Public participation theory assumes that empowering communities leads to enduring support for new initiatives. The New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy, approved in 2000, embraces this assumption and includes goals for community involvement in resolving threats to native flora and fauna. Over the last 20 years, community-based ecological restoration groups have proliferated, with between 600 and 4000 identified. Many of these groups control invasive mammals, and often include protection of native species and species reintroductions as goals.

The National REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation-Plus) Strategy in Indonesia highlights the importance of local participation and the reform of land tenure in the success of forest conservation. National parks are a main target area for REDD+. National parks in Indonesia have been suffering from forest destruction and conflicts between governments and local communities.

Wetlands provide a diverse range of ecosystem services supporting livelihoods of many people. Despite their value, wetlands are continuously being degraded. There is scant information on individual wetlands, people’s dependency and their exploitation at a local scale. We therefore assessed wetland ecosystem services, the drivers of change and impacts of those drivers on ecosystem services and people’s dependency through a case study of the Maguri-Motapung Beel wetlands of Assam, India.

This paper consists of a review of existing literature relating to Incorporated Land Groups in Papua New Guinea (PNG), followed by a case study of two urban incorporated land groups (ILGs) in the city of Lae. The paper is an attempt at assessing the sustainability of ILGs in the country. The challenges facing the ILGs have heightened public fears that the land groups may not be sustainable.

Assessment of the progress of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the safeguarding of ecosystems from the perverse negative impacts caused by Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) requires the development of spatiotemporally robust and sensitive indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem health. Recently, it has been proposed that tree-community composition based on count-plot surveys could serve as a robust, sensitive, and cost-effective indicator for forest intactness in Bornean logged-over rain forests.

Fire is a naturally occurring process of most terrestrial ecosystems as well as a tool for changing land use. Since the beginning of history humans have used fire as a mechanism for creating areas suitable for agriculture and settlement. As fires threaten human dominated landscapes, fire risk itself has become a driver of landscape change, impacting landscapes through land use regulations and fire management. Land use changes also influence fire ignition frequency and fuel loads and hence alters fire regimes.

Urban-rural distinctions are particularly challenging in the context of fast growing cities in the developing world. Through an example of the Indian city of Bangalore, we demonstrate the case for development of more continuous approaches of urban representation that are needed in many parts of the world. Thus even some of the oldest areas in Bangalore, which have been part of an urban center for centuries, exhibit aspects of rurality, as much as other recently developing peri-urban parts of the city.

The United Nations and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deem many regions of southern Africa as vulnerable landscapes due to changing climatic regimes, ecological conditions, and low adaptive capacity. Typically in highly vulnerable regions, multiple livelihood strategies are employed to enable sustainable development. In Botswana, livelihood strategies have diversified over time to include tourism and other non-agricultural activities. While such diversification and development have been studied, little is known about how locals perceive livelihood risks.

Estimating deforested areas and deforestation rates have become key steps for quantifying environmental services of tropical rain forests, particularly as linked to programs such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). In Southeastern Peru, reliable estimates of land-cover change (LCC) are important for monitoring changes in the landscape due to agricultural expansion, pasture creation and other socio-economic influences triggered by the Inter-Oceanic Highway (IOH).

Internal displacement in Kenya is a complex and multi-faceted social problem that revolves around and reflects unresolved issues of land and property, as well as the struggle for the control of political and economic resources. (...)

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A BILL for AN ACT of Parliament to provide a framework for the contracting, exploration, development and production of petroleum; cessation of upstream petroleum operations; to give effect to relevant articles of the Constitution in so far as they apply to upstream petroleum operations; and for connected purposes.

Women face many problems with regard to land inheritance and land rights in Kenya. Individual and community land ownership do not favour women. The reason for this is that ownership of land is patrilineal, which means that fathers share land amongst sons, while excluding daughters. This practice is traditionally widespread and partly accepted although it goes against the interest of women and is prohibited by the constitution.