Bosques para el desarrollo: el debate en la Amazonía
Pablo Pacheco *

"The civil war in Sierra Leone, caused by a mix of political, social, and economic factors, had a huge impact on the overall economy in general and on the performance of the agricultural sector in particular. The agricultural research system of Sierra Leone was severely affected by the civil war. Research infrastructure was destroyed, laboratories were damaged and abandoned, and well-trained researchers and scientists fled from the country.

Este trabajo se propone caracterizar la formación y el funcionamiento de un mercado de tierras en dos partidos del 'nuevo sur' bonaerense, en el transcurso del siglo XIX. El proceso de apropiación de estas tierras implicó la negociación de las mismas en diferentes instancias y a través de diversas modalidades, lo cual fue configurando un mercado de la tierra, aún antes de la consolidación de la propiedad plena sobre el suelo.

Participatory mapping, commonly used in participatory development, plays an important role in helping marginalised groups by making visible the association between land and local communities, highlighting important social, historical and cultural knowledge as well as presenting geographical feature information.

This paper relays that the renewed outbreak of violence in North Kivu in the second half of 2008 saw the long running insecurity in Eastern DR Congo become the top global news story for two weeks as another humanitarian crisis unfolded before the world. The intense media scrutiny resulted in a plethora of stakeholders working, as the authors assert, to portray the conflict in ways that best fitted their own agendas; in particular, the region’s mineral wealth was implicated as contributing in the violence.

Over 2008 large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have increased. This report discusses key trends and drivers in land acquisitions, the contractual arrangements underpinning them and the way these are negotiated. It also analyses the early impacts on land access for rural people in recipient countries with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

The article problematises legal issues surrounding women's rights to land and related resources. It avers that in a plural legal context, there is need to engage all forms of law if law is to be an effective medium for challenging gendered notions of access to, control over and ownership of property. This is a key challenge in East African countries seeking to frame property and natural resource policies and laws that promote development

The history of land policies from the time of colonial administrators to the time of development planners and reform programmes (resettlement schemes, adjudication and demarcation for registration purposes) underscores the history of most Kenyan citizens losing their rights and access to land and its commitant benefits.

Land is one of the most important naturaE resources for the creation of wealth in many societies. Its ownership and control brings economic power, which in turn, is often the basis for social and polifical power Unlike other factors of production such as labour and capilal, land is in fixed supply. Of the total land area of Kenya of 56.9 million hectares, more than 90 percent is agricultural land. Over 80 percent of this land is categorized as Arid and Semiarid land where about 25 percent of the total population resides and over 50 percent of the total livestock is produced.

In 2007, ICARDA celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. The Center and its partners have worked together for three decades to improve the food security and livelihoods of the poor in dry and marginal areas. During this time, we have seen significant changes in the biophysical environment and in socio-economic circumstances. New farming technologies, new livelihood options, and better policies and institutions are speeding up agricultural development in the world's dry areas, and we are proud of the role we have played in this progress.