Across rural Africa, land legislation struggles to be properly implemented, and most resource users gain access to land on the basis of local land tenure systems.
The Government of South Africa has a major holding of forest land, with a total estate covering 892,000 ha of forest and associated land. Within the state's forest holding there is a wide diversity of forest and land types including: commercial plantations and other afforested land; indigenous forests; legally protected (indigenous) forest areas; and associated bare land. This land is partly owned by the state and partly held on behalf of local communities, some of whom also have existing rights to use the forest land for various purposes.
From the outset, the development of agriculture has been strongly associated with women’s endeavour. In fact, women’s contribution to agriculture goes back to the origins of farming and the domestication of animals when the first human settlements were established more than 6 000 years ago. Over the years, the division of responsibilities and labour within households and communities tended to place farming and nutrition-related tasks under women’s domain. Nowadays, in many societies women continue to be mainly responsible for family food security and nutrition.
Most of the world’s poor work in the “informal economy” – outside of recognized and enforceable rules. Thus, even though most have assets of some kind, they have no way to document their possessions because they lack formal access to legally recognized tools such as deeds, contracts and permits. The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) is the first global anti-poverty initiative focusing on the link between exclusion, poverty and law, looking for practical solutions to the challenges of poverty.
This paper represents part of an area of work in support of enhancing access to land and forest resources in support of rural livelihoods in Mongolia. It is based on learning emerging from an ongoing FAOsupported project called: Support to the development of participatory forest management (TCP/MON/2903). This project has involved the development (through extensive community-level consultations in forest areas) of a detailed Concept Document for the design and implementation of participatory forestry.
La gestión sostenible de la vida silvestre es objeto de considerable atención en el debate internacional debido a su importancia para la conservación de la biodiversidad, la seguridad humana, los medios de subsistencia y la seguridad alimentaria. Las poblaciones locales han gestionado las especies silvestres durante milenios, incluso a través de la caza. En este número se presentan ejemplos suficientes para demostrar que en la era moderna también es factible la gestión sostenible de la vida silv estre.
The Groningen Centre for Law and Governance (GCLG) and the University of Cape Town collaborated with the Global Land Tool Network and True Price to convene the fourth annual colloquium on Expropriation Law in Cape Town. The annual meetings of this project concentrate on narrowly defined aspects of expropriation, and facilitate discussion amongst international academics and other experts on shared issues in Expropriation Law. The project gives delegates the opportunity to participate on the global platform, alongside leading scholars in the field of expropriation law.
Given the recent trend of granting vast areas of African land to foreign investors, the urgency of placing real ownership in the hands of the people living and making their livelihood upon lands held according to custom cannot be overstated. This study provides guidance on how best to recognize and protect the land rights of the rural poor. Protecting and enforcing the land rights of rural Africans may be best done by passing laws that elevate existing customary land rights up into nations' formal legal frameworks thereby making customary land rights equal to documented land claims.
Wildlife management is the focus of considerable international debate because of its importance for biodiversity conservation, human safety, livelihoods and food security. Local people have been managing wildlife for millennia, including through hunting. Sufficient examples are presented in this edition to show that sustainable wildlife management is also feasible in the modern era.
On the occasion of the International Year of Mountains-2002, FAO and its partners undertook a large-scale assessment and global review of the current status and future trends of integrated and participatory watershed management. The overall objectives were to promote the exchange and dissemination of experiences in implementing watershed management projects in the decade from 1990 to 2000 and to identify the vision for a new generation of watershed management programmes and projects.
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