Abstract Globally, land and seascapes across the bioculturally diverse tropics are in transition. Impacted by the demands of distant consumers, the processes of global environmental change and numerous interventions seeking climate, conservation and development goals, these transitions have the potential to impact the relationships and plurality of values held between people and place. This paper is a Synthesis of seven empirical studies within the Special Feature (SF): ‘What is lost in transition?

The OECD predicts there will be 9 billion people on Earth by 2050. At the same time, it is anticipated that global water needs will rise by 55%, energy consumption by 80%, and food production by 60%, all of which could have an impact on land use patterns. In light of these forecasts, the importance of the Water Energy Food (WEF) nexus thinking is needed more than ever. In this symposium, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art, gaps and advances in WEF nexus research.

Baseline survey findings from a randomized control trial that examines the effects of a sustainable land management training delivered to couples or women only in the context of rural Ethiopia where all participants are beneficiaries of a targeted social safety net program. The baseline survey was conducted in June 2023 and results were presented to implementation partners in October 2023.

The African Heads of State and Government gathered for the inaugural Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, from 4th to 6th September 2023. The Summit sought to launch a new climate ambition for Africa and to invite supportive partnerships to pursue the continent’s climate-resilient, low emissions development pathways. The Summit focused on climate change and development in Africa, and the need for improved global investment in climate action. African countries were able to detail their plans and investment needs, and push for reform of international financial architecture.

Tanzania is endowed with a diversity of ecosystems, huge number of cattle farming and available arable land. However, the productivity per cow is still very low due various reasons. This study used data from African Asian Dairy Genetic Gains (AADGG) database collected over a period of 2016 to 2023 in combination with mini survey of cost of production done in twenty-four (24) Local Government Authorities (LGAs) to determines factors that influence total factor productivity in the small-scale dairy farm in selected district in Tanzania.

Introduction: Estimates indicate that food and nutritional demand in sub-Saharan African nutrient-poor soils will exceed the high population demand. Vegetables such as amaranth and cowpea are key in contributing to food and nutritional security. Fertilizers are used to mitigate low nutrient levels in soils. This study aimed to investigate the yield parameters of cowpea and amaranth vegetables.

Prescribed burning is gaining attention as a vital tool for managing rangeland ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa, offering benefits for ecological restoration, biodiversity conservation, and overall land management. While fire is a natural and essential process that many ecosystems depend on, suppressing it can lead to the elimination of species and disrupt the ecological balance. Different ecosystems require varied approaches to fire management, with fire-sensitive ones needing protection and fire-dependent ones necessitating the right type and frequency of fire.

Assessing the suitability of different crops in specific geographic locations is crucial for optimizing crop productivity, promoting climate resilience, and guiding land use decisions. This study assessed the biophysical suitability of rice, watermelon and maize in the Ganges Delta, one of the most densely populated deltas in the world and also extremely vulnerable to climate change. This delta is expected to increasingly experience more frequent and intense extreme weather events, sea level rise and food insecurity.

Indigenous Peoples’ food systems are inextricably connected to land, which in turn is interwoven with issues of self‐determination, livelihoods, health, cultural and spiritual heritage, and gender. While mounting evidence shows that food security and nutrition are negatively affected by water insecurity, experiential water security measures have not yet been used to explore relationships with other outcomes of public health interest.

The increasing agricultural wages in rural India have lent significant R&D and policy support for laborsaving agricultural technologies. While some are heralded as ‘game changers’ in achieving food sufficiency goals, less research is devoted to understanding whether farmer adoption of these technologies worsens economic inequalities. We hypothesize that the rapid diffusion of laborsaving agricultural technologies could result in a reduction in employment and loss of a key source of livelihood for the nonfarming rural poor, especially women from socially marginalized groups.

Women in climate-vulnerable and agriculturedependent hotspots, like the Savanna and Upper West regions in northwestern Ghana, experience diverse impacts of climate variability and change, pressures on the natural resource base, and rapid socioeconomic changes. Women’s empowerment influences their ability to build resilience against the impacts of climate change and societal transformations to sustain their agrarian livelihoods. Yet, gendered transformations are not given much attention in policymaking and climateresilience programming.

Strong evidence exists that women farmers have less access to land, inputs, labor, and information compared to men. Over the discourse of empirical research conducted in the domain of agricultural productivity, agricultural economists have always pondered over the inclusion of gender diversity as a separate dimension to identify the efficacy of gender roles in agricultural decision-making.