Sahelian rural populations’ needs are sourced from on-farm indigenous tree species. However, access, use and management of indigenous tree species within their territories are restricted by forestry laws. This has built suspicion and discontent between foresters and natural resource users. Natural resource users argue that they own the trees on their farms; in contrast, the state claims to own protected indigenous trees on farms as stipulated in the forestry laws. These mismatches have served to increase deforestation despite stringent penalties and use of permits and licenses.

This is the draft report of a scoping study for the Forestry Commission on forests and climate change. The report discusses the role that sustainable forest management can play in mitigating climate change.

• Brazil has a Federal Constitution and consolidated legislation that provide for the protection of the environment, health and welfare of workers in rural areas.
• The large-scale agricultural export model used in Brazil, i.e. the state of Mato Grosso and particularly in the region where the soy exported to Norway is produced, has been causing severe social and environmental impacts.

This article begins with an investigation into woodland management in Mali and moves onto a discussion of some of the fundamental practical problems associated with a major part of forest policy in Mali.

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.

Deforestation arising from conversion of forest areas into agriculture is a serious problem in Malawi. This paper discusses competition for agricultural land and investigates why the poor are closely associated with forests. Furthermore, the paper examines the effects of changes in crop land use on changes in forest cover. The author notes that the government of Malawi, like many others in sub-Saharan Africa, is currently faced with the problem of poverty. Moreover, being agricultural based most poverty reduction policies are streamlined along the agricultural sector.

This document aims to provide supplementary methods and good practice guidance for estimating anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks resulting from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities under Article 3, paragraphs 3 and 4, of the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period – 2003 – 2020.  For the second commitment period, the activities included under Article 3.3 are Afforestation, Reforestation, and Deforestation since 1990, which remain mandatory.

This article discusses the extent to which the location of roads s and protected areas affects deforestation in North Thailand. The article stresses that establishing protected areas (national parks together with wildlife sanctuaries) in North Thailand did not reduce the likelihood of forest clearing, but wildlife sanctuaries may have reduced the probability of deforestation.

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?

This paper summarises a study undertaken by the Indonesian Forest Climate Alliance (IFCA) to support Indonesian stakeholders to participate in global negotiations. The authors note that the objective of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) payment distribution mechanisms is to support policies and measures that reduce deforestation and degradation through transfer of revenues from international REDD funds or carbon markets to national levels.

This report summarises two separate Friends of the Earth reports on, respectively, the increasing demand for palm oil in developed countries, and the social and environmental impacts of palm oil cultivation in Southeast Asia - focussing particularly on Indonesia.

The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India, enacted fifty years ago, allows autonomy to tribal communities in administrative, legislative and financial matters and was supposed to protect them from domination and exploitation by external forces. This paper examines the extent to which self-governance by tribal groups facilitated sustainability of common resources, especially forests, in the hill regions of North East India.