The second photo-film of a two-part series, “The Ground Beneath Your Feet,” was launched during the 2015 Global Soil Week, where CIAT was highlighting the importance of soil, debating the latest science and technology as well as methods for preserving this vital natural resource. In Lushoto, Tanzania, a cluster of CCAFS climate-smart villages nestle in the stunning Eastern Arc Mountains, stretching between Tanzania and […]
The Global Landscapes Forum: The Investment Case, held in London on June 10th, drew together the diverse worlds of finance and science. Investment bankers rubbed shoulders with agriculture and forestry researchers, as well as representatives from advocacy groups and government agencies, to create practical solutions to encourage investment in the environment through new innovative models […]
When trying to protect carbon stocks and biodiversity, the expression “to kill two birds with one stone” seems hardly appropriate. And indeed, it seems that the REDD+ stone isn’t hitting the dual targets of storing carbon and protecting wildlife, according to recent research from Indonesia. The new study indicates that it’s hard to find areas where […]
Subsidized by Mother Nature, society has consumed, for various reasons and over centuries, vast amounts of timber extracted from primary tropical forests. The trees were not planted nor tended. And usually, companies just rented the much needed forestland from the government, at low prices over long periods of time. Yet this natural capital is drying […]
REDD+ is at a crossroads in Lao PDR, and needs to “think bigger” to survive. As the anti-deforestation project nears its eighth birthday, that’s the blunt claim from anew study that says tough decisions, choices and tradeoffs must be made to avoid further lost opportunities and indeed, further deforestation. “Thinking bigger,” according to study […]
BOGOR, Indonesia—A 90 kilogram full-grown male orangutan is sitting in your garden, eating mangoes stolen from your mango tree. You are unhappy about this. So how do you get rid of him? According to conservation scientist Erik Meijaard, the best method is to find some friends, form into a line, and move forward waving your […]
Like most fathers of teenage children, I am often accused of being out of touch. While my work takes me to many places, geographic and esoteric, my children do have a point: it is fair to say that much of the world of popular culture passes me by. However, I do have a favorite author […]
In your best John Cleese voice: “All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans ever done for us?” Monty Python’s famous skit from the movie “The Life of Brian” illuminates the fact […]
International development is rife with buzzwords. New concepts spring to the fore — many of them refashioned or remarketed versions of old concepts. They flood panel discussions, procurement orders and program design documents — that is, until the next “big thing” emerges to take their place. Will “landscapes” be that next trendy development fad? […]
PABRE, Burkina Faso—A simple fence that protects against grazing livestock and bush fires is all it’s taken to transform three hectares on Bertin Doamba’s farm in central Burkina Faso from denuded and degraded land into a bio-diverse little dryland forest. The enclosure, which Doamba and his family established in 2009 with the support of […]
] Investment bankers and fund managers met with agriculture and forestry researchers, representatives from advocacy groups and government agencies at the Global Landscapes Forum: The Investment Case event held in London on June 10. There was a sense that momentum is growing to connect the flows of available capital with the needs of local communities, […]
In his keynote address to the Global Landscape Forum on investment in London, James Cameron, Chairman of the Overseas Development Institute and an investor in sustainable farming in Tanzania himself, said the facts – “reason” – were not enough to achieve transformative change in land use. Language that resonates with all stakholders – “love” – […]
Peter Wheeler, Executive Vice President of The Nature Conservancy, moderated the opening session of the Global Landscape Forum on investment in London on June 10, 2015 with Leslie L. Durschinger, Managing Director of Terra Global, Mark Burrows, Vice Chairman for Global Investment Banking at Credit Suisse, Bernard Giraud who moved from Danone to become President […]
A former vice-president at Groupe Danone, Bernard Giraud now heads Livelihoods Venture, an organisation that manages investment funds on behalf of corporations intent on making their supply chains more sustainable – all the way to the farm level.
Helena Viñes Fiestas, head of sustainability research at BNP Paribas Investment Partners, talks about the steps her bank is taking to investigate sourcing and land use practices in its portfolio.
