Due to oil exploration and other human activities in the Niger Delta region, there is evidence of environmental degradation all over the area (Oronto, 1998). Environmental degradation is occasioned by consistent flow of industrial waste, oil spills, gas flares, fire disaster, acid rain, flooding erosion, etc., which has led to the pollution of farmlands and fishponds. It has also led to the destruction of properties and human lives, including aquatic and bio-diversity.

The outcomes of COP 20 are expected to have a significant impact on developments in the field of forests and climate change over the coming year. In view of this, forest sector stakeholders in Asia and the Pacific require succinct and accurate information on the implications of the COP 20 discussions and their significance to forest policy decisions and practice.

Due to oil exploration and other human activities in the Niger Delta region, there is evidence of environmental degradation all over the area (Oronto, 1998). Environmental degradation is occasioned by consistent flow of industrial waste, oil spills, gas flares, fire disaster, acid rain, flooding erosion, etc., which has led to the pollution of farmlands and fishponds. It has also led to the destruction of properties and human lives, including aquatic and bio-diversity.

Context: Both global change and policy reform will affect the implementation of the National Ecological Network (NEN) in the Netherlands. Global change refers to a combination of changing groundwater tables arising from climate change and improved economic prospects for farming. Policy reform refers to the abolition of an intermediary organization that organizes land trades with the support of a national land bank. Objective: In this paper we evaluate the effects of these factors on future land acquisition for the NEN.

Changes to land use such as the removal of natural vegetation and expansion of urban areas can result in degradation of the landscape and an increase in hydro-meteorological risk. This has led to higher interest by decision-makers and scientists in the future consequences of these drivers. Scenario development can be a useful tool for addressing the high uncertainty regarding modeling future land use changes. Scenarios are not exact forecasts, but images of plausible futures.

The Omo-Turkana basin stretches from southern Ethiopia into Kenya. Temperatures in the region are rising and droughts occur with higher frequency and intensity. As Ethiopian pastoralists venture further south in search of water and grazing land, conflicts with Kenyan pastoralists and fishermen are intensifying. Given their trans-boundary and protracted nature, these conflicts pose a particular challenge to local peace building and disarmament efforts.

This study briefly summarizes the development experiences of special economic zones in China and Africa, the lessons that Africa can learn from China, and the preliminary results of the Chinese investments in special economic zones in Africa. The study makes recommendations on how to unleash the power of special economic zones and industrial zones in Africa through strategically leveraging the Chinese experiences.

The North Eastern Region (NER) in India is endowed with rich energy resources but faces significant bottlenecks in electricity access and availability levels. The per capita power consumption in NER is one-third of the national average. The region has a shortfall of about 500MW installed capacity against peak demand of about 1950 MW. No significant generation capacity has been added in the recent past. Therefore, inadequate power supply continues a critical constraint to sustainable growth and economic development in the NER.

Economist Sir Nicholas Stern warned that the global warming could cause major blow to the world economy than the two world wars and the crisis in the 1930s. But where are we in this process now and what can be expected in the near future and what opportunities we are to curb the negative effects and to slow down the global warming.

In recent years, Cameroon has been approached by growing numbers of local and international investors wanting to acquire arable land for large-scale agro-industrial operations. This study takes a closer look at large-scale land acquisitions since 2005. Examining the legal framework and the practical implications of these land acquisitions, it shows that there is a risk that they will affect the long-term capacity of communities to preserve their traditional way of living.

Public lands accounted for 80% of the country area until a decade ago. As Cambodia emerged from three decades of civil war and internal strife, the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) has granted more than 10% of the country area or 50% of the cultivatable land as large scale “Economic Land Concessions” (ELCs) to private companies, mostly foreign owned, in a mostly rigged process. Land disputes have become a permanent fixture in the press and a hot issue on human rights reports.

The Cambodian government allowed 1,204,750 hectares as economic land concession (ELC) to 118 local and international companies. Global Witness reported that 2.6 million ha had been given in 272 ELCs, mainly for rubber plantations. Many concessionaires do not comply with their contracts, nor with existing land and forest laws. Government revenues from timber exports are extremely low. Deforestation, and removal of luxury timbers has increased dramatically. Land concessions rob local communities of their income from non-timber forest products.