This document is a collection of essays which survey the controversial aspects of the management of water resources in urban areas in view of the increasing urbanisation and privatisation of water services. It addresses and characterises the conflicts that arise within large human settlements…

The promotion of forestry activities is seen as a means by which to reduce poverty while protecting the environment. But if clearing of forests for agricultural activities can prove more profitable, will such efforts be effective? Through an analysis of the relative benefits of agriculture and…

Hundreds of millions of people in Asia are dependent on shifting cultivation, yet the practice has tended to be seen in a negative light and discouraged by policy makers. This document challenges prevailing assumptions, arguing that shifting cultivation – if properly practised – is actually a ‘…

‘Poor soils make poor people, and poor people make soils worse’. This is a situation that can be seen in many ACP countries. What information support can be offered...

This publication reflects the outcome of an ambitious initiative to identify instances of exemplary forest management in the region and examine the core components of high quality forest management in an effort to illustrate good forest management to a wide audience and encourage others to take…

Coinciding with the launch of a new international campaign calling for TOTAL’s withdrawal from Burma, this report gathers together much of the available evidence relating to TOTAL’s role in fuelling the oppressive dictatorship in Burma. It explores human rights abuses associated with TOTAL’s gas…

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. It identifies and analysis the genesis and operation of institutional arrangements, forms of organisation, rules, and standards and…

Today, many rural poor Filipinos are using state law to try to claim land rights. In spite of the availability of a much stronger set of legal resources than ever before, claiming legal land rights remains difficult. Some argue these difficulties are a reason to turn away from state-led land…

Previously in China, all land was controlled by the communes. Over the past twenty years, with the break up of the communes, new land tenure arrangements have given greater control over land to individual households. This essay argues that recent transfers in land tenure between households have…

Over the past two decades, political developments as well as macro-economic and extra-sectoral policies have affected the forests of Asia and the Pacific to an unprecedented extent, resulting in deforestation and forest degradation. Responding to the diminishing capacity of the region's…

Over the past two decades, political developments as well as macro-economic and extra-sectoral policies have affected the forests of Asia and the Pacific to an unprecedented extent, resulting in deforestation and forest degradation. Responding to the diminishing capacity of the region's…