This report presents the findings of an international fact finding mission to assess human rights, social and environmental impacts of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BYC) oil pipeline, which BP and other companies (as part of the BTC Consortium) are currently building in order to bring oil from Caspian Sea oilfields to Western markets.

This report exposes how these last precious forests in the Indonesian archipelago, particularly in the province of Papua are being felled illegally and sold off wholesale to China, which is now the largest consumer of stolen timber in the world.It highlights the following points:there is a complex web of middlemen and financiers from across the region responsible for masterminding the theft of Indonesia’s forests, including timber barons in Jakarta, officials on their payrolls, multinational companies in Malaysia, brokers in Singapore and log dealers in Hong Kong in just a few short years,

This new report from FAO and CIFOR challenges the conventional wisdom linking large-scale flooding to deforestation. The report acknowledges that forests can play a role in minimising runoff that causes localised flooding. But it concludes that there is no evidence that a loss of trees significantly contributes to severe widespread flooding. Even at the local level, the report notes, the flood-reducing effects of forests are heavily dependent on soil depth and structure, and saturation levels, not exclusively on the presence of the trees.

Using the case study of the Telugu Ganga Canalin India, this paper examines the process of policy making and the role of political choices in sharing scarce water resource.

This report investigates how Dutch public money is being used to support oil production in developing countries through Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) such as the World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and other International Financial Institutions (IFIs). It notes that the Dutch government contributes to MDBs in two ways: through financial contributions using public money and by voting on the boards of the banks.Three case studies demonstrate that recent oil projects financed by the Dutch government and MDBs are failing the poor.

This document takes a historical view of the relations between individual and collective actors in local water management in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam.

UK aid money is creating an "oil curse" for developing economies, according to this new report published by Friends of the Earth, Plan B and Platform Research. Pumping Poverty accuses DFID of an aid policy that is incoherent, fails the people it is design

This article discusses the case for an international treaty on animal genetic resources, confirming that one-third of the world’s livestock breeds are now endangered.

Land degradation is a severe problem across sub-Saharan Africa, and Ethiopia is among the most affected countries. To stop further land degradation, the government of Ethiopia has initiated a number of projects including soil and water conservation works and the establishment of Area Enclosures (AEs) with the financial assistance of international donors, mainly the World Food Program (Betru, 2003).

The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India, enacted fifty years ago, allows autonomy to tribal communities in administrative, legislative and financial matters and was supposed to protect them from domination and exploitation by external forces. This paper examines the extent to which self-governance by tribal groups facilitated sustainability of common resources, especially forests, in the hill regions of North East India.

This extensive FAO assessment of global forest resources, describes the extent, uses and value of forest resources covering 229 countries and territories between 1990 and 2005.

This tool aims to support the scrutiny and the improvement of positive outcomes of laws for rural communities. It explores the reasons behind variable practical outcomes (good, average and bad) then suggests changes in how to develop laws, put them into practice or enforce them.