This report, a summary of the substantial challenges that continue to plague South Africa’s efforts to reform land administration system, proposes that key decision-makers and informers involved in communal land administration undergo a mindshift in thinking. This shift should be from focusing exclusively on transferring communal land to traditional leaders, Common Property Institutions and private individuals, to recognising and accommodating existing forms of social tenure.

This eco-type map presents land units with distinct vegetation and exposure to floods (or droughts) in three villages in the Barotseland, Zambia. The knowledge and eco-types descriptions were collected from participatory mapping and focus group discussions with 77 participants from Mapungu, Lealui, and Nalitoya. We used two Landsat 8 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (TM) images taken in March 24th and July 14th, 2014 (path 175, row 71) to calculate water level and vegetation type which are the two main criteria used by Lozi People for differentiating eco-types.

La maca (Lepidium meyenii) es una raíz andina a la cual se le atribuyen propiedades energéticas y estimulantes. En los últimos años el interés de mercados asiáticos dio lugar al “boom de la maca”, incrementando los precios y provocando la rápida conversión de pastizales altoandinos en tierras de cultivo, transformando de esta manera el paisaje, el ecosistema, la economía y la sociedad rural de la zona altoandina de Junín.

Challabamba en Cusco y Quilcas en Huancayo son dos zonas contrastantes con alta biodiversidad de variedades de papa. El presente estudio tuvo por finalidad evaluar la distribución espacial de la biodiversidad de papa mediante el mapeo participativo. Se determinaron las áreas de siembra de papa, el número de variedades de papa existente en la comunidad, el rango altitudinal de siembra por categoría varietal, la frecuencia de las variedades de papa, y la dinámica espacial-temporal de las zonas de siembra de papa en el territorio de las comunidades campesinas.

In the Gash Delta of Eastern Sudan, spate irrigation (flood-recession farming) contributes substantially to rural livelihoods by providing better yields than rainfed dryland farming. However, spate irrigation farmers are challenged by the unpredictability of flooding. In recent decades, the number of farmers practicing spate irrigation has decreased, due to varying rainfall intensity and frequency, insufficient infrastructure and farmers’ limited capacity to manage such variations.

Low adoption of sustainable intensification technologies hinders achievement of their potential impacts on increasing agricultural productivity. Proper targeting of locations to scale-out particular technologies is a key determinant of the rate of adoption. Targeting locations with similar biophysical and socio-economic characteristics significantly increases the probability of adoption. Areas with similar biophysical and socio-economic characteristics are referred to as recommendation domains (RDs).

The automation of agricultural mapping using satellite-derived remotely sensed data remains a challenge in Africa because of the heterogeneous and fragmental landscape, complex crop cycles, and limited access to local knowledge. Currently, consistent, continent-wide routine cropland mapping of Africa does not exist, with most studies focused either on certain portions of the continent or at most a one-time effort at mapping the continent at coarse resolution remote sensing.