Access to land is key to achieving food security, poverty alleviation, social equity and environmental protection. A brief insight in land governance-related principles and policies of the German development assistance.
Fuelwood and charcoal continue to be indispensable in cooking the daily meal for most people in sub-Saharan Africa; in addition, wood as a fuel represents an important source of income. Pressure on forest resources as well as health hazards through indoor air pollution have resulted in more calls for switching to alternative energy sources. Our authors suggest another alternative: improving the existing supply chains.
Is it right to attach financial values to nature and to incorporate that valuation into the post-2015 agenda? Will such valuation help to protect species diversity and ecosystems? Or does it not rather harbour the risk that we cheerfully go on destroying nature since other aspects of the national accounts can be seen as compensation? Civil society is split on this issue. Our author points out why.
In the debate on climate change, it is frequently argued that the number of “climate refugees” is going to grow world-wide. So far, however, only little evidence has been provided of links between climate change, environmental changes and migration. The transdisciplinary research project “micle”– migration, climate & environment – has examined this link in selected areas of the Sahel zone.
German Development Cooperation has developed an approach for the sustainable production of charcoal that has proved to have a considerable impact in Northern Madagascar. Since both environmental and socioeconomic aspects are addressed in a very effective way, this approach has high potential referring to global challenges such as land degradation, rural poverty and climate change.
Throughout the world, demands on finite soil resources are ever increasing, and can lead to irreversible soil degradation, as the soil is used beyond its “bio-capacity”. A quarter of the inhabitated land area has already been affected by human-induced soil degradation. Against this background, soil remediaton is becoming more and more important. Focusing on the rehabilitation of oil-contaminated soil in Kuwait, the following article shows how it works, and where the problems lie
Tropical forage grasses and legumes as key components of sustainable crop-livestock systems in Latin America and the Caribbean have major implications for improving food security, alleviating poverty, restoring degraded lands and mitigating climate change. Climate-smart tropical forage crops can improve the livestock productivity of smallholder farming systems and break the cycle of poverty and resource degradation.
If the current trend in global meat demand persists, meat production will need to rise from 300 million tons today to 470 million tons by 2050. Climate and our natural resources would lose out, our author warns.
China has a longstanding tradition of using biogas for decentralised energy supply. Already, there are nearly 42 million household digesters in the rural areas, a figure set to double by 2020. But the country has even more ambitious plans. In order to achieve its own climate targets and raise the share of renewables in overall energy supply to 15 per cent by 2020, it wants to set up 16,000 middle- and large-scale biogas plants. However, implementation isn’t quite so easy.
Not only is biodiversity a valuable asset, but it also represents a possible source of income for rural communities. The article shows how Peru is making use of this potential in the context of the BioTrade concept to sustain both, rural livelihood and conservation of native biodiversity. It further analyses the challenges farmers face and how targeted support for supply chains can help to overcome these challenges.
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