In the last 25 years, almost 50 million hectares of primary forest have been lost due to deforestation. Numerous international initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration on Forests have set ambitious goals to restore degraded and deforested lands by 2030. Realizing global commitments on forest and landscape restoration (FLR) will require the establishment of billions of trees on millions of hectares of degraded land to address the triple crisis of biodiversity loss, climate change and failing food systems.

Climate change and conflicts co-exist in many countries with significant welfare and socio-environmental implications. Different approaches are being promoted to adapt and build resilience to these fragilities including the adoption of sustainable farm practices that have the potential to increase agricultural productivity and maintain environmental sustainability.

Agricultural expansion-led deforestation in Uganda is one of the highest of the world. At the same time, internal migration patterns are strongly inter-linked with agricultural dynamics in the country, as migrants are involved in crop production activities and traditionally play important roles in major crop value chains. Migration for agricultural purposes may complicate the already difficult trade-off between agricultural development and forest preservation. This article investigates how internal migration and commercial agriculture shape deforestation patterns across Uganda.

Introduction

Rivers are the arteries of human civilisation and culture, providing essential goods and services that underpin water and food security, socio-economic development and climate resilience. They also support an extraordinary diversity of biological life. Human appropriation of land and water together with changes in climate have jointly driven rapid declines in river health and biodiversity worldwide, stimulating calls for an Emergency Recovery Plan for freshwater ecosystems.

The Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) is a joint initiative of the African Union Commission, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and the African Development Bank, that is conferred the mandate from the African Union Decision Assembly/AU/Dec.134 (VIII) of the 8th Ordinary Session in 2007, to support climate interventions in African countries. The initiative hosts the annual conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA).

Integrated landscape approaches have been welcomed by scientists and development practitioners as a promising way to address commodity-driven deforestation and associated land degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. They present cross-sectoral approaches to manage trade-offs between multiple land uses and environmental and socio-economic objectives through participatory multi-stakeholder planning and negotiation processes. The success of landscape approaches depends on the larger institutional systems of rules, regulations, and actor networks in which they are embedded.

In this document we present a general characterization of the food systems in the department of Caquetá, Colombia, based on a review of the literature, with a particular emphasis on livestock and cocoa.

Tropical peatlands lie at a nexus of competing sustainable development demands of enhancing food security, mitigating climate change, improving resilience and supporting rural livelihoods. Meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires balancing these various demands. Progress in meeting SDGs has been slow in low to middle income countries because of difficulties in identifying and quantifying the trade offs associated with natural resource exploitation, including on extensive areas of tropical peatlands.

This document summarizes the EAFF report on 'African climate processes, actors and institutions: What this means for farmers.'

The first edition of HER Voice, the official newsletter of the CGIAR gender equality research initiative (HER+) highlights the significant strides made by HER+. Our achievements include the development of a gendered social norms index, a pioneering framework for women-led climate-smart socio-technical innovation bundles, a comprehensive review of gendered resilience through social protection design, and the unveiling of the Women’s Empowerment in Agrifood System Governance Assessment Tool (WEAGov).

The potential for profitable groundwater irrigated area development in Nigeria is 5.04 million hectares (ha), almost all of it located in the country’s central and northern states. To develop this vast area, granular water budgets, financial service provision and support to grow sustainability of production will be needed.