Category: Uncategorized

The world must move quickly to fulfill the promise of the climate change agreement reached in Paris four months ago and accelerate low-carbon growth, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said on the opening day of the Spring Meetings. More than 190 countries came together last December to pledge to do their part to […]

In 2015, more than 500 million hectares of forests were held by indigenous peoples.  Despite the increase in forest area designated for and owned by indigenous peoples in recent decades, governments still administer 60 percent of these forest areas while firms and private individuals administer 9 percent. Pressure exerted by indigenous peoples over the past […]

Rising temperatures and more extreme, unpredictable climate events are making sustainable livelihoods tough for many people living in semi-arid regions of the world. To adapt, local communities, and especially farmers, use different strategies and responses. Research in India and Africa shows that achieving sustained and equitable adaptation requires a number of things. It is critical […]

Internationally traded agricultural commodities – such as soy, beef and oil palm – are a multi-billion-dollar segment of the global economy and play a key role in driving development across the tropics. But production of these commodities is often linked to heavy social and environmental impacts.  This is the case for most of the Latin […]

There is a lot of buzz in the global development community about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the pledges to cut poverty, hunger, and malnutrition while protecting the planet—signed by 193 countries. This commitment will guide global action over the next 15 years, promising to leave no one behind. But we already risk overlooking one important […]

In the shady recesses of unassuming forest patches in eastern Brazil, bird species are taking their final bows on the global evolutionary stage, and winking out. These are obscure birds with quaint names: Alagoas Foliage-Gleaner, Pernambuco Pygmy-Owl, Cryptic Treehunter. But their disappearance portends a turning point in a global biodiversity crisis. Bird extinctions are nothing […]

The Brazilian agribusiness and forest sectors, aware that the world economy is finding new ways to incorporate carbon into the value equation, have formed an unprecedented alliance, the Brazil Climate, Forest, and Agriculture Coalition (Coalizão Brasil Clima, Florestas e Agricultura). Established in December 2014, the initiative consists of more than 120 sectoral partners—businesses, civil society […]

The first ‘element’ in integrated landscape management laid out in the Little Sustainable Landscapes Book is ‘establishing a multi-stakeholder platform’. There has been a lot of discussion about how to organize and convene these platforms: how to make sure the right people are involved so that decisions will be considered legitimate and be impactful. But […]

We are living in the most explosive era of infrastructure expansion in human history. The G20 nations, when they met in Australia in 2014, argued for between US$60 trillion and US$70 trillion in new infrastructure investments by 2030, which would more than double the global total value of infrastructure. Some of the key players in […]

Scientists don’t necessarily spend all of their time at the lab bench. There are the intrepid, the brave, the field scientists. Those who don chest waders, snake gaiters, or snow shoes and venture out into the untamed wilderness, the carefully maintained nature preserve, or highly-trafficked urban park in pursuit of their science. When you are […]

Most of us would agree that human well-being depends to a large extent on healthy ecosystems and the services they provide. For example, fertile soil enables us to grow food crops, and nutrient cycling in watersheds is needed for water purification to ensure we have clean water to drink. But what role does biodiversity play […]

Today, over 80 million tons of CO2 will be emitted from economies around the world. Tomorrow will be the same, as will the day after that. The emitted amounts of CO2 will likely stay in the atmosphere for hundreds, if not thousands of years, further compounding the challenges in reversing the current and expected effects […]

For the past eight years, ACIAR has been conducting research into the development of teak-based agroforestry systems in northern Laos. While agroforestry research is inherently a long term proposition, it is becoming evident that this ACIAR research in Laos is already generating benefits for farmers and that recent new research on the incorporation of broom […]

Australia’s agricultural lands help to feed about 60 million people worldwide, and also support tens of thousands of farmers as well as rural communities and industries. But a growing global population with a growing appetite is placing increasing demands on our agricultural land. At the same time, the climate is warming and in many places […]

This is Morocco’s Noor 1 concentrated solar power plant, the first phase of what will eventually be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. It is an impressive sight—visible even from space–and it holds the promise of supplying over 500 megawatts of power to over a million Moroccans by 2018. It also embodies […]