As extreme rainfall brings more landslides, farmers are turning to bamboo to protect their land - and making an income from it

MAKOMBOKI, Kenya - Lunch at Macharia Mirara's house in the village of Makomboki used to be a cheery occasion as his children chattered about their morning at school. But these days, no one is home.

The family is absent because of the threat from an adjacent loose earth slope, which runs about a kilometre down to the valley floor in central Kenya's Murang'a County.

An unexpected High Court ruling in the German state of North Rhein Westphalia (NRW) has blocked energy giant RWE from further destruction of the Hambacher Forest for the next couple of years. The decision has been hailed as a major victory by the newly-revitalised German environmental and climate justice movement.

The findings, published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), also show that people in low- and middle-income countries are seven times more likely to die from natural disasters than those in developed nations.

“This puts a big emphasis on the need to…make sure that we curb greenhouse gas emissions,” said Ricardo Mena, UNISDR chief, in charge of implementing the Sendai Framework.

With a smartphone or tablet, the app can be used to track the status of a community rights claim in India

BANGKOK, Oct 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A web-based application that monitors the impact of successful forest-rights claims can help rural communities manage resources better and improve their livelihoods, according to analysts.

ADOPTED BY THE ILC ASSEMBLY OF MEMBERS ON 27 SEPTEMBER 2018

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – A half mile from the din of the Global Climate Action Summit and its 4,000 attendees in San Francisco, indigenous peoples from around the world came together in a small space for a kind of summit of their own.

They spoke different languages. They wore unique clothing. But the tenor of their voices and the expressions on their faces conveyed a similar message: They are the “guardians of the forests,” not their national governments. As such, they have a vital role to play in the battle against climate change.

Faced with groundwater depletion, Uganda is restoring its wetlands and planting millions of trees to improve supply

MBARARA, Uganda - In the village of Katebe, Ugandan schoolchildren have little choice but to drink from the same water supply as animals.

During the dry season from June to August, Kyakatarihwa dam is the only source of water for people and livestock alike in this remote part of southwest Uganda's Mbarara district.

NAIROBI (Landscapes News) – Rangelands cover almost half the world’s land surface. Consisting mainly of grasses, and plants, they have often been considered barren lands that should be converted to agriculture.

NAIROBI (Landscape News) – Land tenure rights are widely recognized as being central to advancing sustainable development goals, but they are only one part of the picture.

As it happens, tenure rights to trees are entangled with, but different from, those to land, meaning both must be acknowledged to incentivize stewardship of the landscape by local communities, said delegates at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in Nairobi.

SINGRAULI, India -- After years of developing the thermal energy sector to meet the demands of a nation prone to outages, India is now facing a power glut with over 30 such producers teetering on bankruptcy. Yet the government shows no letup in its drive for more coal power and the effect of oversupply is rippling out to other sectors such as banks.

India's embrace of coal has allowed it to triple power generation over the past 15 years to 344 gigawatts, surpassing Japan to become the world's third largest electricity market.

NAIROBI (Landscape News) – Almost a third of Africa’s land mass is degraded due to human activities – including farming and resource extraction – which damage the environment and put food security and livelihoods at risk.

Landscape restoration can reverse damage and lead to improvements for communities, but how are obstacles overcome and changes implemented?

MONTREAL — In 2006, India’s parliament passed the Forest Rights Act, or FRA — a groundbreaking legislation that recognizes the rights of forest dwellers to protect and manage forest resources.