This United Nations flagship publication launched at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 aims to raise awareness on sustainability and green growth. The objective is to show renewed political commitment for sustainable development, while assessing progress to date. Sustainable development, which is seen as the guiding principle for long-term global development, consists of three pillars: economic development, social development and environmental protection.

Surplus woody plants in areas where there is bush thickening present an opportunity to harvest the wood as bio-fuel. The health of the ecosystem and rangeland restoration must, however, always be prioritised during any tree harvesting for bio-fuel. In South Africa, indigenous woody plants are a prominent feature of the savannah, the largest of the vegetation biomes in South Africa and the Southern African sub-continent.

Biofuels are attracting increased attention and investment as an alternative to fossil-based fuels and a means of combating climate change, yet there are many critics. This one-page briefing explores some of the concerns surrounding biofuels and the limitations posed by large-scale biofuel production.
Key points highlighted include the following:

This Topic Guide addresses the threat that climate change poses to food security and poverty reduction achievements. The peer-reviewed guide explains how programming around climate-smart agriculture can help adapt and build resilience to climate change – at the same time stimulating economic growth and poverty reduction in the agricultural sector.

This document contains a collection of critical comments by experts working in the field of pastoralism with regard to several PDN papers.

The project aims to support small-scale farmers in the project area in their efforts to adapt their farming practices to anticipated climate change and to enhance their incomes.

This report shows that the process of preparation for REDD in Mesoamerica is characterized for being relatively widespread, although there are enormous challenges regarding information, participation and consultation. In spite of the formal arguments, the preparation processes face serious challenges in terms of a more genuine and commitment with the consultation processes with various stakeholders related to forestry, especially in the case of indigenous peoples and forest communities.

This study assessed the extent of land use and cover change in Buliisa and Nakasongola Districts in the cattle corridor of Uganda over 27 years (1986 –2013), and their impacts on livestock management under drought induced pasture. The study found that area under open water and grassland declined by 3.5 and 48.3 per cent, while woodland, wetland, small scale farming and forest increased by 0.2, 62.2, 320.7 and 64.1 per cent, respectively, in Buliisa.

This booklet provides information to forestry and land-use audiences, principally in developing countries, who want to find out more about the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and how it affects their activities.

The objective of the ‘Water Management Adaptation’ Project is to build capacity for good governance and adaptation to climate change through applied research, awareness, public participation and demonstrative experiences, for effective water management based on an ecosystems integrated management approach.

The report's main objective is to provide key lessons from the sustainable urban tourism project through the analysis of different enabling conditions and obstacles that determined the course and the final outcome of the initiative.

It constitutes the background paper prepared for a CDKN-ICLEI learning programme. It provides a deeper analysis of the different factors which determined the course and the final outcome of the project ‘Sustainable urban tourism through low-carbon initiatives: Experiences from Hue and Chiang Mai’, conducted during 2012–2013.

This paper is part of a set of working papers that resulted from the Resilience Academy 2013-2014. The United Nations University Institute of Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) publishes these papers as part of its UNU-EHS Working Paper series.
It presents several multi-scale case studies from islands around the world to offer a historically informed review of the cultural, environmental, political and economic systems and influences on island resilience.