Payments  for  ecosystem  services (PES)  provide a market based instrument to motivate changes in land use that degrade ecosystem services. This investigation sought  to better understand how effective PES schemes are in meeting the goals of safeguarding ecosystem services,  while  also  benefitting  local  livelihoods and ensuring pro-poor outcomes.Based on an internet survey of 36 PES projects, including water-bio-diversity and carbon- leading  attributes, and analysis of a sub-set of nine case studies, we explore a range of insights and commonalities between projects.

This paper argues that stakeholder groups – specifically indigenous and local communities living in or directly dependent upon forests – can often offer an important source of knowledge and capacity.

It highlights that these people can support data gathering for safeguard information needs, especially in places where existing monitoring systems cannot do so comprehensively. The paper argues that their involvement is important for protecting their rights, and critical for minimising the risk that REDD+, or the safeguards, could fail to meet their objectives.

Despite the central role of urban areas in socio-economic and geo-political change processes at the local, regional, and global level, as well as in the regional and global biophysical processes, little attention has been paid so far to the complex and dynamic interactions between urban areas and the biophysical and chemical processes of global environmental changes.This book contributes to the knowledge about these interactions.

This paper explores the opportunities for mitigating atmospheric carbon emissions and generating development income in developing countries through a combination of sustainable agricultural practices on existing lands, slowing tropical deforestation, and reforesting degraded lands.The analysis shows that over the next ten years, forty-eight major tropical and subtropical developing countries have the potential to reduce the atmospheric carbon burden by about 2.2 billion tonnes of carbon.

Prepared by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, this in-depth report seeks to shed light on the climate mitigation potential of agriculture. It argues that with an increasing demand for food, global agriculture will soon become the dominant area of greenhouse emissions, with the two main sources being nitrous oxide from the soil and methane from animal farming (of particular concern as developing countries convert increasingly to a high-protein, 'western', diet). The scientific case for the significance of agricultural emissions is presented in parts one to six of the report.

The Forests and Climate Change Programme (FORCLIME) is a collaborative initiative implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. The project aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the forestry sector and improve the livelihoods of Indonesia’s poor rural communities. This report outlines the results of a gender analysis of Indonesia’s forestry sector undertaken to inform the design of a gender strategy for FORCLIME.

This policy brief outlines participatory carbon monitoring (PCM) pilots in Viet Nam. Developing countries undertaking REDD+ activities will need to provide evidence of “results-based action” in order to receive payments for the reduction of carbon emissions or the enhancement of terrestrial carbon stocks. The brief begins by outlining the context of PCM activities in Viet Nam and then goes onto describe the objectives of PCM. Testaments from PCM participants are provided and key steps of PCM are discussed.

This paper presents an overview of pastoral systems and addresses rights issues around access and control of resources in the context of climate change.

Ecosystems are a form of natural capital. Invasions by introduced alien plant species alter ecosystems, often reducing supplies of valuable ecosystem goods and services and imposing substantial costs on South Africa’s economy. Reversing these losses by removing alien plants imposes further costs because clearing and control operations are expensive. However, the high costs can be offset by the benefits of creating employment opportunities through such operations and the livelihood benefits that can be derived from the cleared land.

This paper focuses on extracts from a recent comparative analysis of livestock and land use surveys across a range of agro-climatic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, based on information from systematic low level aerial reconnaissance and complementary ground studies in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan and Tchad, between 1980 and 1993.

This literature review assesses current and potential future changes occurring within the forestry sector. It identifies challenges posed to forests and analyses the relationship between forests and climate change. While it is relatively safe to assume that temperature increase is a threat to the survival of many ecosystems other challenges, such as extreme weather and precipitation levels, are harder to predict.

This report provides an overview of the issues, root causes, and driving forces behind the crimes related to illegal logging. The report includes a comprehensive review of existing initiatives to address the challenges of illegal logging in Southeast Asia. The results are derived mainly from a literature review of various publications, websites, and project documents, but also from personal communication through interviews with people working on the issues of illegal logging in the region.