Land degradation and soil erosion have emerged as serious challenges to smallholder farmers throughout southern Africa. To combat these challenges, conservation agriculture (CA) is widely promoted as a sustainable package of agricultural practices. Despite the many potential benefits of CA, however, adoption remains low. Yet relatively little is known about the decision-making process in choosing to adopt CA. This article attempts to fill this important knowledge gap by studying CA adoption in southern Malawi.

The costs of doing nothing about land degradation are several times higher than the costs of taking action to reverse it. Despite the crucial role land plays in human welfare and development, investments in sustainable land management are low, especially in developing countries. These findings come from the book, Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement—A Global Assessment for Sustainable Development, which examines the costs of land degradation and what needs to be done to reverse it.

Agriculture and climate change are inextricably linked. Agriculture is part of the climate change problem, contributing about 13.5 percent of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (with forestry contributing an additional 19 percent), compared with 13.1 percent from transportation. Agriculture is, however, also part of the solution, offering promising opportunities for mitigating GHG emissions through carbon sequestration, soil and land use management, and biomass production.

This paper examines the effects of tenure on tree management at a community level. First, several important conceptual issues arising from this particular meso-level focus are discussed. Second, a description of the key tenure and tree management issues in Uganda and Malawi is presented. In each case, data representing changes in land use and tree cover between the 1960-70s and 1990s are analyzed. In both countries, there has been significant conversion of land from woodlands to agriculture. Tree cover has been more or less maintained over time in Uganda but has decreased in Malawi.

Generalist microorganisms are the agents of many emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), but their natural life cycles are difficult to predict due to the multiplicity of potential hosts and environmental reservoirs. Among 250 known human EIDs, many have been traced to tropical rain forests and specifically freshwater aquatic systems, which act as an interface between microbe-rich sediments or substrates and terrestrial habitats.

Aproximadamente 1,6 mil millones de personas –más del 25 por ciento de la población mundial – dependen de los recursos forestales para la consecución de los medios de vida y la mayor parte de ellos (1,2 mil millones) utiliza los árboles en las explotaciones agrícolas para generar alimentos y dinero en efectivo.

La guía permite a las personas que quieran presentar un caso, sintetizar las acciones y mejorar la información presentada, de esta manera Se pretende tener documentos con una estructura común, no se limita el estilo de la redacción y la incorporación de particularidades que personifiquen los casos, otorgando a los lectores un texto atractivo que refleje las vivencias de cada situación concreta.

Every day, more and more family/small holder users of land and natural resources find themselves made more insecure, deprived of their resources and evicted from their land. This affects peasants, nomadic herders, livestock farmers, fishermen and fisherwomen, forest dwellers … (Workshops 1, 2, 3, 5). This change is a dramatic one, affecting the whole of humanity. The direct human consequences of this change affect the vast majority of rural residents, who carry out the essential work of food production and contribute to maintaining ecological balance.

Chaque jour, toujours plus de femmes et hommes utilisateurs familiaux et communautaires des terres et ressources naturelles sont précarisés, dépossédés de leur ressources et évincés de leurs territoires : paysannes et paysans, pasteurs nomades, éleveurs, pêcheurs, habitants des forêts… (ateliers 1, 2, 3, 5). Cette évolution est dramatique pour l’ensemble de l’humanité : ses conséquences humaines directes concernent l’immense majorité des ruraux, qui assurent l’essentiel de la production des aliments et contribuent au maintien des équilibres écologiques.