Decisions over tenure – who gets access to land, fisheries and forests, for how long, and under what conditions – have important implications for people’s livelihoods. Spatial planning procedures can have a considerable impact on the legitimate tenure rights of the respective rights holders and, in the long term, can affect livelihoods. This technical guide on regulated spatial planning and tenure acknowledges this link and provides guidance on the importance of recognizing legitimate tenure rights in spatial planning processes.

Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary arrangements. This can leave the land vulnerable to outside commercial interests, so communities may seek to formalize their land rights in a government registry and obtain an official land document.

This technical guide on Governing land for women and men aims to assist implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (FAO, 2012b) by providing guidance that supports the Guidelines’ principle of gender equality in tenure governance. At the beginning of each module, reference is made to the relevant provisions in the Guidelines.

Being one of the oldest civilisations in the world, Ethiopia has an agricultural tradition that is over 2,500 years old. However the land has brought into cultivation at different times in history. Generally the Northern part of the country has experienced intensive agriculture for a long time, whereas the southwestern highlands, which show relatively less soil degradation were brought into agriculture in the last couple of centuries.

Dust storms are capable of transporting sediment over thousands of kilometers, but due to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s proximity to the Sahara Desert, the region is one of the dustiest in the world. While natural sources such as the Sahara are the main contributors to dust storms in MENA, land-use changes and human-induced climate change has added anthropogenic sources as well.

Land is a key economic resource inextricably linked to access to, use of and control over other economic and productive resources. Recognition of this, and the increasing stress on land from the world’s growing population and changing climate, has driven demand for strengthening tenure security for all. This has created the need for a core set of land indicators that have national application and global comparability, which culminated in the inclusion of indicators 1.4.2 and 5.a.1 in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda.

Decisions about resource tenure – or who can use what resources of the land for how long, and under what conditions – are among the most critical for forests and livelihoods in many contexts.

About 88% of the population is concentrated in the highlands, which constitute less than half of the national territory; here the population density is 141 persons km-2. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood and national income in the country. Over 85% of the population directly depends on it and about half of the GDP is generated from the sector. However, agriculture is small-scale and subsistence oriented, and it is in a very low state of development.

Influenced by international trends, as well as in response to population, climate, resource and development needs, the standards, norms, mechanisms and incentives in natural resources law at the national level have evolved in recent years. Natural resources laws are influenced by developments in the international arena, either through international treaties that are binding or through ‘soft law’ instruments that are not legally binding but nevertheless have widespread adherence among governments, or that provide principles that guide and shape national legislation.

The Sustainable Rangeland Management Project (SRMP) aims at securing land and resource rights of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and crop farmers, while improving land management by supporting village and district land use planning and rangeland management in Kiteto, Bahi, Chamwino and Kondoa Districts in Tanzania. More broadly, it aims at influencing policy formulation and implementation on these issues.

Rangelands provide numerous goods and services that have great economic, social, cultural, and biological value. Inhabitants of rangelands have engineered pastoral, hunter-gatherer, and farming systems that have sustained their livelihoods in these usually dry environments for centuries. Primarily, rangelands are grazing-dependent systems, characterised by dry periods and droughts. However, these characteristics should not be a barrier to development and can be managed through careful planning and management of resources.

Local and indigenous communities across the world are advancing innovative sustainable development solutions that work for people and for nature. Few publications or case studies tell the full story of how such initiatives evolve, the breadth of their impacts, or how they change over time. Fewer still have undertaken to tell these stories with community practitioners themselves guiding the narrative. The Equator Initiative aims to fill that gap.