Protecting the world’s remaining tropical forest cover from natural resource extraction is essential if the worst of climate change is to be avoided, and the rights of people who depend on those forests are to be respected. For this to happen, politicians have to see political advantage in voting for laws and budgets that promote such protection.

The Zoigê grasslands may greatly benefit from removing the fences that divide them, but entrenched interests and government policy are pushing in the other direction, reports Feng Hao

According to a report, authorising the indigenous communities’ land titles can improve forest management and carbon storage

Recognising land tenures of indigenous communities and their management rights over forests can help tackle climate change, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that’s yet to be made public.

A conservation group has purchased almost 400 square miles of land in a project that could offer a new model to protect natural environments

WASHINGTON - Private investors have backed what supporters say is one of the largest conservation acquisitions ever in the eastern United States, offering a promising new model to protect land.

• The highly climate- and biodiversity-friendly agricultural practice of agroforestry is now practiced widely around the world, but its roots are deeply indigenous.
• Agroforestry is the practice of growing of trees, shrubs, herbs, and vegetables together in a group mimicking a forest, and its originators were indigenous peoples who realized that growing useful plants together created a system where each species benefited the others.
• Agroforestry is now estimated to cover one billion hectares globally and sequester over 45 gigatons of carbon from the

From 'smart tractors' to better land rights, farmers need different ways to adapt

The effects of climate change are already being felt across the agricultural sector. Drought has left India’s farmlands crippled. Prolonged flooding has left many U.S. farmers in the Midwest unable to plant their crops. Elsewhere, cyclones in the spring decimated Mozambique’s fields and left millions without food. 

• After defeating a plan to turn much of the Aru Islands into a series of giant sugar plantations, indigenous people in the eastern Indonesian archipelago are mulling how to raise their standard of living without sacrificing their rich environment.
• Time may be short: Indonesia’s minister of agriculture appears to be pushing another corporate-backed agribusiness plan in Aru involving Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad, an up-and-coming tycoon better known as Haji Isam.

The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) held in Bonn, Germany, aimed to rally behind a new approach to achieving a future that is more inclusive and sustainable than the present—through the establishment of secure and proper rights for all.

On June 22 and 23, experts, political leaders, nongovernment organizations, and indigenous peoples and communities gathered to deliberate on a methodology that emphasizes on rights for indigenous peoples and local communities in the management and perseveration of landscapes.

Sociological study finds pros and cons in a REDD+ carbon credit scheme in the Brazilian Amazon that rewards small-scale ecosystem service providers in local communities.

• To safeguard the almost 90 percent of its land still covered with forest, the small Brazilian state of Acre implemented a carbon credit scheme that assigns monetary value to stored carbon in the standing trees and rewards local “ecosystem service providers” for their role protecting it.

From the gases emitted through a car’s tailpipe to the tree biomass stored in the Amazon, carbon is no doubt the leading indicator of climate change today. But does a ton of carbon emitted by an aircraft 10 kilometers above the North Atlantic really equate to a ton of carbon stored in a mangrove forest in Indonesia – and, more importantly, can one really be ‘offset’ by another?

The AU-EU Youth Hub is calling on all civil society organisations to submit concept notes for the AU-EU Youth Hub Call for Proposals.

The Call makes available EUR 10 million in 7 lots:
Culture, Arts and Sports
Peace and Security
Governance and Political Inclusion (Accountability)
Governance and Political Inclusion (Remittances)
Environment Preservation and Climate Change
Education and Skills
Business, Job Creation and Entrepreneurship

ABIDJAN - Every other day, Kouakou Marie Laure wakes up at 1am to fetch water for her family.

The mother of three carries a bucket on her head back and forth to the nearest affordable water source, a couple of kilometres away, about a dozen times to replenish the family's 200-litre tank.

The water usually lasts through two days of drinking, bathing, cleaning, and washing clothes.