Drawing upon several sources of information and types of analysis, including literature reviews, field visits and rapid participatory assessments, this paper provides a critical assessment of land-related development policies and projects over the past two decades in Central America. Reflections on past land-related development policies and projects in Central America are based on their contributions to growth and poverty reduction.

This paper argues that stakeholder groups – specifically indigenous and local communities living in or directly dependent upon forests – can often offer an important source of knowledge and capacity.

It highlights that these people can support data gathering for safeguard information needs, especially in places where existing monitoring systems cannot do so comprehensively. The paper argues that their involvement is important for protecting their rights, and critical for minimising the risk that REDD+, or the safeguards, could fail to meet their objectives.

This paper examines urban health in low- and middle-income countries, in relation to two sets of environmental issues:

persistent local environmental health burdens, and most notably the water, sanitation and housing deficiencies prevalent in the poor neighbourhoods of so many urban settlements
emerging global environmental burdens that will be experienced in urban areas, and most notably those associated with climate change

Despite the central role of urban areas in socio-economic and geo-political change processes at the local, regional, and global level, as well as in the regional and global biophysical processes, little attention has been paid so far to the complex and dynamic interactions between urban areas and the biophysical and chemical processes of global environmental changes.This book contributes to the knowledge about these interactions.

Ecosystems are a form of natural capital. Invasions by introduced alien plant species alter ecosystems, often reducing supplies of valuable ecosystem goods and services and imposing substantial costs on South Africa’s economy. Reversing these losses by removing alien plants imposes further costs because clearing and control operations are expensive. However, the high costs can be offset by the benefits of creating employment opportunities through such operations and the livelihood benefits that can be derived from the cleared land.

This paper explores the opportunities for mitigating atmospheric carbon emissions and generating development income in developing countries through a combination of sustainable agricultural practices on existing lands, slowing tropical deforestation, and reforesting degraded lands.The analysis shows that over the next ten years, forty-eight major tropical and subtropical developing countries have the potential to reduce the atmospheric carbon burden by about 2.2 billion tonnes of carbon.

Prepared by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, this in-depth report seeks to shed light on the climate mitigation potential of agriculture. It argues that with an increasing demand for food, global agriculture will soon become the dominant area of greenhouse emissions, with the two main sources being nitrous oxide from the soil and methane from animal farming (of particular concern as developing countries convert increasingly to a high-protein, 'western', diet). The scientific case for the significance of agricultural emissions is presented in parts one to six of the report.

The Forests and Climate Change Programme (FORCLIME) is a collaborative initiative implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. The project aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the forestry sector and improve the livelihoods of Indonesia’s poor rural communities. This report outlines the results of a gender analysis of Indonesia’s forestry sector undertaken to inform the design of a gender strategy for FORCLIME.

This policy brief outlines participatory carbon monitoring (PCM) pilots in Viet Nam. Developing countries undertaking REDD+ activities will need to provide evidence of “results-based action” in order to receive payments for the reduction of carbon emissions or the enhancement of terrestrial carbon stocks. The brief begins by outlining the context of PCM activities in Viet Nam and then goes onto describe the objectives of PCM. Testaments from PCM participants are provided and key steps of PCM are discussed.

This paper presents an overview of pastoral systems and addresses rights issues around access and control of resources in the context of climate change.

The Amazon forest greatly influences the global climate and may be coming under increasing threat due to climate change. This report explores the relationship between the Amazon, climate, and the changes in this relationship that are underway as a result of forest destruction and the release of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. The paper seeks to interpret the best information available to determine how close we are to a point of no return for a major forest “dieback” in the Amazon, and to identify some steps that might be taken to counter this process.

This literature review assesses current and potential future changes occurring within the forestry sector. It identifies challenges posed to forests and analyses the relationship between forests and climate change. While it is relatively safe to assume that temperature increase is a threat to the survival of many ecosystems other challenges, such as extreme weather and precipitation levels, are harder to predict.