... Karenni people celebrated three kinds of pole festivals in a year. The first one is called Tya-Ee-Lu-Boe-Plya. During this festival, the people went to their paddy fields, vegetable farms, picked the premature fruits and brought it to the Ee-Lu-pole. They put the premature fruits on altar, thank god and then pray for good fruits and good harvest. The second one called Tya-Ee-Lu-Phu-Seh. In this festival they pray god to bless the teenagers with good conducts, and good healths. The third one is Tya-Ee-Lu-Du. The festival concerned to everyone.

Draws from the Avante Consulta tool designed for the forestry sector and includes a tool in respect to consultation processes, which are mandatory in the context of the state taking decisions in relation to the award of land and natural resource rights to external investors. Consists of a set of steps that aim to empower the communities in these consultations. Designed to be applied in situations where the co-management of natural resources is being encouraged and the poor must compete with other, often stronger, stakeholders to ensure that their rights are recognized.

Highlights the role of European Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in possible land grabs and questionable forestry projects in Africa. Documents 9 cases involving 8 of the European DFIs in Cameroon, DR Congo, Sao Tome, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda. Raises the need for more independent research into these projects and for much more scrutiny of DFI investment portfolios, both by DFIs themselves and national parliaments. DFIs need to be placed under proper democratic scrutiny and their investments held to account by parliaments.

Recommendations of Land Policy Review Commission. Include qualification and capacity to hold title to land and to own land; outlawing gender discrimination on land; fallow and underutilised land; surveying, mapping and registration; block farming; commercial farming; range management; protection of wetlands; urban sites; rural development; institutions involved in land matters, including District and Local Land Boards; dispute resolution mechanisms; mining; forestry.

In Mozambique, changes in land access and use are shaping new landscapes, often at the expense of the poor. Despite progressive land legislation, elite groups and vested interests are consolidating land holdings while peasant producers are being dispossessed of their land and access to fertile plots is becoming increasingly difficult. As national and foreign investors seek land for housing, real estate, agriculture, tourism, mining and forestry, what is the state’s role in responding to these increased demands?

Foreign investment in Ethiopia’s forestry sector is currently limited, but agricultural investments that affect forests, largely through forest clearing, are commonplace. Describes the nature of forest investments and the challenges of implementing them. New tenure arrangements will have significant implications for communities on the forest-farm interface. Looks at Arsi Forest area, Oromia, to investigate potential for conflict over competing claims.

Critical shifts are affecting rural resource rights in Africa through widespread reform in land, forestry and other laws. The cutting edge of transformation affecting women is in emerging new provision for wives to hold family property as co-owners with their husbands, which could play a main role in revitalising smallholder agriculture. Recognition that equity in domestic land relations may ultimately be a prerequisite to the modernisation of subsistence agriculture in agrarian economies is the thesis underlying the analysis of legal texts in this paper.

Includes cultural contextualization on the use of land in Madagascar; legal framework: what rights’ protection for Malagasy peasants in the framework of land grabbing and the growing commercial pressure on land?; land, one resource, many drivers – energy, mining, forestry, pharmaceutical industry, tourism. Brings out the voices and testimonies of those directly involved including local communities who are victims of these land grabs in 5 regions – Ihorombe, Sofia, Alaotra Mangoro, Analanjirofo and Itasy and on the island of Nosy Be in the Diana region.

Includes a broader view of the global land grab; Southern Africa: under-utilised and opening up for business?; biofuels everywhere, but not enough to eat; extractive industries: mining and forestry; reversals and state capitalism in Zimbabwe; the next Great Trek? South Africans head north; where is the food?; towards a typology; reflecting on these trends: what fresh insights?; conclusions.

Existing approaches and methodologies that investigate effects of land degradation on food security vary greatly. Although a relatively rich body of literature that investigates localized experiences, geophysical and socioeconomic drivers of land degradation, and the costs and benefits of avoiding land degradation already exists, less rigorously explored are the global effects of restoring degraded landscapes.

The results of this study reveal that the full inclusion of crop production in the forest landscape restoration approach could produce largescale,
worldwide benefits for food security and therefore facilitate a wide uptake of restoration practices and the implementation of large
restoration projects. The positive impacts are multifaceted and significant in size: a reduction in malnourished children ranging from three
to six million; a reduced number of people at risk of hunger, estimated to be between 70 and 151 million; reduced pressure for expansion

This report examines evidence of illegal logging that Global Witness has submitted to the Royal Government of Cambodia as part of the Forest Crimes Monitoring and Reporting Project and reviews the action and inaction of the government in each of the cases