The ninth biennial issue of State of the World’s Forests, published at the outset of 2011, the International Year of Forests, considers the theme ‘Changing pathways, changing lives: forests as multiple pathways to sustainable development’. It takes a holistic view of the multiple ways in which forests support livelihoods.

No contexto de aumento de propostas de sistemas de pagamentos por serviços ambientais e também de reconhecimento crescente da contribuição dos povos tradicionais para a sociobiodiversidade e o combate às mudanças climáticas, esse artigo apresenta um processo em curso de identificação das contribuições socioambientais de povos tradicionais da Terra do Meio.

What will be the impact on forests of future economic development, globalized trade and increases in the world's population? The 2009 edition of the biennial State of the World's Forests looks forward, with the theme "Society, forests and forestry: adapting for the future". Part 1 summarizes the outlook for forests and forestry in each region, based on FAO's periodic regional forest sector outlook studies. Past trends and projected demographic, economic, institutional and technological changes are examined to outline the scenario to 2030.

Biodiversity offsets seek to counterbalance loss of biodiversity due to major developments by generating equivalent biodiversity benefits elsewhere, resulting, at least in theory, in ‘no net loss’ (or even a ‘net positive gain’) in biodiversity. While local costs of major developments themselves receive significant attention, the local costs of associated biodiversity offsets have not.

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are widespread in conservation policy. In PES, environmental effectiveness and social equity are often perceived as conflicting goals. Empirical studies on the relationship between popular design features, such as payment differentiation and payment conditionality, and effectiveness and equity are scarce. Further, they struggle with measuring and separating ecological and equity outcomes.

Researchers and policy makers are increasingly looking at the drivers of forest recovery (or forest transition) for inspiration in their search for win-win solutions to deforestation. However, causal generalizations regarding forest transitions are subject to significant problems. First, forest transition theory (FTT), at least in its simplest renditions, tends to emphasize socially benign processes and fails to pay sufficient attention to the causal role—and social impacts—of negative (push) dynamics.

Corruption is a continuing feature of the Philippines’ natural resource sectors. Given keen interest in the country’s REDD+ potential, it is useful to consider corruption risks related to REDD+ from a political economy perspective. This U4 Issue draws on fieldwork from two REDD+ pilot sites to assess current governance and anti-corruption safeguards related to benefit-sharing, land tenure rights for indigenous peoples, and private sector involvement. Many anti-corruption actions are in place in the pilot sites, but they are weakly embedded in social relations at the local level.

En el año 2000, se intensificaron las amenazas de expansión de la frontera agrícola, extracción de madera, cacería comercial y pesca masiva no controlada, creándose conflictos entre aripaeños y foráneos por el uso del bosque y sus espacios. Por ello, los comunarios del lugar iniciaron las conversaciones para concretar un Acuerdo de Conservación.

This guide provides background information on the original project and pilot implementation, describes the model and its components, and provides the reasoning and objectives behind each activity to help implementers understand the model’s strengths and make informed decisions about tailoring the existing model for the context in which they plan to work.

The Annual Country Reviews reflect upon current land issues in the Mekong Region, and has been produced for researchers, practitioners and policy advocates operating in the field. Specialists have been selected from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam to briefly answer the following two questions:

1. What are the most pressing issues involving land governance in your country?

2. What are the most important issues for the researcher on land?