Across vast areas of the world, human activity has degraded once fertile and productive land. Deforestation, overgrazing, continuous farming and poor irrigation practices have affected almost 2 billion hectares worldwide, threatening the health and livelihoods of over one billion people. In this edition of New Agriculturist, a collection of articles explores some of the approaches and policies that can help to successfully rehabilitate degraded land.

Studies on the impact of climate change and sea level rise usually rake climate scenarios as their starting point. To support long-term water management planning int he Netherlands, this paper starts at the opposite end of the effect chain. The study refers to three aspects of water management:

flood defence
drinking water supply
protection of the Rotterdam harbour.

Despite the production of more food and extraction of more water globally, wetlands continue to decline and public health and living standards for many do not improve. Why is this – and what needs to change to improve the situation? If we manage wetlands better, can we improve the health and well-being of people? Indeed, why is this important? This report seeks to address these questions.

Originally Published In: Ramsar Technical Report No. 6. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO; Gland, Switzerland: Ramsar Convention Secretariat

Governments in a number of countries are trying to address concerns about land grabbing by closing their borders to foreign investors. Are these restrictions effective?
Not really, says GRAIN. They give the impression that something is being done at the highest level and appeal to nationalist or pro-sovereignty sentiments. But they are very narrow approaches to a complex problem and often full of back doors and loopholes.

The current debate on climate change, its impacts on socio-ecological systems and the role of agriculture has shifted from an emphasis on how to mitigate the effects of increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to how to prepare and adapt to the expected adverse impacts. This follows the recognition that the climate is already changing as a result of mankind’s activities and there is little that can be done to prevent further increases in atmospheric concentrations of GHG in the short term.

The paper argues that the indigenous knowledge of the Herero could provide the basis for better land-use policy and user rights in the communal lands of Namibia.This short article:reviews recent academic literaturelooks at the historical and legal backgound to land management in Namibiareports in 2 village field studies

Discusses the widely help conception that arid shrub-lands in Syria and elsewhere in West Asia and North Africa are degraded. A particular characteristic of such areas is a preponderance of unpalatable shrubs or a lack of overall ground cover with a rise in the associated risks of soil erosion.The article finds that:migrating pastoralists have been the scapegoats for this condition of the range.

This review explores environmental change in northern and south-central Kenya, roughly covering three decades from the 1960s to the 1990s. The report answers three questions:has vegetation change occurred in these districts?if vegetation change has occurred, why and how has this happened?what are the trends for livestock populations?The article concludes that:rangeland sites have been fundamentally altered by woody encroachment over the past 40 years.

There is a general consensus among academics, politicians and social movements, that BRICS as ‘new donors’ are increasing both their quantitative and qualitative role in defining what is considered to be ‘the world economic order’.

This case study, conducted in north Afar pastoral settlements in Ethiopia, explores pastoral natural resource management as well as indigenous conflict management.Main findings of the study include:the pattern of natural resource management has shown dramatic changes in 4-5 decades time, eroding traditional strategies of pastoral resource management; and this is caused mainly by the encroachment of cultivation and human population pressuregrazing reserves once used to sustain pastoral livelihood during drought periods are no longer widely used by community.

Over the last 25 years civil disturbances, drought, population increases and global market pressures have all contributed in direct and indirect ways to a modification of Sub saharan African land cover.