Backroom Bullying: The Role of the United States Government in the Herakles Farms’ Land Grab in Cameroon, shows how bullying by US government officials may have played a critical role in the granting of nearly 20,000 ha by the Cameroonian government to the US-based firm Herakles Farms in 2013, instead of the cancellation of clearly flawed project.

At the request of the Sri Lankan Government an assessment was designed and conducted as part of the development of the country’s national strategy on REDD+.  The assessment involved applying criteria from the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests (VGGT) to analyze the tenure implications for a wide array of proposed policies and measures (PAMs) to address deforestation and forest degradation.  The assessment will help Sri Lanka to prioritize and make investment decisions among the PAMs.

India is currently among the most affected countries by COVID19, recording over 6 million cases, by September 30 2020. The pandemic and lockdown measures have had a drastic impact on a large population of poor and marginalisedcommunities, causing loss of livelihoods and employment, food insecurity and socio-economic distress.

In this report the authors aim to assess and evaluate historic and current changes in land use and forestry at the national and sub-national level in Sri Lanka. Different drivers, policies and data related to forest and land use are assessed to explore factors that have contributed to changes.

These are the main conclusions of the report:

This special issue of Policy Matters focuses on the outreach and impact of Dr. Elinor Ostrom's groundbreaking research on common property (or commons) theory. Her work was instrumental in shaping contemporary analyses of resource management and conservation, especially at a local level. This collection of research papers, essays, commentaries, and songs build upon her work and provide case studies demonstrating the practical application of her theoretical contributions. 

This Strategic  Plan  to  be implemented  during  a  period  from  2017  to  2021  is  all  about  a  contribution  of  WWF  Mongolia  towards  successful  and  thriving  co-existence  of  human  beings  and  environment  in  Mongolia, particularly  in  two  areas,  namely  Altai  Sayan  and  Amur  Heilong  Ecoregions  those  have  been  named as important hubs and potentials for conservation.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is a mitigation instrument that creates a financial value for the carbon stored in standing forests. The purpose of REDD+ is to provide incentives for developing countries to mitigate forest-related emissions and to foster conservation, sustainable management of forests and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Researchers and policy makers are increasingly looking at the drivers of forest recovery (or forest transition) for inspiration in their search for win-win solutions to deforestation. However, causal generalizations regarding forest transitions are subject to significant problems. First, forest transition theory (FTT), at least in its simplest renditions, tends to emphasize socially benign processes and fails to pay sufficient attention to the causal role—and social impacts—of negative (push) dynamics.

Biodiversity offsets seek to counterbalance loss of biodiversity due to major developments by generating equivalent biodiversity benefits elsewhere, resulting, at least in theory, in ‘no net loss’ (or even a ‘net positive gain’) in biodiversity. While local costs of major developments themselves receive significant attention, the local costs of associated biodiversity offsets have not.

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are widespread in conservation policy. In PES, environmental effectiveness and social equity are often perceived as conflicting goals. Empirical studies on the relationship between popular design features, such as payment differentiation and payment conditionality, and effectiveness and equity are scarce. Further, they struggle with measuring and separating ecological and equity outcomes.

A partir de 2005, se produce una caída consistente y significativa de las tasas de deforestación en la Amazonía brasileña. La tasa anual pasó de 27. 400 km² en 2004 a 6.500 km² en 2010 - el nivel más bajo desde el inicio de las mediciones anuales en 1988.

En los últimos años, la frontera agrícola en el Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia se ha expandido considerablemente. Debido al cambio climático, se espera una reducción del rendimiento de los cultivos, lo que producirá una nueva expansión en dicha frontera. Por este motivo, es necesario desarrollar una agricultura más eficiente, que incluya medidas de adaptación vinculadas a políticas macroeconómicas de protección de los recursos naturales.