Almost two decades have passed since China first enacted legislation to protect farmland from conversion to nonagricultural use. Yet hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land are still developed to urban area each year, raising the question of whether the legislation is effective in preserving farmland from development. This paper examines the effectiveness of the Basic Farmland Protection Regulation in protecting high-quality farmland from urban development in China in the first decade after it came into effect (1995‒2005).

Highland Ethiopia is one of the most densely populated regions of Africa and has long been associated with both Malthusian disasters and Boserupian agricultural intensification. This paper explores the race between these two countervailing forces, with the goal of informing two important policy questions. First, how do rural Ethiopians adapt to land constraints? And second, do land constraints significantly influence welfare outcomes in rural Ethiopia?

This research has been undertaken to improve our understanding of stakeholders’ knowledge and perception about ecosystem services (ES), which provides a valuable means of gaining insight into the opportunities and constraints that face ES management in a multiuser landscape. Land use preferences are influenced by a variety of motives, attitudes, and values intrinsic to every individual’s decisionmaking. Knowledge can affect attitudes and behavioral intentions, and a positive attitude toward the environment has been found to predict conservation practices.

This study assesses whether the recent public and private efforts to improve farmers’ access to mechanical power in Ghana have had the intended effects on the country’s agricultural sector. Using panel survey data, this paper analyses the drivers of farm mechanization and its net impacts on cropland expansion and farming system intensification in northern Ghana. Several factors explain the use and use intensity of agricultural mechanization, including landholding size, total labor and fertilizer use per hectare, chemical use, and amount of land left fallow.

This report discusses new knowledge on anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) activities made available through the new FAOSTAT Emission database. The database is available globally, with country detail, for all agriculture, forestry and land sub-categories available in FAOSTAT and in the Forest Resources Assessment (FRA).

The objective of the Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA) project was to develop tools and methods to assess and quantify the nature, extent, severity and impacts of land degradation on dryland ecosystems, watersheds and river basins, carbon storage and biological diversity at a range of spatial and temporal scales. This builds the national, regional and international capacity to

This booklet is intended to guide extension service advisors and institutions who work with small-scale farmers and foresters with an interest in Carbon inance and Carbon Projects. Its aim is to support setting-up carbon projects which involve small-scale farmers.

Their participation allows them to be involved in the development and implementation of

the project, influence the design of the project to generate positive impacts for the farmers

and increase their knowledge about carbon finance.

Land use projects are especially exposed to the insecurities regarding the future of international climate change regulations. Therefore, it is imperative that the long term structures of the climate change framework are settled as soon as possible, including the reconsideration of the existing crediting schemes as the appropriate remuneration approach for AFOLU projects in developing countries.

At the request of its member countries, FAO has been carrying out global forest resources assessments (FRA) since 1947, in collaboration with countries and other partners, notably the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The global FRA reports on the worldwide status and trends of forest resources, their management and uses. It is based on nationally validated data from national forest inventories and assessments.

Whilst still in its infancy, the development of geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) tools is paving the way for global land use monitoring. This paper provides a first, tentative description of livestock related land use.