On Wednesday 18 April 2012, between 80 and 100 women from Amuru District in northern Uganda stripped naked in a protest to block their eviction from land they claim is rightfully theirs. They did this in front of representatives of the Local District Board and surveyors of the sugar company Madhvani Group, the firm seeking land in the area for sugarcane growing. By resisting dispossession and challenging state violence, small-scale poor peasants reiterated the political salience of rural social struggles and highlighted the significance of land and agrarian questions.

This paper examines gender differences in awareness, preparedness and attitudes towards bushfire amongst landholders in rural landscapes affected by amenity-led in-migration in southeast Australia. It considers the potential of conceptualising bushfire not as a gender-neutral natural phenomenon but as an important means by which traditional gender roles and power relations within rural landscapes are maintained. Landholders were found to uphold conventional views of bushfire management as “men’s business” despite changing social circumstances.

Vegetable farming systems (VFSs) in Indonesia have a long tradition in the upland areas and were characterised by high productivity and competitiveness. However, in the last decade, the profitability of VFSs has been challenged by several issues including lower productivity, higher domestic prices, various export barriers, an increase in the volume of imported vegetables and environmental deterioration.

This study used linear programming (LP) to analyse land-use alternatives in the traditional Umbundu farming system in the Angolan central highlands. Farmers of the region have traditionally produced maize and pulses for subsistence and vegetables and timber as cash crops. Different pasture and forest fallow rotations are used along catena production sites. The system is labour-intensive and uses animal traction. LP problems were formulated and solved for a baseline land-use alternative, improved diet alternative and maximal timber production alternative.

BACKGROUND: Palestinian refugees have lived in camps and gatherings in Lebanon for more than 60 years. They are socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged as a result of discriminatory laws and decades of marginalisation, as shown by the absence of property rights and being banned from more than 30 occupations. In Palestinian refugee camps and gatherings, the provision of housing, water, electricity, refuse, and other services are inadequate and contribute to poor health.

1. Tropical rainforests are a global conservation priority. Robust arguments supporting rainforest conservation can attract funding and shape land-use management. However, some popular assertions regarding the value of tropical forests remain largely untested. 2. This study tests the validity of two arguments in support of mature tropical rainforest conservation: first, that these forests should be conserved based on their value as potential sources of medicine.

This study looks at wood curio carving in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Africa. Although the local people, Ndebele and Shona, have always carved, they now face a weakened economy, due in large part to land reforms in 2000. Thus, more people sculpt wood as a form of livelihood. As one man said “Starvation taught me art”. As a result, gender roles are shifting as men and women begin to enter realms previously reserved for the other. Environmentally, carvers poaching trees deforests the woodlands. As more individuals turn to making crafts sustainability deteriorates.

This paper aims to contribute to the debates on communal rangelands and analyses the gendered dimension of land rights and land access in the rural areas of Namaqualand. The actual gender relations within rural communities and the emergence of strategies that are being pursued in communal land processes are obscured and often ignored in policies about communal rangelands, which overemphasise ‘the ecological and economic impact’ and the balancing of these dimensions.