The number of displaced people in Sudan as a result of conflict and famine over nearly two decades of war has been estimated to be in the millions. The lengthy period of time that many local populations have been dislocated and the consequent disruption of food producing activities poses complicated problems in both near-term food security and the longer-term rehabilitation of the country's traditional agricultural sector. Recovery of households and production systems after years of conflict and famine for the displaced will involve more than simply a return to home areas.

This report provides an account of an independent investigation carried out in October 2011 of the conflicts and disputes in the PT Asiatic Persada concession in the Indonesian Province of Jambi on the island of Sumatra. This report has been written with the aim of helping resolve these disputes and ensure respect for human rights by RSPO members in line with the RSPO Principles and Criteria and the Performance Standards of the International Finance Corporation.

[From IRIN - Humanitarian news and analysis] JUBA, 12 December 2011 (IRIN) - Land deals done in newly-independent South Sudan “threaten to undermine the land rights of rural communities, increase food insecurity, entrench poverty, and skew development patterns” in the resource-rich but poor nation, a new report says.

The report considers the causes, processes and impacts of rangeland fragmentation on pastoralists in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Causes and processes include privatisation of resources, commercial investment, invasion of land by non-native plants, commercialisation including growth in individual enclosures, and conservation/National Parks. The impacts include increasing wealth divides and a growing inability to overcome and vulnerability to drought.  

This paper explores and analyses contemporary contests over land tenure in
northern Tanzania’s village lands as they relate to wildlife management and land policy
and legislation. It details the nature of the contests and conflicts, including their legal
aspects, and further seeks to diagnose the underlying political economic reasons behind
these endemic conflicts. It concludes by relating these underlying issues to the broader
macroeconomic environment and efforts to improve the security of local land tenure in

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/14/kenya-samburu-people-evicted...

Conservation business is booming in East Africa, but is threatened by major long term wildlife declines. Pastoralist rangelands are among the highest-earning and fastest-growing tourism destinations, but their populations have mean incomes and development indices consistently below national averages. Governments and conservation organisations see green development, often through community-based conservation (CBC), as building sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in EA rangelands.

This a report of a workshop held in December 1994, that aimed to find new ways of working with conflict over land use. A number of case studies in northern Tanzania were discussed.

Short article discussing challenges and solutions to Simanjro Conservation Easement in northern Tanzania.

In Laikipia the key dynamics centre on absentee land, much of this being land that was divvied out to Kikuyu by Kenyatta after independence. Much of this land (particularly north of the 600mm rainfall band) is not viable for cultivation. However, it was used by the Kikuyu title-holders as collateral to acquire loans with the Agricultural Development Corporation and others. Maasai, Samburu and Pokot herders have been grazing this land since the 1970s.

Forests and pastoralism are in a state of crisis in the Borana lowlands in southern Ethiopia. State management has failed to control forest exploitation and past and present development interventions continue to undermine pastoral production systems. In this paper the authors aim to show how a fundamental misunderstanding of pastoral land management, and in particular pastoral tenure systems, has undermined traditional institutions and the environment for which they were once responsible.

This article summaries an assessment of three community wildlife sancturaries in the Naibunga Conservancy in Laikipia - Koija, Tiemamut and Kijabe group ranches, with the objective of determining the reasons for the establishment of the CWSs, the role of partners and the perception of partners to the partnerships. It was found that communities in Kijabe and Koija were not contented with their partners and that they did not trust their partners. Further, despite previous research findings enumerating weaknesses in the sanctuaries, the same problems were identified in this study.