Thinking about forest management has undergone important changes over the last two decades. These changes have inspired attention to the reform of forest laws on a range of subjects, from forest planning and utilization to governance and trade. From its traditional narrow focus on government control and management of forests, modern forest law has expanded to encompass attention to environmental and social goals and to accommodating the interests of multiple stakeholders in forest management.

A growing recognition of the need to delimit the role of the government, to promote the market framework, and to rely on the private sector as the engine of growth, offers the prospect of a new beginning in rural development in Africa. Rural people must take a more dominant role, both in shaping their economic prospects and in assuming the responsibility for a high quality of stewardship of natural resources. To help to bring about such an empowerment of the people, governments and the donors will need to undertake some drastic reforms in the old systems and habits of governance.

This document summarises the main points in the conclusions and recommendations sections of the World Bank’s Final Report of the Extractive Industries Review (EIR). The document focuses particularly on a few of the issues touched upon in the report, such as indigenous peoples’ rights, human rights generally, World Bank accountability/institutional issues, and the definition of poverty and sustainable development.The Final Report recognises that if the World Bank Group is to comply with its mandate, strict conditions must be applied to Extractive Industry (EI) projects.

Paper defines a strategy for forest sector development, and translates it for practical application. In response to the causes of deforestation and desertification, which are rooted in a complex web of socio-economic factors (both inside and, mainly, outside the forests) these guidelines are centred on the needs of people living in and making a living from forests. Sustainable forest management is based on economic, environmental, social and cultural criteria and indicators.

With an estimated 40 percent of people in Africa, South America and Asia living in drylands, land degradation poses a significant threat to food security and survival. This report looks at the relationship between gender and dryland management based on an analysis of field experiences in Africa and Asia. Highlighting the roles of women and men in dryland areas for food security, land conservation/desertification, and the conservation of biodiversity, it makes available key findings on a number of projects and programs in the regions.

Recent food security crises in Africa have revived the debate on whether current land tenure systems constrain farmer innovation and investment in agriculture. Both direct and indirect linkages between land tenure and food security have been suggested. This study aims for a better understanding of these linkages.

This report highlights key developments and recent sustainability trends in agriculture, rural development, land, desertification and drought, five of the six themes being considered by the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) at its 16th and 17th sessions (2008-2009).

Despite the central role of urban areas in socio-economic and geo-political change processes at the local, regional, and global level, as well as in the regional and global biophysical processes, little attention has been paid so far to the complex and dynamic interactions between urban areas and the biophysical and chemical processes of global environmental changes.This book contributes to the knowledge about these interactions.

This paper highlights that fact that Egypt is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change.

This book explores four central propositions on climate-smart and multifunctional landscape approaches: A) Current landscapes are a suboptimal member of a set of locally feasible landscape configurations; B) Actors and interactions can nudge landscapes towards better managed trade-offs within the set of feasible configurations, through engagement, investment and interventions; C) Climate is one of many boundary conditions for landscape functioning; D) Theories of change must be built within theories of place for effective location-specific engagement.

This report provides key data and recommendations on the sustainable development of four commodities driving land use change in North Sumatra, Indonesia - coffee, cocoa, palm oil and rubber. The report seeks to assess the current and future situation in the districts of Mandailing Natal, Tapanuli Selatan and Tapanuli Utara, taking into account both economic and conservation perspectives.

Bhutan is a mountainous landlocked country with a varying climate and rich biodiversity. Despite significant economic progress being made over recent years Bhutan remains a least developed nation with constraints and vulnerabilities adversely affecting its capacity to cope with climate change.The authors recognise that Bhutan’s vulnerability is heightened by low economic strength, inadequate infrastructure, lack of institutional capacity and an agro-based rural economy. Impacts of climate change will have significant implications for the overall development of Bhutan.