A new global cropland map combines multiple satellite data sources, reconciled using crowdsourced accuracy checks, to provide an improved record of total cropland extent as well as field size around the world. Knowing where agricultural land is located is crucial for regional and global food security planning, and information on field size offers valuable insight […]

Registration for the 21st ISTF Annual Conference is now open. Date: January 29th – 31st, 2015 Location: Kroon Hall, 195 Prospect St., Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511   The International Society of Tropical Foresters, Yale Chapter convenes its conference around: Conserving biodiversity across multiple use landscapes through strategic governance and land-use planning  This year’s […]

By Bruno Vander Velde, originally published at Forests News Early successes in Brazil and Indonesia are proof positive that low-emissions sustainable development is practicable, according to a land-use policy expert. Speaking to more than 1,000 participants at the Global Landscapes Forum—organized by the Center for International Forestry Research on the sidelines of the UN climate […]

By Kate Evans, published originally at Forests News Scientists and indigenous leaders at a gender session at the Global Landscapes Forum—on the sidelines of the annual UNFCCC climate change conference in Lima, Peru—stressed the need to consider how climate change might affect men and women differently, and to incorporate gender into studies of both mitigation […]

By Barbara Fraser, originally published at Forests News African herders who have traditionally moved livestock from place to place, following seasonal forage and water supplies, increasingly find their old paths blocked by land speculators and investors, experts say. In other parts of the world too, similar problems plague indigenous people who practice shifting cultivation in […]

By Barbara Fraser, originally published on Forests News In an indigenous village deep in the Amazon forest, a family clears a small plot in the forest, plants cassava or other crops for a couple of years, and then moves elsewhere, leaving the plot to be overtaken by forest. “Slash and burn,” as it is sometimes called, is […]

By Kate Evans, originally published on Forest News Paola Agostini, Coordinator of TerrAfrica at The World Bank, said at the Global Landscapes Forum in Lima that the message coming from Africa is that there is huge demand on the ground for implementing landscape approaches. “Yesterday we had a meeting of TerrAfrica with representatives from 24 […]

By Barbara Fraser, originally published at Forests News As a warming climate shrinks the land area suitable for growing potatoes, Quechua farmers high in the Peruvian Andes say the change is a sign that Mother Earth is angry, said Alejandro Argumedo, director of the non-profit ANDES Association. In the “Potato Park” near Cusco, Peru, farmers […]

By Bruno Vander Velde, originally posted at Forests News This month in Lima, experts are debating how to safeguard the rights of local communities in global forest-carbon initiatives. Half a world away, a new study has drawn lessons from such initiatives on the ground in Indonesia—and are painting a more nuanced picture of the conditions […]

By Barbara Fraser, originally posted at Forests News Although land managers and policy makers increasingly talk about the use of landscapes for conserving biodiversity, and for reducing poverty and deforestation while ensuring an adequate food supply, preliminary results from a new study have turned up little hard evidence about whether that approach is effective. “Despite […]

By Kate Evans, originally posted at Forests News Jane Goodall is known worldwide for her decades of work with chimpanzees in the Gombe forest of Western Tanzania. It’s less well known that the NGO she founded, the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), has been experimenting with how REDD+—touted as the next big idea for tackling climate […]