Water is central for a variety of livelihoods, development, economic growth, and food production. It is also very important in the large deltas of South and Southeast Asia. Yet, water is turning into a scare resource and global climate change is making its availability more unpredictable. Commercial interests and infrastructure development are also competing for water resources, sometimes at the expense of local smallholders.

Rangelands in arid and semi-arid regions serve as grazing land for domesticated animals and therefore offer livelihood opportunities for most pastoral communities. Thus, the exposure of most rangelands in arid and semi-arid regions to threats that are associated with natural, social, economic, and political processes affects their capacity to provide socioeconomic and environmental support to the immediate and global communities.

Land policy reform has dominated the development agenda across the Global South over the past two decades. In contrast with earlier distributive land reforms, contemporary policies reflect an amalgamation of neoliberal, state territorial, and social justice agendas. This paper demonstrates how land policy changes reflect the spatially extensive and multi-scalar politics of land contestation and control, employing the cases of Myanmar and Laos. Myanmar’s short-lived democratic transition enabled civil society actors to exert uneven influence on policy reform.

To promote the sustainable use of native biodiversity, the Regional Government of Ucayali in Peru formed a Regional Technical Commission on BioTrade to develop a Regional Strategic Plan following an agroecological approach. The Alliance, together with the NGO Terra Nuova, supported the development of the strategy and its action plan. The plan aims to raise awareness on Amazonian native products, strengthen farmer organizations and institutions, and support local businesses.

There is currently no water cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of the nine rivers that flow across the border, none possess a formal agreement or mechanism to manage shared water resources. Further, there is very little information available about the status of environment, hydrology and water resources management for these river basins that could be used as a starting point for dialogues on transboundary water coordination.

Indigenous Peoples’ lands (IPL) cover at least 38 million km2 (28.1%) of the global terrestrial surface. These lands can be important for biodiversity conservation. Around 20.7% of IPL intersect areas protected by government (PAs). Many sites of importance for biodiversity within IPL could make a substantial but hitherto unquantified contribution to Global site-based conservation targets. Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) represent the largest global network of systematically identified sites of high importance for biodiversity.

The paper reviews the performance of the Sudanese agricultural sector over the last three decades (1990 through 2021) and examines the drivers of that performance. Key findings show that the sector’s contribution to gross domestic product was greater during the 1990–1999 period than during the other two decades; agricultural productivity as well was higher in that decade than in the subsequent two decades. The sector has remained a major source of employment and livelihood.

Multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) are increasingly applied in environmental governance as institutions to collectively negotiate challenges, opportunities, and policy options in contested landscapes. However, their contributions and effectiveness depend on how stakeholders perceive and frame the role of MSPs in addressing social and environmental challenges. Despite this dependence, stakeholder perceptions of MSPs are currently under-researched.

Implementing Ecosystem and Ecosystem Services (EES) projects in Fragile and Conflict-affected Settings (FCS) poses both operational challenges and the risk of inadvertently aggravating socio-political dynamics. The intertwined relationship between human, ecological, and economic systems makes these projects sensitive to conflict dynamics related to land access, environmental degradation, and livelihoods. Changes in ecosystems can be exploited by groups like political elites or armed entities, as observed in numerous case studies.

Participatory rangeland management (PRM) is a community-led process for improving the management and governance of rangelands, supported by facilitators and technical advisors. This animated film describes the process, and in particular the use of the 'four legs' goat, to understand the four main pillars of PRM.
These are: 1. Establishment and governance of the rangeland unit, 2. Management of the rangeland unit, 3. Using a landscape approach, and 4. Relations with government and customary institutions.

The 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) presented the opportunity to apply an agri-food systems approach to Africa’s existing agricultural and food security efforts. The dialogues provided platforms for governments, businesses, communities and civil society to identify pathways towards resilient and inclusive agri-food systems and to reflect on the benefits of the approach and propose strategies for its mainstreaming.

Presentation on the implications of the challenges faced in the 21st century for sustainable rangeland restoration in dry areas. In addition to the limiting and successful factors that affected large-scale rehabilitation efforts. The presentation was performed by Mounir Louhaichi as a guest lecture on Exploring World Agriculture to students at the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University.