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Displaying 571 - 575 of 1605Contested institutions? Traditional leaders and land access and control in communal areas of Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
The South African government has endeavoured to strengthen property rights in communal areas and develop civil society institutions for community-led development and natural resource management. However, the effectiveness of this remains unclear as the emergence and operation of civil society institutions in these areas is potentially constrained by the persistence of traditional authorities. Focusing on the former Transkei region of Eastern Cape Province, three case study communities are used examine the extent to which local institutions overlap in issues of land access and control.
Carbon blinkers and policy blindness: The difficulties of ‘Growing Our Woodland in Wales’
The need for climate change mitigation has led to a recent upsurge in policies aimed to deliver re-afforestation across the globe, but with mixed successes observed depending upon the levels of private land ownership and ability of governments to engage land managers. This paper evaluates a new government-led scheme in Wales, which is intended to increase woodland cover from 14% to 20% by 2030 to offset the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
Determinants of agricultural land abandonment in post-Soviet European Russia
The breakdown of socialism caused massive socio-economic and institutional changes that led to substantial agricultural land abandonment. The goal of our study was to identify the determinants of agricultural land abandonment in post-Soviet Russia during the first decade of transition from a state-controlled economy to a market-driven economy (1990–2000). We analyzed the determinants of agricultural land abandonment for approximately 150,550km² of land area in the provinces (oblasts) of Kaluga, Rjazan, Smolensk, Tula and Vladimir in European Russia.
Mammal defaunation as surrogate of trophic cascades in a biodiversity hotspot
Preserving large tracts of natural habitats is essential to maintain biodiversity. Nevertheless, even large areas may still suffer from less “visible” impacts such as loss of ecological processes. Because mapping ecological processes over large scales is not practical, an alternative is to map surrogate species that are key for those processes.
Policy options to address global land use change from biofuels
The use of biofuels can increase land competition, leading to global land use change (LUC). LUC poses risks such as increased greenhouse gas emissions and food prices. The magnitude of the risk is uncertain, but could be significant. Given these uncertainties and risks, we suggest that policymakers pursue a mix of the following three strategies: (1) promote feedstocks that rely less on land; (2) reduce LUC risk for land-using feedstocks; and (3) stimulate investments that increase land productivity and environmental protection.