The advance of the agricultural frontier constitutes the biggest source of deforestation in Central America today. This conversion of tropical forests into agricultural land and pasture is the direct result of individual land use decisions. This paper presents a simple analytical model of household land use, followed by an econometric analysis of household survey data from the Río San Juan region of Nicaragua in order to test for consistency with the model.

This brief explores the reform of land tenure institutions which re-emerged in the 1990s, and asks if these reforms are any more gender sensitive than those of the past?The paper highlights that a focus of the recent reforms has been on land titling, designed to promote security of tenure and stimulate land markets. The reforms have often been driven by domestic and external neoliberal coalitions, with funding from global and regional organisations which have argued that private property rights are essential for a dynamic agricultural sector.

There is a common view and belief that women are the ones that do the farming in Africa while the men do not work much. This paper seeks to find explanations to why land productivity is lower on land rented out by female landlord households than on land rented out by male landlord households in the Ethiopian highlands. The authors find that female landlords have tenants who are older, own less oxen, are more related, and under longer-term contracts.

This working paper reviews historical and current factors and patterns affecting land use, land tenure, resource access, human settlement, and conflicts over resource access and tenure in the districts around Mt. Elgon in Kenya and Uganda. The paper draws on a series of interviews conducted with government officials in the districts along with other support sources such as paper maps and existing GIS databases.Based on this approach, the common findings from this study in the current setting of land tenure and land management are:

The main objective of the paper is to explore possible institutional arrangements among the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), Philippines, implementing agencies in a post-2008 transition scenario for CARP. There were three reasons cited for the implementation of the agrarian reform program, namely: (i) to increase productivity, (ii) to reduce inequality particularly in the countryside, and (iii) to address one of the main causes of the persistent Communist insurgency in the country.

This report presents an analysis of the synergies between environmental policies and the development of comprehensive environmental projects.

Land tenure security is crucial for women's empowerment and a prerequisite for building secure and resilient communities. Tenure is affected by many and often contradictory sets of rules, laws, customs, traditions, and perceptions. For most rural women, land tenure is complicated, with access and ownership often layered with barriers present in their daily realities: discriminatory social dynamics and strata, unresponsive legal systems, lack of economic opportunities, and lack of voice in decision making.

Redistributive land reform in southern Africa is reviewed against the background of the recent land crisis in the region. The dilemmas created for governments and donors are described, as are attempts to grapple with them. Answers are sought to four questions: What has been the experience with land redistribution in the region over the last decade or so? What has been the impact on people's livelihoods? How are redistribution programmes expected to develop in future?

Results from this study show that the over-used but under-researched association between grazing and land degradation in the Kalahari has been oversimplified. In typical Kalahari conditions, the ecological changes that have been brought about by grazing cannot be linked with more fundamental changes in ecosystem function. Basic soil processes appear relatively unaffected by grazing pressure outside the sacrifice zone, and there is no evidence to suggest that the resilience of the system has been affected through soil degradation.

Recently, new community-level institutions have emerged in Zambézia province, Mozambique, through land rights registration. Numerous rural groups have delimited their acquired land rights and established community-level management systems. This paper assesses the rise of these ‘new’ institutions and whether they have replicated, replaced, or been added on to the existing pattern of state and nonstate institutions and processes.The new communities have registered large swathes of land, but have had had a limited impact on development processes.

This paper examines the current wave of land tenure reform in eastern and southern Africa. It discusses how far tenure reform reflects a shift in powers over property from centre to periphery. A central question is whether tenure reform is designed to deliver to rural smallholders greater security of tenure and greater control over the regulation and transfer of these rights.Policy conclusions include:

The author explores the socio-economic dimension of forest resource use and management in the Mahabharat hill track of Arghakhanchi district in west Nepal.Analysis focuses on:various attributes of forest resources use and variation between regions, socio-economic and demographic groupslocal forest management systems and practices forest resource use and its related managementeconomic status of households focusing on the poverty-environment nexus.Major findings and conclusions from the overall study include:the extent, depth and severity of poverty is high - the incidence of poverty is foun