This information paper illustrates sustainable dryland management practises in communities vulnerable to climate change with case studies in India and the Sudan.In both cases the adaptation programme is presented, including infrastructural strategy and social involvement, followed by results of the programme, subsequent impact on the community and examples of further achievements and successes in local areas.

Governments and scientists have long regarded the pastoralists’ way of life as a cause of environmental degradation. This belief is rooted in a misunderstanding of the pastoralist way of life and is reflected in national policies on land tenure and resource access in Kenya. The area of land controlled by pastoralists has been steadily reduced, and pastoralists have been encouraged to give up their nomadic way of life and settle, leading to conflict between pastoralist groups and other land users and damage to the environment.

This report highlights issues discussed in the 2002 RIIA workshop. It demonstrates the challenges faced in the creation and implementation of agreements with stakeholders on economic and environmental areas of sustainable development in the extractive industry. The report highlights key issues discussed relating to maximising economic benefits and minimising negative environmental impacts.

The paper begins by outlining Chinese grassland policy in the reform period and then describes key aspects of actual local level arrangements for grassland management. This description is based on the authors’ field studies at different sites on the Tibetan plateau (within Sichuan and Yunnan Province and the Tibetan Autonomous Region) and Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region1. A considerable difference between grassland policy and local-level arrangements is found, and the next section justifies these arrangements in terms of the social, ecological and economic context.

What does community based natural resource management (CBNRM) mean for Mozambique's poor?Through the case study of Derre Forest Reserve in Zambezia province, this paper explores the theory and practice of CBNRM, an approach which has been widely promoted in southern Africa, and is central to elements of the Mozambican forestry and wildlife policy of 1999.The paper examines the history of community involvement in forest use in the reserve, and the changing nature of local organisations.

Joint Forest Management (JFM) has been an important step for improving amangement and governance of forests in India. However, conflicts and conflict resolution arrangements in the JFM framework are one area where there is urgent need for attention.

This paper presents information illustrating how trade in timber, gems, and gold is financing violent conflict, including widespread and gross human rights abuses, in Burma.

Legislation was passed in India in 1992 imparting constitutional status on Panchayati Raj (village-level local government) institutions. This study attempts to assess the success and sustainability of such local institutions (particularly Village Forest Committees) in their attempts to rehabilitate common lands in the Aravalli hills in Haryana State, and to enact a transition from an ‘open access’ system to a community controlled regulated access system for governing the use of these lands.

This article attempts to assess whether the promises of the Joint Forest Planning and Management (JFPM) programme initiated in the Indian state of Karnataka in 1993 have materialised in terms of villagers managing their common lands sustainably, equitably and autonomously.

This report summarises two separate Friends of the Earth reports on, respectively, the increasing demand for palm oil in developed countries, and the social and environmental impacts of palm oil cultivation in Southeast Asia - focussing particularly on Indonesia.

This article describes the effects of conflict on the environment and environmental management, focussing on Lesotho, a country historically affected by environmental degradation problems such as devegetation, soil erosion, and desertification.

This Policy Brief is the first in the series and introduces ASB and the issues it deals with.