Watersheds, especially in the developing world, are increasingly being managed for both environmental conservation and poverty alleviation. How complementary are these objectives? In the context of a watershed, the actual and potential linkages between land and water management and poverty are complex and likely to be very site specific and scale dependent. This study analyses the importance of watershed resources in the livelihoods of the poor in two watersheds in the Colombian Andes.

This paper focuses on the application of the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Tanzania. It asks: how did IWRM affect the rural and fast-growing majority of smallholder farmers' access to water which contributes directly to poverty alleviation and employment creation in a country where poverty and joblessness are high?

This paper highlights the spatial linkages of forest quality with poverty incidence and poverty density in Vietnam. Most of the Vietnamese poor live in densely populated river deltas and cities while remote upland areas have the highest poverty incidences, gaps, and severities. Forests of high local and global value are located in areas where relatively few poor people live, but where the incidence, gap, and severity of poverty are strongest, and where the livelihood strategies are based on agricultural and forest activities.

This paper highlights the spatial linkages of forest quality with poverty incidence and poverty density in Vietnam. Most of the Vietnamese poor live in densely populated river deltas and cities while remote upland areas have the highest poverty incidences, gaps, and severities. Forests of high local and global value are located in areas where relatively few poor people live, but where the incidence, gap, and severity of poverty are strongest, and where the livelihood strategies are based on agricultural and forest activities.

In the not so long history of humankind, our ancestors too often fought for land and water. Those days have returned.

En la no tan larga historia de la Humanidad, nuestros antepasados han luchado con demasiada frecuencia por la tierra y el agua. Aquellos tiempos están nuevamente de actualidad.

The drylands of Africa, exclusive of hyper-arid zones, occupy about 43 per cent of the continent, and are home to a rapidly growing population that currently stands at about 325 million people. Dry zones, inclusive of hyper-arid lands, cover over 70 per cent of the continent’s terrestrial surface. Outside of the cities many dryland inhabitants are either pastoralists, sedentary or nomadic, or agro-pastoralists, combining livestock-rearing and crop production where conditions allow.