The CFS Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems – known as RAI – are a set of ten principles that apply to all types and sizes of agricultural investment including fisheries, forests and livestock. They address all stakeholders and apply to all stages of the value chain. As a soft law instrument they are globally applicable and include actions to address a range of environmental, social and economic issues.

The most controversial aspect of the census recently held in Burma has been the denial of the large Muslim population in Arakan to identify themselves as Rohingya, the term of their choice. The government ban means as many as one million people remain uncounted in Arakan. That is scarcely surprising, as the Burmese government, Rakhine ultra-nationalists and seemingly a majority of the Burmese population have denied for years the existence of the Rohingya identity.

Recognizing the importance and
uniqueness of the Sundarbans, the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
declared the Indian portion of the forest a World Heritage
Site in 1987, and the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program
has included the Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve in the Global
Network of Island and Coastal Biosphere Reserves
Contributing to Action on Climate Change and Sustainable

Are the household characteristics that
are good for transition to a more diversified
market-oriented development process in Vietnam also
important for reducing poverty? Or are there tradeoffs? The
determinants of both poverty incidence and participation in
rural off-farm activities are modeled as functions of
household and community characteristics using comprehensive
national household surveys for 1993 and 1998. Despite some

CIFOR Infobrief no. 77

In Big Men, director Rachel Boynton has achieved a tour-de-force of documentary filmmaking. Taking a large, complex and much-contested phenomenon -- the oil business as it is conducted in under-developed countries such as Ghana and Nigeria -- she has crafted an edge-of-your-seat, character-driven drama that is also a clear and enlightening film about the global dealings behind petroleum, a crucial resource that touches everyone's life.

Like other regions of the world, Africa
is beginning to experience the impacts of human-induced
climate change. These observed changes in climate parameters
have not occurred uniformly across Africa. Mitigation is
concerned with reducing the level of greenhouse gas
emissions in the Earth's atmosphere that are the
principal causes of climate change. Adaptation is concerned
not with prevention but, in the words of the

Traditional agrosilvopastoral systems have been an important component of the farming systems and livelihoods of thousands of ethnic minority people in the uplands of Mainland Southeast Asia. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and participatory inquiries in nine ethnic minority communities, this study emphasizes the complex articulation of local farmers’ knowledge which has been so far excluded from governmental development and conservation policies in the northern uplands of Thailand and Laos.

The urban and the rural are increasingly interconnected. Rural areas have become places of consumption, as leisure and recreation have become important functions of rural areas. There are also indications that increased urbanisation even leads to a stronger appreciation of green areas situated far beyond city limits. Rural areas with their highly valued natural amenities nowadays seem increasingly to host urban wellbeing, given the positive relation found between green areas and human wellbeing.

As many as two in three people worldwide believe that ordinary citizens can make a difference in the fight against corruption. Whether it’s taking on an abusive school system, exposing a crooked driving instructor or blocking the re-election of a corrupt mayor, these individuals are demonstrating their power to bring about lasting change in their communities.

The food security of more than 80% of Tanzania’s population and the country’s economic growth depend on family farming on certifi ed village lands. Realizing importance of smallholder’s roles in food security and economic development, the government introduced Village Land Use Planning (VLUP) as a tool towards sustainable family farming in support of green growth – a strategy for sustainably improving productivity within degrading natural resources.

Executive summary: