Monitoring of soil moisture dynamics provides valuable information about grassland degradation, since soil moisture directly affects vegetation cover. While the Mongolian soil moisture monitoring network is limited to the urban and protected natural areas, remote sensing data can be used to determine the soil moisture status elsewhere.

Public participation in environmental impact assessment (EIA) often falls short of the requirements of best practice in the move towards sustainable development, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalized communities. This paper explores the value of a participatory rural appraisal (PRA) approach for improved public participation in a sample of EIA’s for photovoltaic projects in South Africa. PRA was conducted post facto making use of selected PRA tools.

This article considers research conducted on the impact of the Crown’s treaty claims settlement policy on Māori in New Zealand. It provides a brief background to the Treaty of Waitangi and the subsequent British colonisation process that relied on the Doctrine of Discovery in breach of the treaty. It outlines how colonisation dispossessed Māori of 95 percent of their lands and resources, usurped Māori power and authority and left them in a state of poverty, deprivation and marginalisation while procuring considerable wealth, prosperity and privilege for British settlers.

Intensification of rainfed agriculture in the Ethiopian highlands has resulted in soil degradation and hardpan formation, which has reduced rooting depth, decreased deep percolation, and increased direct runoff and sediment transport. The main objective of this study was to assess the potential impact of subsoiling on surface runoff, sediment loss, soil water content, infiltration rate, and maize yield.

Cultivated land is closely related to national food security, rural economic development and social stability. The cultivated land pollution and carbon emissions caused by chemical fertilizers, pesticides, film residues, etc., in the process of cultivated land utilization pose a serious threat to the cultivated land ecosystem in China. The comprehensive analysis on the cultivated land green utilization efficiency (GUECL), its influencing factors, and optimization direction provides a valuable basis for the green utilization of cultivated land.

Turbulent periods of transition from socialism to neoliberal capitalism, which have affected the relationships between holders of power and governing structures in Serbia, have left a lasting impact on the urban spaces of Belgrade’s cityscape. The typical assumption is that the transformation of the urban form in the post-socialist transition is induced by planning interventions which serve to legitimize these neoliberal aspirations.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi, signed between Māori rangatira (chiefs) and the British Crown in 1840 guaranteed to Māori the ‘full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands’. In the decades that followed, Māori were systematically dispossessed of all but a fraction of their land through a variety of mechanisms, including raupatu (confiscation), the individualisation of title, excessive Crown purchasing and the compulsory acquisition of land for public works.

Ifugao province of the Philippines has a traditional muyong forest system that supplies water and prevents soil erosion of the world-famous Ifugao rice terraces. The socio-political structure of Ifugao has been the key to the maintenance and communal use of land, as well as the muyong forest, without causing excessive damage to the land. Recently, the Ifugao is facing various challenges viz. deforestation, slash-and-burn, introduction of commercial rice, and climate change.

The planting of sand-binding vegetation in the Qinghai Lake watershed at the northeastern edge of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau began in 1980. For this paper, we took the desert on the eastern shore of Qinghai Lake as the study area. We analyzed a variety of aged Hippophae rhamnoides communities and aeolian activities, and we discuss the relationship between them. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) With an increasing number of binding years, the species composition became more abundant, natural vegetation began to recover, and biodiversity increased year by year.

For historical reasons, Kenya inherited a highly skewed system of land ownership at independence in 1963. British colonialism in Kenya was not merely administrative. Rather, it was accompanied by massive and widespread land alienation for the benefit of settler agriculture. As a result the best agricultural land-the White Highlands and the adjacent rangelands were taken from the Africans, without compensation, and parceled out to white settlers. Colonial legislation was enacted to legalize this process.

The Civil Society commends the Ministry of Lands for spearheading the important process of developing the Draft National Policy, and affirms that land is central to the livelihoods of most Kenyans and as such its access, use, ownership, administration and distribution are of key national concern. Thus, having critically examined the Draft Policy we do hereby make our position on the way forward on the salient policy proposals of the Draft National Land Policy document.

The Land Sector Non State Actors (LSNSA) is a network of civil society organizations working together to promote secure and equitable access to land and natural resource for all through advocacy, dialogue and capacity building. We petition parliament on issues we hold to be of fundamental importance in the context and content of the two bills before the National Assembly.