This document compiles four short reports and reflection pieces produced by Natural Habitats Group (NHG) during their involvement in a LEGEND project in Sierra Leone implemented by Solidaridad, which aimed to ensure that an NHG land based investment, undertaken by group member company Natural Habitats Sierra Leone Ltd (NHSL) to develop a large oil palm plantation respected existing community members and land holding families’ land rights.

Building on the current international discourse and United Nation's System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) this study provides further empirical evidences on how failure to include natural capital resources in national accounting leads to erroneous calculation of macroeconomic estimates. The SEEA methodological framework for integrating natural capital into the System of National Accounts amplifies analytical power of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models and allows to investigate relationship between the economy and the environment.

The land sector in Uganda has attracted a great deal of attention associated with:

Notes that a record 212 land and environmental defenders were reported killed in 2019 but believes that the real number was certainly higher. Mining;logging and agribusiness were the main drivers of this. States that ‘verifying cases from Africa continues to be difficult. Limited monitoring of the issue by civil society;media repression and localised conflict mean attacks are probably underreported in some regions.Seven were reported killed in DR Congo;Burkina Faso;Uganda;Ghana and Kenya. Makes recommendations to governments;companies and investors.

In this study, we measured and characterized the relative dielectric constant of mineral soils over the 0.3–3.0 frequency range, and compared our measurements with values of three dielectric constant simulation models (the Wang, Dobson, and Mironov models). The interrelationship between land cover and soil texture with respect to the dielectric constant was also investigated. Topsoil samples (0–10 cm) were collected from homogenous areas based on a land unit map of the study site, located in the Gamsar Plain in northern Iran.

Rural livelihoods, which are basic human activities, have long interacted with the environment. In light of the complexity of the human–environment system, more interdisciplinary analyses from geographical, environmental, and social sciences are needed. Using qualitative and quantitative methods from social, environmental, and geographical sciences, this study conducted a geographical regionalization and a comparative analysis of rural livelihoods in different zones in the Loess Plateau to explore the relationship between rural livelihoods and the environment.

Normative guidelines for addressing project-induced displacement and resettlement have been successful in coercing companies and practitioners to comply with international standards and local requirements. However, good practice has not always been effectively implemented, leading to reduced social wellbeing of people in local communities. We assess how the reciprocal relationships between institutional norms and practitioners’ situated perspectives about company-community interactions can improve social management practice.

This study evaluated the effect of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) dynamics on the value of ecosystem services in Abaya-Chamo basin over 1985–2050. The main objectives of the study were to estimate the value of ecosystem services of Abaya-Chamo basin using local and global ecosystem service value coefficients, assess how it changes over time, and develop tools to inform policy and public decision-making to protect lands and waters in the region.

Restoration of marginal and degraded lands is essential for regaining biodiversity and ecosystems services, and thereby attaining UN-Sustainable Development Goals. During the last few decades, many fast growing and hardy trees have been introduced worldwide to restore the marginal and degraded lands for ecosystem stability. Unfortunately, most of these introduced species have become invasive and invaded the nearby productive systems, leading to significant biodiversity loss and land degradation.

Overview of the State of Forests and Forest Management in Azerbaijan derives from the project on the state of forests in the Caucasus and Central Asia and presents the forest resources and the forest sector of Azerbaijan, including trends in, and pressures on forests. The overview describes policies and institutions of forest sector in Azerbaijan and major challenges the sector faces as well as policy responses in place or planned.

The concept of a nature-based solution (NBS) has been developed in order to operationalize an ecosystem services approach within spatial planning policies and practices, to fully integrate the ecological dimension, and, at the same time, to address current societal challenges in cities. It exceeds the bounds of traditional approaches that aim ‘to protect and preserve’ by considering enhancing, restoring, co-creating, and co-designing urban green networks with nature that are characterized by multifunctionality and connectivity.

Perú: un contexto peligroso para defensores de la tierra y el medio ambiente1
 
Aldo Santos Ariasaldosanto@gmail.com
 
1.      Marco general del país
Un reto del Estado peruano es garantizar la seguridad jurídica de las comunidades campesinas y nativas, y los 55 pueblos indígenas, cuyos territorios están expuestos a actividades ilegales o a la superposición de derechos.