an intensification of forest-related conflicts between various stakeholders in Nepal, particularly between the state and local people, over the control, management and use of forests in the southern plains of the Terai. This paper analyses the multiple dimensions of conflicts in Terai forestry policy and practice using a multilevel approach. Multilevel forest conflicts in the Terai are explained as a nested concept, existing at different overlapping levels (ranging from the global level to households).

Native fauna in Australia’s arid zone has declined significantly since European settlement; however, Martu country in the Western Desert of Western Australia retains a diversity of iconic and threatened species that were once more widespread. An innovative partnership between The Nature Conservancy, BHP Billiton and the Martu people (represented by Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa – KJ) is achieving positive social, cultural, economic and environmental outcomes, which builds on funding from the Australian Government for land management on Martu country.

Social learning plays key roles in sustainable natural resource management; however, studies on its role show mixed results. Even though most current studies highlight positive outcomes, there are also negative effects of social learning with respect to natural resource management. This paper explores the influence of social learning outcomes on the adoption of soil conservation practices in Amba Zuria, Ethiopia. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, group discussions and in workshops.