The incidence of skin diseases, including leishmaniasis, spread by different varieties of sandflies in tropical areas has increased dramatically in humans. Because of deforestation, sandflies have encroached further into human settlements. Here they have begun to infect domestic animals and humans. What can be done to control this trend?

Is the formal education system the best avenue for delivery of effective environmental education? Can Ethiopia’s newly decentralised educational administrations work with other arms of government and farmers to tackle the short-term and unsustainable resource exploitation patterns which imperil prospects of ever achieving food self-sufficiency?

Kissidougou in Guinea, West Africa, is characterised by so-called 'forest islands', relics - it was assumed -of original dense forest cover. It was also assumed that local cultivation practice was to blame for the destruction of the trees.

As the pace of decentralisation in Africa quickens, how can external agencies help communities fulfill new management responsibilities? A study from Niger has implications for other parts of Africa where commitment to decentralised natural resource management is offering scope for radical new approaches to transferring power to local people.

Latest report from Friends of the Earth's Coporates Campaign looking at linkages between financial institutions, pulp and paper manufaturers and paper merchants in forest destruction. The report focuses on the activities of Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Ltd (APRIL) - one of the worlds largest pulp and paper companies - and their subsidiary operations in Sumatra.

In 1995, corrupt officials secretly awarded all of Cambodia’s unallocated forest, 35 per cent of the country’s total land area, as concessions to logging companies. How have these rogue loggers exploited political instability and weak government institutions to plunder Cambodia’s timber? Can anything be done to check the depredations of the ‘untouchables’ before Cambodia is logged out?

Collection of ten papers looking at the impacts and issues arising from fuelwood use. Also case studies from a number of countries covering forest energy strategies and the development of alternatives.The papers included are as follows:Factors affecting fuelwood use in Taita, Kenya.Fleuret, A. 1983 Fuelwood use in Zanzibar town.Masoud, R.S.

How can the process of tropical deforestation be controlled? We now know a good deal about the causes of deforestation but not its control. Research from the University of Leeds in Thailand and the Philippines fills this gap, showing that changes in the domestic political scene explain how deforestation processes have been controlled in the two countries.

The 21st Century opened with a commitment to involving forest-local communities in the processes of securing and sustaining forests. But what is the relationship between people’s right to land and the manner in which they may be involved in the management of forests?

A University of Leeds collaborative study has probed links between environmental change and famine – two problems perceived to lie at the heart of Africa’s current crisis – in the context of another all too often linked to the continent - warfare and civil unrest.

Everyone agrees that logging and agriculture can cause deforestation. But does shifting cultivation, or ‘slash and burn’ farming destroy forests particularly? Are local farmers solely to blame? Recent research by Overseas Development Institute (ODI) suggests the role of shifting farming in starting forest fires has been exaggerated. It is not, in fact, a major cause of biodiversity loss.

Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model this report identifies the links among economic growth, poverty alleviation, and natural resource degradation in Brazil.