In the highly populated and diverse tropics, conservation in relatively pristine habitats is important but clearly inadequate for sustaining the earth biological diversity. Agro-forestry systems such as shade-coffee plantations that incorporate arboreal vegetation are known to be more resilient for biodiversity conservation than other more drastic land transformations.

The monograph examines the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel on making the Western Ghats eco sensitive zones in the light of Indian environment laws. The Indian environment debate of conservation and protection of biodiversity has been sustained by post colonial response that has two major opposing strands. The first is the cultural opposition characterised by the indigenous people of their homestead, religious and livelihood rights. The second is the opposition within the political and legal framework that has taken the judicial and policy making route.

Authors: Roe, D.; Sunderland, T.C.H

“Landscape approaches” seek to provide tools and concepts for allocating and managing land to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives in areas where agriculture, mining, and other productive land uses compete with environmental and biodiversity goals. Here we synthesize the current consensus on landscape approaches. This is based on published literature and a consensus-building process to define good practice and is validated by a survey of practitioners.

The Voluntary Guidelines for the Sustainable Management of Natural Tropical Forests constitute an international reference document for the development and improvement of national and subnational guidelines for the sustainable management of natural tropical forests. They also provide a reference on technical issues at the macro (landscape) and micro (forest management unit) scales.

Increasing demand for food, fiber and raw materials is putting more and more pressure on (often) fragile landscapes. Today, about one-fifth of all cultivated land suffers from some form of degradation, such as salinization, deforestation, erosion, excessive fertilizer use, waterlogging and poor nutrient availability (ELD Initiative 2015). Degradation often goes hand in hand with the worst poverty, affecting the lives, health and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.

Licuri is a highly valuable tree species, both to local ecosystems and in traditional cultural uses, with a clear commercial niche. Its productive and sustainable uses are directly linked to ecosystem conservation and women’s empowerment—which is being further developed to great success. Project partners are working together to increase the mechanization of the licuri harvesting and production process, aiming to lessen the time-burden on women and enhance their livelihood potential.

In Armenia, the forestry sector and forest restoration policy development and decision making in natural resources management processes have been shaped as a result of women’s historical every day practices—which are also often drivers of deforestation and degradation—and yet women’s direct participation in these matters is frequently neglected. Forests in Armenia are state property and the management system is top-down, meaning that decisions are made at the government level and passed down through a hierarchy of power.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in partnership with the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as local governments and civil society organizations, have been working to address many of the climate-related issues in the Sanzara community by employing Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) with an integrated Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EBA) approach to maximize community climate resilience.

In collaboration with the University of Riau, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has established permanent plots in Tanjung Leban village, Bengkalis regency, Riau province. The site, which is owned by the local community, is about 50 km east of the city of Dumai and easily accessed by car.

We are probably at the most crucial crossroad of humanity’s history. We are changing the earth’s climate as a result of accelerated human-made Greenhouse Gases Emissions (GHG) and biodiversity loss, provoking other effects that increase the complexity of the problem and will multiply the speed with which we approach climate chaos, and social too.