Land and forestry-based activities could in principle play important roles as climate change mitigation strategies. In practice, however, several questions have been raised about their feasibility. Therefore, understanding the processes and determinants of land use changes is critical. This paper aims to contribute to such understanding in the larger part of a larger project on sustainable development and economic growth. It begins with a dynamic model of land use.

The advance of the agricultural frontier constitutes the biggest source of deforestation in Central America today. This conversion of tropical forests into agricultural land and pasture is the direct result of individual land use decisions. This paper presents a simple analytical model of household land use, followed by an econometric analysis of household survey data from the Río San Juan region of Nicaragua in order to test for consistency with the model.

The success of REDD+ depends on whether it can be economically viable and if any resulting payments are sufficient to cover the opportunity cost plus any transaction cost. Where tenure security over forested areas is weak, REDD+ can pose a risk for forest communities, who could be dispossessed, excluded and marginalised. This review explores how payment for avoided deforestation and forest tenure impact the success of REDD+ projects in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and equity.

This report presents an analysis of the synergies between environmental policies and the development of comprehensive environmental projects.

This working paper reviews historical and current factors and patterns affecting land use, land tenure, resource access, human settlement, and conflicts over resource access and tenure in the districts around Mt. Elgon in Kenya and Uganda. The paper draws on a series of interviews conducted with government officials in the districts along with other support sources such as paper maps and existing GIS databases.Based on this approach, the common findings from this study in the current setting of land tenure and land management are:

Trade in ethanol is increasing, and raises the need for the classification of various biofuels within frameworks such as the WTO. With that being said, this paper wonders how do biofuels policies and programs fit within the WTO’s stated goals of liberalisation. In addition, it examines the effects of the rapid biofuels expansion on the prices of grains, and the effects triggered in the livestock industries. The paper indicates that the biofuels industry affects and is affected by government policies in countries around the globe.

Kenya’s land governance system is fashioned to facilitate land expropriation for the few and powerful who continue to resist reforms.

This is despite the fact that the dynamics of land reform are driven by apprehensions of mischief associated with the history that explains why the National Land Commission was established with mandate, independent of the Executive.

CAPITALISM

From the British conquest, Kenya’s land governance system was never meant to be inclusionary and equitable.

The research provides a holistic overview of the key changes that affected Northern Chin society from pre-colonial times up to now in villages close to Hakha town where State penetration was stronger than in more remote

areas. The study sheds light on the overlapping and evolving statutory and customary land systems and on the issues faced by contemporary Chin communities as they seek to govern land and natural resources.

include a trajectory of Namibia’s socio-spatial development for the reader to engage with my work. The term ‘socio-spatial’ is to stress the spatial dimension within social processes. To have simply left the term ‘spatial’ would have missed the point of spatial production as a social process. In other words, space per se is not what is at stake here, but rather the dialectic relationship of how space is produced and at the same time it transforms those who inhabit it. Therefore, what I would like to encompass is not merely town planning schemes, houses, or public spaces, but also spatial so

This short field work report gives an overview of the forest inventory work done during the first two years of The Future Okavango (TFO) project, a project implemented till 2015 and funded by the

German Ministry of Education and Research. TFO aims to integrate ecosystem functions and services into an ecological and economic approach to sustainable land management at a regional scale.

In contrast to their sedentary image, farmers in Central and South Mali are surprisingly mobile. Many have settled in scattered farming hamlets where they are rapidly expanding the areas under agriculture. This study focuses on farmers’ mobility in relation to accessing land in two regions in Mali where farming conditions are very different regarding rainfall, population growth and opportunities for income generation. It is shown that differences in farming conditions in the two regions have shaped the different temporal and spatial dimensions of farmers’ mobility.