I write this blog as our project team embarks on a fifth year of work on women’s land tenure security (WOLTS) with pastoral communities in mining-affected areas of Mongolia and Tanzania. Just before Christmas 2019, we were in Mundarara village in northern Tanzania. Exceptionally heavy rains made getting around much more challenging than usual. Locals travelling on foot had to make wide detours to avoid getting bogged down in waterlogged grazing land, and it took everyone much longer to get to the village primary school for our long-planned training day. 

The 14th community-based adaption event (CBA14) will call on local communities to use their collective power to hold climate decision makers to account.

A run of international political events in 2019 marked key moments for influencing the climate action agenda, including this September’s UN Secretary-General’s climate summit and the UNFCCC conference in Spain (COP25). 

In the last 15 years, Paraguay lost a greater share of its forest than almost any other country on Earth. While soy farming once drove deforestation in the east, the focus of Paraguay's forest loss has since moved west to the low-lying, thorn-forested Chaco, where cattle ranching has claimed over 3.7 million hectares (9 million acres) of forest for pastureland – an area about the size of the Netherlands – between 2001 and 2015.

What the US faces on its southern border is not a security problem, but a humanitarian crisis, and punishing attempts at deterrence cannot resolve it. Enabling people to stay where they are requires, first and foremost, strengthening their right to be there.

A conversation with Julie Maldonado, Associate Director at Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network (LiKEN), and Co-Director of Rising Voices: Climate Resilience through Indigenous and Earth Sciences.

On 24 and 25 September 2019, Heads of State and Governments will gather at the United Nations Headquarters in New York for the summit Accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This is a crucial event for evaluating progress towards the 17 goals and 169 ambitious targets countries have set to eradicate poverty, achieve food security, empower women, secure the planet and foster peace and stability.

This blog has originally been published by CABI at https://blog.cabi.org/2015/09/25/new-report-reveals-the-true-cost-of-land-degradation/

A conversation with Annie Signorelli, Project Manager for Renewable Energy and Human Rights at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre

This is the first interview in the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment's Climate Crisis, Global Land Use, and Human Rights Interview Series.

The climate crisis will reshape our relationships to land around the world. Journalist David Wallace-Wells warns that, once the planet warms 2°C above preindustrial levels — the target set by the Paris Agreement — “major cities in the equatorial band of the planet will become unlivable,” and 400 million more people will suffer from regional water scarcity.

On 27-30 May 2019 around 200 actors engaged in talks to initiate and reinforce guidelines and actions on sustainable soil management and land governance at the World Agroforestry headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.

“Soil is a universal element for survival,” says Alice Kaudia, Founder and Executive Director, Eco-Entrepreneurs. Kaudia alongside Alexander Mueller, Managing Director, Think Tank for Sustainability (TMG) moderated plenary sessions during the 2019 Global Soil Week. 

The loss of public records and personal documents following the disaster, is already having a tremendous impact on recovery efforts