The Elinor Ostrom Award on Collective Governance of the Commons Council opens the call to members of the International Association for the Study of the Commons in good standing or of one of the Institutional Supporters of the Award to nominate outstanding scholars or practitioners in those fields to receive the Elinor Ostrom Award on […]
Bioversity International is featured on Food Tank’s 2014 Earth Day list. For this year’s Earth Day, Food Tank highlights influential individuals and organizations who are working to promote urban agriculture and encourage investment in growing cities. Earth Day is an important opportunity to highlight solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental and social […]
A photo competition in the lead-up to the Forests Asia Summit highlights the multiple benefits Asia’s forest landscapes provide for people and nature. More than 150 pictures have already been accepted and are up for voting – join the competition and cast your vote now.
Written by Dinesh Panday, YPARD Nepal Representative Nepalese agriculture is typically characterized by smallholder, traditional and subsistence farming; however, recent declines in agricultural production have depressed rural economies and increased widespread hunger and urban migration. The agricultural sector of Nepal experienced several changes over time. The most common trend is the out-migration of males from villages across the country, which has fueled a “feminization of agriculture”: women engagement […]
Few would doubt that agriculture is one of the key sectors of the future – for feeding a growing world population, improving rural livelihoods and reducing poverty. And if managed sustainably, agriculture can help fight climate change and protect biodiversity. Still, the contributions of 500 million family farmers to food security are undervalued. To highlight […]
Secure land rights are essential for improving the livelihoods of the poor and, more broadly, for economic development. In many emerging economies however, land remains a largely unprotected asset, one that lacks documented tenure and property rights. By Iris Krebber, Senior Land Policy Lead, DFID and Chair, Global Donor Group on Land, originally published on […]
Across Asia, young people in rural areas are less likely to receive communication on climate change than their urban counterparts. This fact might not seem surprising; after all they’re also less likely to have access to the electricity necessary to power a television. But communication can amplify the voices and actions of innovators in rural […]
The Global Landscapes Forum, a two-day event held on the sidelines of the UN climate change negotiations as part of the Conference of the Parties (COP19) in Warsaw on 16-17 November 2013, was attended by over 1,200 experts on landscapes, agriculture and forestry. The Forum was designed to inform the global climate and development frameworks […]
Following the Global Landscapes Forum on 16-17 November 2013 on the sidelines of the UNFCCC COP19, many session organizers produced a summary statement of the discussion and messages coming out of their session.
What does a “landscapes approach” mean to the private sector? For Bernard Giraud, Senior Sustainability Adviser at Danone, it is not merely an additional aspect of doing business, but “part of the business model” itself. “Danone bottles its water from natural water sources,” Giraud said. “So the quality of water depends on the watershed management. […]
Focusing on carbon alone not enough to tackle emissions, deforestation: development expert WARSAW, Poland (20 November 2013) — Indonesia’s mission to cut carbon emissions through avoided deforestation can offer lessons to the rest of the world, a top official in the country’s development unit said — not least because focusing on carbon alone often falls […]
Lesotho prince: ‘Evidence at hand points at a landscapes approach as being the renewed opportunity for mitigating and adapting to climate change’ WARSAW, Poland (19 November 2013) — Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso Bereng Seeiso has declared the need for all-inclusive climate solutions as a matter of “urgency” for his “suffering” nation. Speaking recently to agricultural and […]
Kalibata details country’s hard road to fixing farms, forests and boosting livelihoods WARSAW, Poland (21 November 2013) — Rwanda has made major strides in repairing degraded lands and restoring agricultural productivity, correcting “huge mistakes” in land management that were made in the past, the country’s top agricultural official said. Africa’s most densely populated country is […]
During the Global Landscapes Forum, reporters from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) attended many sessions and discussions, producing a final report featuring photos, videos and summary articles. “The first Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) convened on Saturday and Sunday, 16 and 17 November 2013, at the University of Warsaw in Poland, on the sidelines […]
The task of influencing policy is a complex one, as policy makers always have to listen to a number of stakeholders. In the context of climate change, these stakeholders include scientists and communities; the farmers and women who are who are living with the impacts of the changing climate. All the scientists here at the […]
