Community-based forestry has shown itself to be a potent vehicle for promoting sustainable forest management, reducing poverty and generating jobs and income for rural communities, but unlocking its true potential will require greater support by governments through policy reforms and other measures. Many community-based forestry regimes are showing great promise as engines for sustainable development […]
What do cucumbers, mustard, almonds and alfalfa have in common? On the surface very little. But there is one thing they share: they all owe their existence to the service of bees. For centuries, this tiny striped helper has labored the world’s fields without winning much recognition for its many contributions to food production. Wild […]
This past autumn, I saw a shocking headline: Forest fires in Indonesia were creating as many greenhouse gas emissions as the entire United States economy. Between June and October 2015, an estimated 2.6 million hectares—or 4.5 times the size of Bali— burned to clear land for production of palm oil, the world’s highest value non-timber […]
Rural communities across Africa face a variety of threats to their customary and indigenous land and natural resource claims. The drivers of these threats are diverse: increasing foreign investment, national elite speculation, rising population densities, climate change, and national infrastructure mega-projects, to name a few. The introduction of such external destabilizing influences often sets off […]
Nature has solutions that can sustainably balance environmental health and human priorities. In other words, sometimes nature can outperform our best technological innovations. Watch The Nature Conservancy discuss the “forgotten” climate solutions.
An estimated 1.3 billion people—nearly 20 percent of humanity—rely on forests and forest products for their livelihoods, with the majority living on less than $1.25 a day. In some areas, forest activities even rival agriculture in terms of benefits and earnings, and they may provide an especially important source of income for women. But do forests actually […]
Which of the world’s forests are natural, and which have been planted by humans? It seems like a simple question, but researchers have been struggling to answer it for years. Satellites can’t easily distinguish between primary and secondary forests, which occur naturally, and planted forests, which are created and managed by people to supply timber, […]
Joseph Zulu never uses the term “climate-smart agriculture,” even as he proudly points out the fertilizer trees he planted between rows of crops on his field in Zambia’s eastern province. But whether he uses the term or not, Zulu is a wonderful example of how climate-smart agriculture can be incorporated into traditional farming environments. Fertilizer […]
Results from Panama show that increases in carbon stocks, stakeholder incomes and forest cover can be achieved simultaneously through a landscape approach to REDD+ combining avoided deforestation/degradation, the promotion of silvopastoral and agroforestry systems, and tree plantations. In the presence of an appropriate monitoring system, a landscape approach can also create buffer reserves of carbon to […]
The role of healthy soils in climate protection and food security was a major focus of the COP21 international climate summit in Paris. More than half of the 158 submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) ascribe importance to the agricultural sector. In particular African and Asian countries aimed for more sustainable use of soils and land. At […]
The replanting of forests – when considering local livelihoods and national growth – can play a major role in achieving the climate objectives that were agreed in Paris. It is now time for investors to make a move and the ‘Forests for the Future, New Forests for Africa’ initiative has received the support of H.E. […]
Pop quiz: how much land in developing countries do women own? A: Less than one per cent B: Two to five per cent C: Ten per cent D: I don’t know This was the opening question posed to the group gathered at the high session on gendered perspectives on land rights at this year’s Global […]
Each year, services provided by nature accumulate value in the trillions of dollars. Yet, many investors still tend to focus on unsustainable, short-term goals and strategies which exploits natural resources. As a consequence, the deployed financial capital often damages the environment as well as the economy. Considering the additional decline of natural resources due to […]
Wood energy is critical for many communities in Sub-Saharan Africa as a way to cook food, clean water, and produce and sell charcoal as a source of income. On the other hand, the utilization of wood energy is responsible for 50% of forest degradation and 10-20% of forest destruction in the region. For development practitioners […]
Equity is a broad term, and can sound like a tall order to fill for initiatives seeking to help communities mitigate and adapt to climate change. It includes land tenure, adequate benefit sharing, equal participation of all stakeholders, distribution of social benefits, open access to information, access to justice, and the protection of the rights […]
