The capacity of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) forests to sequestrate carbon has attracted interest from the international community to protect forests for carbon storage and alleviate rural poverty by establishing REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Using information gathered from interviews, focus groups, field observations, and policy document analysis, this paper demonstrates that REDD+ is not well adapted to the institutional structures of forest governance in the DRC, including both statutory and customary tenure.

Studies on the enabling factors for household food security (HFS) most often used simplified econometric models looking into the links with a selected set of variables. In this research, a livelihood approach of HFS was used and aimed at determining the most significant livelihood assets for HFS in dryland agricultural systems. Elements of the five livelihood assets were assessed through questionnaire surveys with a random sample of 180 households, and six focus group discussions in three communities along the rural-urban continuum, in Southern Mali.

Land provides a host of ecosystem services, of which the provisioning services are often
considered paramount. As the demand for agricultural products multiplies, other ecosystem services
are being degraded or lost entirely. Finding a sustainable trade-off between food production and
one or more of other ecosystem services, given the variety of stakeholders, is a matter of optimizing
land use in a dynamic and complex socio-ecological system. Land degradation reduces our options