Charles Batchelor explaining how the traditional Indian concept of water as a community resource has been replaced by a system of private wells, so restricting the access of poorer people to water.

The thesis of this paper is that the "rational fool" syndrome can be applied to mainstream public sector agricultural research that is conducted in a way that is rational in the short term, but acts against its own long-term viability. Historically, a main concern of such research has been to maximize high levels of food production together with low prices to consumers. As a result, mainstream agricultural science has ignored negative impacts or externalities, which has contributed to a crisis of credibility with the general public and politically sensitive decision makers.

In Indonesia, rapid deforestation is affecting local populations’ access to forest, yet little information is available about the impacts of deforestation on highly forest-dependent populations. To better understand these potential impacts, this document reports on economic and cultural uses of the forest for three villages in the Sub-District of Pujungan in East Kalimantan, using data from household suveys conducted in 1996.

This documents contains technical information related experiences of people who have struggled ? and sometimes failed - to keep their rights to their land. There are examples from Cameroon, Malawi, Zimbabwe and The Gambia.

If a woman loses her husband, she is also at risk, in many countries, of losing the land and property on which her survival depends. Prisca Ngum, a widow in Cameroon, describes her experience, and questions the tradition that widows should have no rights to their late husband?s property.

This note is part of an on-going effort to gain insights to impact assessment and research uptake literature of relevance to natural resource management-related research. It is provided more for the reference list than for the merit of the associated text that is still at an early stage. Many more references have been collected but have yet to be screened for their potential relevance.

This summary report outlines the seminar approach and the problems relating to the development of irrigation..

Building roads can bring new opportunities to remote and poorly developed areas, but for people whose land they cross, they can be very costly. This report covers a road building project in Cameroon, where farmers reacted angrily to a new road, especially as they were not properly compensated for their losses.

For much of the last century the Fengu people living near Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, have held title deeds to their land. In this report the chief of the Fengu explains how the title deeds have helped them, and how his people are responding to the current land redistribution programme in Zimbabwe.

Jin Jokwi Simon, the provincial chief for water and sanitation in North West Cameroon, explaining that irrigated agriculture may soon raise the issue of water rights in the province.

Malinau District, established through partition in 1999, is the largest district in East Kalimantan and contains some of its largest tracts of forest. With decentralization, the district has sought to generate revenues from its forests, but these efforts have been handicapped by a concurrent lack of institutional capacities to manage rapid forest exploitation and conflicts over claims. Timber extraction and utilization permits (Izin Pemungutan dan Pemanfaatan Kayu or IPPK) have been the main instrument for revenue generation, with 39 IPPK covering 56,000 ha.