SUMMARYIn this article we discuss the two largest reforestation and forest conservation programmes in China, the Natural Forest Protection Programme (NFPP), and the Slope Land Conversion Programme (SLCP, also called Grain for Green), introduced in 1998. The NFPP reformed the state forest enterprises to reduce deforestation, increase the amount of forestland to be protected, and increase the sustainability of logging, while improving their financial viability. The SLCP reformed collective (i.e.

Agriculture and animal husbandry are important contributors to global emissions of greenhouse (GHG) and acidifying gases. Moreover, they contribute to water pollution and to consumption of non-renewable natural resources such as land and energy. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology allows evaluation of the environmental impact of a process from the production of inputs to the final product and to assess simultaneously several environmental impact categories among which GHG emissions, acidification, eutrophication, land use and energy use.

Collective action, on communal grazing land, has evolved in the highlands of northwestern Ethiopia to mitigate the problems of feed shortage and land degradation due to overgrazing. The exercise is liked by farmers for improving the availability of natural pasture during the long dry season when other feed sources get depleted. However, large portions of the communal grazing lands are still managed under free grazing throughout the year.

Although protected areas in Africa contain possibly the highest repositories of carbon and thus can play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change through carbon sequestration, they are threatened due to increasing levels of deforestation and forest degradation (DFD). However, little information is available on the on-site causes of DFD in these areas. This paper estimates the levels of DFD and identifies the drivers in the Ankasa Conservation Area (ACA) in Ghana as a case study. A survey was used to identify both direct and underlying factors that promote the DFD.

By the year 2050, agriculture will have to provide the food and nutrition requirements of some 9 billion people. Moreover, to maintain that level of productivity indefinitely it must do so using environmentally sustainable production systems. This task will be profoundly complicated by the effects of climate change, increasing competition for water resources and loss of productive lands.

Land use is a key driver of global environmental change. Unless major shifts in consumptive behaviours occur, land-based production will have to increase drastically to meet future demands for food and other commodities. One approach to better understand the drivers and impacts of agricultural intensification is the identification of global, archetypical patterns of land systems. Current approaches focus on broad-scale representations of dominant land cover with limited consideration of land-use intensity.

It is increasingly recognised that designing and implementing adaptive land management and development policies for the coastal zone requires an interdisciplinary and integrated approach. Yet, integrative thinking and action often remain problematic due to the competing interests and ambitions involved in coastal zone planning and management and the legacy of established development on the coast.

China is a developing country plagued by a long-term and large-scale desertification, which causes serious environmental problems. At the same time, China also has a long history of fighting desertification, especially in the recent decades. Thus, we think China's experience and lessons may be very important and useful for other developing countries to promote the degradation mitigation and life improvement.

Urban and community forests play an important role in the overall carbon budget of the USA. Accurately quantifying carbon sequestration by these forests can provide insight for strategic planning to mitigate greenhouse gas effects on climate change. This study provides a new methodology to estimate net forest carbon sequestration (FCS) in urban and community lands of northern New England using ground based forest growth rates, housing density data, satellite derived land cover and tree canopy cover maps at the county level.

Land and resource managers often use detection–nondetection surveys to monitor the populations of species that may be affected by factors such as habitat alteration, climate change, and biological invasions. Relative to mark‐recapture studies, using detection–nondetection surveys is more cost‐effective, and recent advances in statistical analyses allow the incorporation of detection probability, covariates, and multiple seasons.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) does not distinguish between natural and human drivers, and between active and inherited desertification. Partly as a result of these ambiguities the UNCCD has attracted a low level of international attention. As the Spanish case study shows, this vagueness hinders the implementation of effective strategies to combat this global challenge.

In Central Asia, water is a particularly scarce and valuable good. In many ecosystems of this region, the vegetation development during the growing season is dependent on water provided by rainfall. With climate change, alterations of the seasonal distribution of precipitation patterns and a higher frequency of extreme events are expected. Vegetation dynamics are likely to respond to these changes and thus ecosystem services will be affected.