Land use practices contribute to both the emission and sequestration of greenhouse gases. Land is where the struggle to adapt to climate change will be won or lost by the poorest of the poor. Land science is a priority area of collaboration between UNCCD and UNFCCC, if land-climate insights and actions are to be optimized. It can also foster the synergies continually called for by Parties to the three sister Rio Conventions.

Climate change and the HIV/AIDS epidemic are two of the most critical long-term global challenges, especially for Africa and even more so Southern Africa.

Local level, collective small-scale farming projects in the Kat River Valley, like elsewhere, have proven difficult to sustain.  Various factors from macro-level policies to local level social and political dynamics were found to hinder or block the success of such projects.  Some of the most challenging factors relate to history and path dependency, prevailing neoliberal agricultural policies and discourses, narrow markets, internal conflicts, lack of local capacity and unclear and insecure land tenure.

This research gives an evaluation of Tana delta with regard to areas that are suitable for rice growing. The study area lies on the Eastern delta area of the Tana river of which 16000 hectares have been earmarked for commercial rice farming. The evaluation of land in terms of the suitability classes was based on the method as described in FAO guideline for land evaluation for rain fed agriculture. A land unit resulting from the overlay process of the selected theme layers has unique information of land qualities for which the suitability was based on.

Under the new Constitution of Kenya, 2010, the County Government is now vested with the authority to ensure that land owned by county residents is used for the purposes it has been intended for by the Director of Physical Planning established under the Physical Planning Act. This means that if you intend to buy agricultural land and convert it into commercial use, you will be forced to seek approval for this kind of change of user of the land.

Throughout the Netherlands, land owners (or their lessees) use adjacent public or private land without any right. There is, however, no scientific empirical data on how often and where land is illegally used. On the basis of empirical case studies, this research has the following aims: make an estimate of how often illegal land use occurs in the Netherlands; which kind of land is illegally used; in what kind of spatial context it is illegally used; and for what purpose it is illegally used.

This Issue Paper No.2 is part of the series Making Rangelands Secure, a learning initiative supported by ILC, IFAD, RECONCILE, IUCN-WISP and Procasur. The Making Rangelands Secure Initiative has been established by a group of organisations seeking to improve security of rights to rangelands. The initiative seeks to identify, communicate and build good practice on making rangelands secure for local rangeland users.

These guidelines introduce and promote the essential elements of participatory rangeland management (PRM). Based upon the successful experiences of participatory forest management, the guidelines provide a process following three stages of investigation, negotiation and implementation. The sequential steps of this process lead to the development of a rangeland management plan and a legally binding rangeland management agreement between a local rangeland management institution and the appropriate local government office.

Ill advised, uncoordinated, and badly planned interventions have been blamed for continuing poverty and food insecurity in rangelands. Water interventions in particular have had negative impacts. Not only have these interventions failed to improve the livelihoods of people living there, but in many cases they have served to undermine them and the environment on which they depend. Rangeland development interventions have been sectoral in their approach.

Violent conflicts between nomadic herders from northern Nigeria and sedentary agrarian communities in the central and southern zones have escalated in recent years and are spreading southward, threatening the country’s security and stability. With an estimated death toll of approximately 2,500 people in 2016, these clashes are becoming as potentially dangerous as the Boko Haram insurgency in the north east. Yet to date, response to the crisis at both the federal and state levels has been poor.

In Senegal, concern about large-scale land acquisitions has been growing since 2000. Senegalese agriculture has long relied on small-scale family holdings and extensive agriculture. But the current population growth rate, combined with rapid urban development and natural resources degradation, have inevitably changed the game.