Tanzania's land, local government and forest laws mean that rural communities have well defined rights to own, manage and benefit from forest and woodland resources within their local areas through the establishment of village forests. This approach, known by practitioners as Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) results in the legal establishment of village land forest reserves, community forest reserves or private forests. By 2008, 1,460 villages on mainland Tanzania1 were involved in establishing or managing village forests covering a total of over 2.345 million hectares.

For Ghana's national REDD plus scheme to be viable, the rights to carbon or the emission credits generated must be clearly delineated, and be accompanied by equitable and efficient benefit sharing systems. There are a number of approaches that the State can use to determine whom to vest the right to carbon in. If defined as a natural resource, the state would be vested with the rights. If recognized as an ecosystem service, then the right to the benefits would be vested in the owner of the trees.

The climate change (CC) caused by increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), can be addressed through adaptation and mitigation strategies. Adaptation consists of strategies which minimize vulnerability to CC. The objective is to increase resilience of the ecosystems and communities through adoption of specific sustainable land management (SLM) techniques that have adaptive benefits. On the other hand, the goal of mitigation strategies is to enhance soil and vegetation (land) sinks for absorbing atmospheric CO2 and to minimize net emissions.

The tsunami that originated from the Indian Ocean in 2004 wreaked massive destruction, killing more than 130,000 people and displacing half a million individuals in Aceh, Indonesia. More than 800 kilometers of coastline was affected, and close to 53,795 land parcels were destroyed. The land administration system sustained significant damage because documentation of land ownership was washed away along with people's houses and other possessions in the affected communities. Physical boundary markers, including trees and fences, also disappeared.

The Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) for Timor-Leste identifies environmental priorities through a systematic review of environmental issues in natural resources management and environmental health in the context of the country's economic development and environmental institutions. Lack of data has been the main limitation in presenting a more rigorous analysis. Nevertheless, the report builds on the best available secondary data, presents new data on the country's wealth composition, and derives new results on the costs of water and air pollution.

London-based New Forests Company (NFC) would seem to be the design blueprint of how a young modern company should conduct a major land investment in Africa in a responsible way. Oxfam’s investigations reveal that serious allegations by people who were evicted from land to make way for NFC’s operations remain unresolved. How will the company respond?

The Joint Forest Management circular that took the National Forest Policy (1988) as its basis for people’s involvement in the development and protection of forests, issued more than 18 years ago, has failed in its attempt to utilise forest wealth to improve local livelihoods. The structure of the JFM is skewed towards the forest department and needs to be balanced with equal opportunities and rights to the participating communities.

Author pesents the critical issues of Joint Forest Management in this article.

The  study is focused on RS and GIS based assessment of forest encroachment in Shimoga district of Karnataka for the years 1990, 2000 and 2010 using Landsat TM/MSS/ETM+ for 1990 and 2000, mid south western part of malnad region of Karnataka state, geographically lies between 13°27' and 14°39' N latitudes and 74°38' and 76°4'E longitudes.

In contrast to the more spectacular ‘land grabs’ for tourism development, the smaller-scale, progressive encroachment by tourist establishments into protected environments has attracted little attention in the literature. This article seeks to highlight the issue by a case study of the Thai authorities’ crackdown on resorts and second homes encroaching upon protected forests in a national park area in Thailand.

The Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) supported a scoping study to understand the range of post CFR issues in the central Indian landscape,  especially in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. It also proactively sought to draw experiences from states such as Maharashtra and Kerala where established mechanisms related to post CFR issues have been implemented through various partnerships.

The study was undertaken to identify pertinent and emerging issues that have implications for biodiversity conservation and livelihoods and the inter-relationship between them. A detailed review of the current national and state policies was undertaken along with the strategies being implemented by the government and various multi-lateral and bi-lateral agencies and other organizations, focused especially in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa as provided in the scope of the study.

Likewise other tribal areas, the community in Kanker, Hazaribagh and Koraput have also been facing challenges emerged due to climate variability and change. While rainfed agriculture in small and marginal land is the main livelihood practice, the NTFPs provides subsistent food, nutrition and income security round the year. The fluctuation in rainfall pattern over the year and during monsoon season, higher summer temperature and long dry period are impacting the livelihood resources, hence the food security.