Em Moçambique há um forte apoio à agricultura sustentável: métodos como sistemas agroflorestais e agricultura de conservação são promovidos cada vez mais pelo Ministério da Agricultura, a sociedade civil, organizações de camponeses e agências de desenvolvimento. Resultados de investigações sugerem que essas práticas aumentam a produtividade, são mais resilientes e economicamente acessíveis. Apesar disso, a adoção pelos pequenos produtores permanece baixa.

Uncertainties in the international carbon market make it imperative the UN’s REDD+ framework engages a wider spectrum of the private sector than just international companies and investors. Countries with REDD+ programmes should work with their domestic private sector to provide the missing momentum. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are crucial, as these usually dominate in forest- and agriculture-based economies.

Charcoal is the main cooking energy source for people living in Maputo city. It is also a crucial source of income for rural producers in Mabalane district, a key supplier of Maputo’s charcoal. But Mabalane’s forests — which provide the wood for charcoal — also supply rural populations with construction materials, firewood and food. Our research shows that the lack of community management in Mabalane’s charcoal trade has disadvantaged communities, widening income inequality and causing ecological depletion.

O carvão vegetal é a principal fonte de energia para grande parte dos habitantes da cidade de Maputo. É também, uma fonte crucial de rendimento para os produtores rurais no distrito de Mabalane, um dos principais centros de abastecimento de carvão de Maputo. Mas as florestas de Mabalane – que fornecem a madeira para o carvão vegetal – também abastecem as populações rurais com materiais de construção, lenha e alimentos.

The Testing REDD+ in the Beira Landscape Corridor of Mozambique initiative closed in December. Over nearly four years, a consortium of public academic and research institutions, NGOs and social enterprises, supported by the Government of Norway, has explored what drives deforestation and forest degradation. The programme trialled four interventions: to expand conservation agriculture, to make logging more sustainable, to harvest and use biomass energy more efficiently, and to promote sustainable production of an important non-timber product. We now know what works.

China’s investment and trade in Africa’s natural resource sectors have significant implications for Africa’s forests. Many investments are in forest areas. Some directly engage in logging while others, such as mining, infrastructure and agribusiness, affect forests and rural livelihoods. This report provides an overview of trends, evidence and issues related to the impacts on forests of Chinese investments in four African countries: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Uganda.

Mozambique is Africa’s largest exporter of timber to China. Yet multiple published concerns over the sustainability and legality of that timber trade assert the rapid commercial depletion of future timber stocks, the marginalisation of local forest communities, and the loss of revenue to government estimated at US$146 million between 2007 and 2013 alone.

Mozambique currently has one of the highest rates of land concessions throughout Africa. In the coming years, if large-scale land concession grants to private investors are not carefully controlled, the amount of land still held and managed by rural Mozambicans will decrease significantly, with associated negative impacts on already impoverished rural communities.

After a number of constitutional amendments in 1990 had introduced the need to revise the legal framework for land and natural resources1, the government of Mozambique embarked upon a rather piecemeal process to develop a new policy and institutional framework for natural resource management. The main pillars of this framework consist of various pieces of legislation dealing with specific natural resources, such as the Land Law, the Forestry & Wildlife Law, the Mining Law and their related regulations and annexes.

Under Mozambique’s Constitution and Land Law (1997), communities may legally govern their lands and natural resources according to customary norms and practices, so long as local customs do not contradict national law. However, rising land scarcity and associated increases in land value are leading some families to “reinterpret” custom as sanctioning the dispossession of widows from their marital lands.

This study examines the statutory recognition of customary land tenure in Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania, which were chosen as case studies because of the diverse approaches to the issue they represent. Botswana's Tribal Land Act (1968) established a system of regional land boards and transferred the land administration and management powers of customary leaders to the boards, which originally included both customary leaders and state officials among their members.

This Country Programming Framework (CPF) sets out three government priority areas to guide the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) partnership and support with the Government of Mozambique – bringing together innovative international best practices and global standards with national and regional expertise during 5 years from 2016 to 2020.