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Land Portal Foundation administrative account
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Remote Sensing for sustainable use of seasonally dry tropical forests - Learning to live with the forest
General
Around the world, seasonally dry tropical forests have in the past been disregarded as marginal wastelands but are now recognised for the importance of their biodiversity and potential ecosystem services. They face critical challenges of conservation, unsustainable use leading to desertification, local poverty and migration to urban areas. In Brazil, 11% of its land area is this type of forest, called the Caatinga. There is an urgent need to provide methods by which this fragile biome can be monitored and protected, for the plants, animals and people who live there. The aim of this project is to develop a tool that can provide a new level, quality and accessibility of information for 1) biodiversity monitoring at species level and 2) an assessment of ecosystem quality, with resulting implications for land use. Quantitative maps generated by this novel technology can be used to optimise resources and underpin policy and forest management methods. This project will generate technological innovation by integrating high resolution remote sensing (hyperspectral imaging from drones using Rutherford Appleton Laboratory camera systems) with ground-based measurement on the ground (including plant spectral profiles and LIDAR). One way in which it will be tested will be examination of effects of various levels of cattle grazing upon the forest, as a widespread human/environment interaction. To achieve its aims, the project team is interdisciplinary and international, with research partners from the UK and Brazil. The project will also involve Brazilian stakeholders from federal and state level ministries, agencies and advisory groups, as well as NGOs and other groups responsible for communities and for policymaking. By seeking their specific needs for affordable, practical technology at the start of the project, and by facilitating their planning for uptake of the technology by the end of the project, the project will seek to maximise its impact in Brazil. The technology will also have broader relevance to other seasonal dry forests and indeed other threatened, inaccessible ecosystems around the globe. Thus, through the technological innovation and deliberate engagement of stakeholders, the project will address the UN Sustainable Development Goal 15: 'Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss'.
Objectives
The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) supports cutting-edge research to address challenges faced by developing countries. The fund addresses the UN sustainable development goals. It aims to maximise the impact of research and innovation to improve lives and opportunity in the developing world.
Supporting Chinese efforts to re-use brownfield and marginal land for low carbon and renewable energy purposes
General
The project is designed to promote China-UK collaboration to evaluate and adapt innovative methodologies, in order that China can re-use brownfields and marginal land for low carbon and renewable energy purposes. This is intended to support the development of low-resource strategies for land management, decontamination of land, urban regeneration, and community enterprise for brownfield and marginal land areas. This is expected to generate opportunities for international businesses, including UK ones.
Indigenous Intercultural Governance Program in Bolivia
General
The program will help strengthen the vision and the ability to generate proposals from organizations, and promote public policy proposals that allow indigenous intercultural management with a capacity of influence in all areas of political decision. It also seeks to achieve a planned and integrated management of indigenous territories with identity, incorporating among other things, access to the benefits of judicious use of natural resources and exercise the right to a "prior and informed consultation", as a model to replicate in other territorial spaces. It also aims to strengthen the participation of women in decision -making spaces, in the process of an indigenous land management and encourage their political participation at different levels of the state; another goal is to contribute to create intercultural processes by constructing visions of development between different actors for a proper management of territorial spaces. Indigenous Peoples of lowlands and highlands of Bolivia constitute the primary target of the program population. The territories of programmatic action are ,: the Nation Killaka in the departments of Potosí and Oruro and Guarani Nation in the departments of Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca, represented by its indigenous regional organizations, Khatun Killaka Asanajaqi (JAKISA) and the Assembly of the Guarani People (APG) respectively. To support to the organizations and the program as a whole, we will work with other actors in the indigenous movement, such as NGOs committed to the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The project will last 2 years.
Evaluation of CILAP 2018
General
This is an evaluation of Lantmateriet's Capacity building in Land Administration project. The evaluation service provider is NIRAS. The final report is due end November.
Fostering Local activism and Women's Leadership on VAW and Women's Land Rights
General
The project is intended to strengthen women's collective action and building leadership capacities to advocate on the women's land and VAW/G issues including increasing women's capacity in gender sensitive budget monitoring, planning and budget making processes, direct engaging with duty bearers for resource allocation. The voice of women leaders are intended to influence resource allocation and development of VAW and women's land rights programmes which then strengthen access and control of land assets and prevention of VAW /G.
Human Rights Promotion and Implementation
General
The project covers spesific activities under three separate units of the Legal Assistance Centre. The AIDS Law Unit focuses on HIV/AIDS and the law and seeks to educate and empower people infected and affacted by HIV. The Gender research and advocacy proje ct seems to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women through legal research law reform and related advocacy work. ACtivities focus on women and children through empowerment training awareness raising on spesific matters. Land Environment and De velopment Unit addresses three areas which are closely linked and which also have potential to have a huge impact on poverty. The activities will focus on the poor and landless communities obtaining increased benefits from the land reform program proper im plementation and adherence to the Environmentalo Management Act and community empowerment.
GLA - Liberia
General
Formal recognition of customary land ownership and security of tenure for the poor is a critical building block for inclusive and sustainable development. Since 2009, when Liberia enacted the Community Rights Law with Respect to Forest Lands that paved the way for communities to formalize their ownership claims to their customary forestlands, community rights with respect to natural resources have gained a prominent place on the political agenda. The move towards formalizing customary land claims gained further momentum in 2013 with the adoption of a Land Rights Policy that promised formal recognition and legal protection for customary rights. The Land Rights Act, which could ‘seal the deal’ for communities has however been stalled in the Liberian Legislature since 2015.
Objectives
The GLA programme for Liberia proposes to increase the capacity of communities to resist destructive oil palm expansion and logging, increase the respect and recognition of tenure rights of local communities by government and concessionaires, and increase adherence to the full implementation of policies and laws in forest and land management. This will provide opportunity for working in Liberia to contribute to the preservation of ecosystems and improved livelihood conditions for rural communities in Liberia and specifically in the Sinoe landscape. Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) will support the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI whose main intervention strategy in Sinoe will be to (i) monitor Golden Veroleum Liberia’s non-compliance with policies or poor implementation of its commitments to respect the rights of local communities and produce deforestation-free crude palm oil and to (ii) strengthen local communities representative bodies in Sinoe and (iii) to monitor illegal logging in Sinoe and Grand Kru to campaign against illegal logging or forest conversion.
Other
In 2017 TBI will strengthen CSOs to monitor and advocate for transparent forest and landscape governance, with a strong focus on the Sinoe landscape and changes in land use, tenure and livelihoods. TBI’s main intervention strategy is to use research and capacity building for informed dialogue. As knowledge broker TBI will work on bringing stakeholders together for informed dialogue, while at the same time we promote the use of validated knowledge in this dialogue. TBI will support CSOs working in the Sinoe landscape with information that provides insight in (aspects of) wicked problems where no simple (technical) solution is available. As first step, TBI will facilitate the further elaboration of the context analysis prepared for the GLA inception phase, which will provide state-of-the-art information on forest related issues and actors in Liberia and specifically Sinoe. Together with CSOs and the CSO platforms, TBI will identify a (research) agenda on Sinoe landscape about sustainable development and improvement of local livelihoods, alternatives for oil palm expansion and root causes like land rights and governance structures without strong voice of the local communities. Some research topics that will be prioritized will be addressed in 2017. TBI will start a project to strengthen the capacity of non-state actors to improve FLEGT-VPA and REDD+ processes in Liberia, in collaboration with partners in Cote d’ Ivoire and Ghana. In addition, organizational capacity of the TBI main partner in Liberia will be built, based on the results of their capacity analysis.