While food and nutrition security are issues that national and international organizations are tackling, one of the central problems often overlooked is the essential role of soils in providing nutritious food. Soils are the base for food production and food security. However, the majority of soils are in fair and poor conditions, with the most significant threats being erosion and loss of nutrients.

La agenda de la Madre Tierra está en el centro del debate nacional e internacional no solo porque es un planeamiento fundamental de la Constitución sino porque el mundo se enfrenta al reto de evitar la destrucción del planeta. Bolivia se presentó en la arena internacional como el país con reformas normativas más radicales, adoptando varios instrumentos internaciones en materia ambiental. Sin embargo, pronto hemos sido testigos de cómo lo escrito se aleja de las prácticas extractivas que se profundizaron en menos de una década.

This guide examines the role and responsibilities of private sector lawyers when advising their clients on agricultural investments. It discusses how lawyers can prevent and/or address and mitigate adverse human rights impacts on holders of legitimate tenure rights when advising on or conducting their due diligence and risk assessment processes on behalf of their clients. It provides a number of key recommendations, including on how to align legal advice with the VGGT and CFS-RAI.

Le Togo a connu une forte croissance économique dont la poursuite devra être soutenue par l’amélioration du secteur foncier. La croissance économique de plus de 5% annuellement depuis 2009 est parmi les meilleurs du continent. Cette évolution s’est accompagnée d’une réduction de la pauvreté qui demeure cependant élevée à environ 55% (2015). La ville de Lomé a été l’un des piliers de ce développement, servant de base arrière au Port de Lomé, principal moteur de l’économie du pays.

Land cover data is widely used for the design and monitoring of land use policies despite the incapability of this type of data to represent multiple land uses and land management activities within the same landscape. In this study, we operationalized the concept of land systems for the case of the Lao PDR (Laos). Distinct land systems like shifting cultivation and plantations (land concessions) cannot be fully captured by land cover inventories alone, in spite of their relevance for land use policies.

This paper provides details of soil and water conservation (SWC) investments in Ethiopia over the past 20 years. It presents SWC practices and estimates the level of SWC investments in different regions. The paper focuses on four principal agricultural regions: Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray. Primary and secondary data were collected for the analysis, and consultations were conducted at regional levels. Primary data on diverse SWC practices, their numbers and areal extent were obtained from the archives of regional Bureaus of Agriculture (BoAs).

This study investigated the implications of large-scale land concessions in the Red River Delta, Vietnam, and Northeast Cambodia with regard to urban and agricultural frontiers, agrarian transitions, migration, and places from which the migrant workers originated.

Increasing global demand for natural rubber began in the mid-2000s and led to large-scale expansion of plantations in Laos until rubber latex prices declined greatly beginning in 2011. The expansion of rubber did not, however, occur uniformly across the country. While the north and central Laos experienced mostly local and smallholder plantations, rubber expansion in the south was dominated by transnational companies from Vietnam, China and Thailand through large-scale land concessions, often causing conflicts with local communities.

Agricultural land conversion (ALC) is an incentive-driven process. In this paper, we further investigate the inter-relationship between land economic value (LEV) and ALC. To achieve this goal, we calculated the LEV for agricultural and non-agricultural (housing) uses in two areas of East Java, Indonesia. The first area represents peri-urban agriculture, which is facing rapid urbanization and experiencing a high rate of ALC. The second area represents rural agriculture, with zero ALC. Furthermore, we identified factors affecting LEV in both areas for both uses.

Indigenous knowledge about biodiversity and conservation is valuable and can be used to sustainably manage protected areas; however, indigenous communities continue to be marginalized due to the belief that their values and behaviors do not align with the overarching mission of conservation. This paper explores the extent of local knowledge and awareness of biodiversity, conservation and protected area management of indigenous communities at Khuvsgol Lake National Park, Mongolia.

At present, 10.5% of Canada’s land base is under some form of formal protection. Recent developments indicate Canada aims to work towards a target of protecting 17% of its terrestrial and inland water area by 2020. Canada is uniquely positioned globally as one of the few nations that has the capacity to expand the area under its protection. In addition to its formally protected areas, Canada’s remote regions form de facto protected areas that are relatively free from development pressure.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This report presents a synthesis of the main findings from case studies carried out in six countries in Africa (Ghana, Sierra Leone, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia) and Asia (Laos and Philippines). The findings were disseminated and discussed in multistakeholder initiatives at regional and country level. The report illustrates how poor rural women and men are affected differently by agricultural investments, and demonstrates that they may not benefit equally from emerging opportunities.