Environmental degradation can inflict
serious damage on poor people because their livelihoods
often depend on natural resource use and their living
conditions may offer little protection from air, water, and
soil pollution. At the same time, poverty-constrained
options may induce the poor to deplete resources and degrade
the environment at rates that are incompatible with
long-term sustainability. In such cases, degraded resources

Using plot-level data, the authors
estimate a bi-variate probit model to explain land clearing,
and the siting of protected areas in North Thailand in 1986.
Their model suggests that protected areas (national parks,
together with wildlife sanctuaries) did not reduce the
likelihood of forest clearing, but wildlife sanctuaries may
have reduced the probability of deforestation. Road
building, by reducing the impedance-weighted distance to

WHAT IS MEANT BY AGRIBUSINESS?

Agribusiness as used in this paper refers to very big corporations that produce, process, trade, and market agricultural food products and agricultural inputs. Examples are corporations that produce inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers, and those that produce for supermarkets and retail chains. Transnational agribusiness companies are those that operate in the agriculture sector of many countries, usually with a huge volume of business.

This issue paper is about what is known as the “global financial crisis,” which is said to have affected the economies in Europe and North America and caused massive loss of jobs and bankruptcy in these countries. For some of us here in the developing world, the global financial crisis may seem very far from us and therefore, has no effect on us. We may even think that it is something that only concerns economists and the business sector.

This research is intended to help contribute to this articulation process by identifying and consolidating small farmers' trade agenda in five countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. These countries represent a good mix of both net agricultural exporters and importers, providing the paper with a balanced perspective of looking at trade and its impact on small farmers. The agenda of small farmers in these countries formed the bases for the formulation of their trade agenda in ASEAN. The research is divided into three parts.

A Special Product (SP) is an agricultural product “out of the WTO” in that they are not subject to tariff reductions, i. e. Countries can keep the right to maintain protective tariffs on certain agricultural products that are essential for food security, rural development, and farmers’ livelihoods. The G33 proposal is for 10% of developing country products to be exempt from tariff reductions, with an additional 10% of product lines to have limited tariff reductions. This would be somewhere in the range of 300 products. The US counter-proposal is for a mere 5 products!

The World Trade Organization (WTO) hailed the recent Hong Kong Sixth Ministerial Meeting last December 2005 as a positive movement towards the conclusion of the Doha Development Round. The round was supposedly geared towards ensuring that trade contributes to the development objectives of least developed and developing countries.

What is the GATT-WTO?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) describes itself as “the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade fl ows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.”

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Minutes of the Experts Group Meeting about Land Governance and Security of Tenure in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Presentación de Paola Siclari Introducción de la Reunión de Expertos Gobernanza Responsable y Tenencia Segura del Suelo en América Latina y Caribe

Presentation by Katia Araujo, Director of Programs, Huairou Commission, for the Experts Group Meeting on Responsible Land Governance and Security of Tenure in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in San José, Costa Rica, in July, 2016. Huairou Commission: Women, Homes and Community