The forest landscapes of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) are changing dramatically, with a multitude of impacts from local to global levels. These changes invariably have their foundations in forest governance. The aim of this paper is to assess perceptions of key stakeholders regarding the state of forest governance in the countries of the GMS. The work is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the perceptions of forest governance in the five GMS countries, involving 762 representatives from government, civil society, news media, and rural communities.

Economic globalization promotes the economic development of underdeveloped regions but also influences the ecological environments of these regions, such as natural forest degradation. For inland developing regions with underdeveloped traffic routes, are the effects on the ecological environment also as obvious?

ABSTRACTED FROM CONTEXT SECTION: A study was commissioned by the Mekong Region Land Governance Project (MRLG) to investigate the origins and the implications of implementing the 70 percent forestland policy, and to outline policy considerations. This discussion note aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the origin, rationale, geography and tenure implications of the 70 percent policies.

In 2010, the Vietnamese government implemented a national payment for ecosystem services (PES) policy. In promoting the policy, the government has conveyed PES as a successful policy that has achieved multiple objectives, including forest protection and poverty alleviation. Contrary to these claims, however, critical studies of PES in Vietnam have found a weak relationship between PES and forest protection, the continuing dominance, rather than retreat, of the state in forest management, and no clear evidence that PES assists the poor in the near-universal manner purported.

Armed conflicts create drastic socioeconomic shocks that lead to land use and land cover changes in ways that are not yet well understood. Several studies have used satellite imagery to detect such changes during periods of conflict. However, there has been an insufficient examination of older conflicts before the 1970s. By examining older conflicts, we can examine the effects of conflict on land use and land cover over a long time span.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: 

Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation (BTFEC) in collaboration with National Soil Service Centre (NSSC), and Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC) has undertaken the Evaluation and Learning (E&L) activity with financial support from Climate Investment Funds (CIF) for the project ‘Evaluation of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and innovative financing to enhance climate resilience and food security in Bhutan’.

The National Urban Assessment for Armenia provides a snapshot of the country’s urban sector and offers insights to achieving prosperous and sustainable cities. Armenia is highly urbanized, with the population concentrated in Yerevan and its surrounding areas given the capital’s geopolitical, economic, and cultural legacy. Opportunities exist to develop well-planned infrastructure along with balanced resource distribution among Yerevan and other cities, while leveraging Armenia’s cultural and environmental assets.

The Global Climate Risk Index 2020 analyses to what extent countries and regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heatwaves etc.). The most recent data available— for 2018 and from 1999 to 2018 —were taken into account. The countries and territories affected most in 2018 were Japan, the Philippines as well as  Germany. For the period from 1999 to 2018 Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti rank highest.

A gestão pública das águas e os conflitos territoriais na Bacia Hidrográfica do rio Paraguaçu
 
Por Iñigo Arrazola Aranzabal Mestre em Desenvolvimento Territorial Rural pela Flacso, Quito - Equador e Claudio Adão Dourado  de Oliveira
Antropologo pela Universidade Salesiana de Quito e Pós graduado em Direito Agrário, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFG
 
 

As global consumption and development rates continue to grow, there will be persistent stress placed on public goods, namely environmental amenities. Urban sprawl and development places pressure on forested areas, as they are often displaced or degraded in the name of economic development. This is problematic because environmental amenities are valued by the public, but traditional market analysis typically obscures the value of these goods and services that are not explicitly traded in a market setting.

Increasing population and rural to urban migration are accelerating urbanization globally, permanently transforming natural systems over large extents. Modelling landscape change over large regions, however, presents particular challenges due to local-scale variations in social and environmental factors that drive land change.