Does climate change drive conflict over land use in Mali?

This study investigates the alleged relationship between climate change and conflicts, using the Inland Delta of the Niger River in Mali as a case study, where this region is an African hotspot area in terms of land use conflicts.

The author emphasises that, despite the clear climate developments in the region throughout the last century, researchers are much less sure about future changes. Moreover, the paper finds that:

ecent food-price and economic shocks have further jeopardized the food security of developing countries and poor people, pushing the estimated number of undernourished people over one billion. Known and unknown food-security risks appear to be on the rise. Increasing uncertainties raise critical questions about how to quickly, viably, and sustainably manage familiar risks and emerging new ones.

The research team set out to answer three research questions: 1) What are rubber investment’s key features with regard to the investment process, investor identity, location, activities and scale? 2) How was the “upland” landscape originally zoned and mapped as part of the LFA process, and later re-zoned and mapped by local authorities and foreign investors? 3) What are the impacts of rubber investment in upland areas on the land use and livelihoods of the villagers involved?

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: Since đổi mới, Vietnam witnesses a rapid urbanization and industrialization, which leads to conversions of a large area of agricultural land and other types of land, and this has forced thousands of farmer households to change their traditional livelihoods and even their lives. Using the lens of a sustainable livelihoods framework, this study analyzes and explains the questions of how, in what ways and to what extent agricultural land conversions have been affecting farmer livelihoods in one peri-urban Hanoi village.

In 2008, a year in which the global population—particularly the world’s poor—was confronted by both the financial and food-price crises, agricultural systems faced changes that led to market disruptions, reduced growth, mass protests, and a string of political efforts to reshape the design and governance of food systems.

El dramático aumento y la volatilidad de los precios de los alimentos durante el último año han sacudido al sistema alimentario mundial. Por lo general, tanto los gobiernos como la comunidad dedicada al desarrollo internacional han respondido ante diversos aspectos de la crisis alimentaria, pero todavía permanecen las preguntas sobre si se han tomado o no las acciones más adecuadas, cuál es la mejor forma de responder y qué nos aguarda en el futuro.

Đổi Mới, the name given to the economic reforms initiated in 1986 in Vietnam, has renewed the party-state’s ambitious scheme of industrialization and has intensified the process of urbanization in Vietnam. A large area of land has been converted for these purposes, with various effects on both the state and society. This article sheds light on how land conversion has resulted in farmers’ resistance and in what way and to what extent it has transformed their livelihoods in the transitional context of contemporary Vietnam.

Under the New Zealand Emission Trading System (NZETS), post-1989forestry land (the exotic or indigenous forest land that was not used forplantation on 31 December 1989) in New Zealand is eligible for reward foreach tonne of CO2-eqv sequestrated by reverting from pasture to indigenousscrub. We use the Land Use in Rural New Zealand (LURNZ) model to conduct2 simulations assuming that one tonne of CO2-eqv costs $25; The referencecase is that no one has entered the NZETS, the other scenario is thatthe whole agriculture sector and indigenous forest (but not plantation) haveentered the ETS.

The estate Gornji grad, since 1462 in the ownership in the diocese of Ljubljana, owned for centuries large forests and leasehold pastures. They were managaed in a traditional way with the servitude or otherwise acquired rights of the bondsmen, applying selected felling of the trees, mostly without allocation to the bondsmen or by increasing the acreage of the pasture on the expense of that of the forests as well as in many other ways. All this finally resulted, although unintentionally, in the benefit of the bondsmen.

Agriculture has played and still plays a significant role in the life of rural communities and in rural development. But, because agriculture yields low revenues, agricultural workers often need a source of additional income. Agriculture combines excellently with the growing of medicinal herbs, organic farming, handicrafts and tourism. Rural tourism, as originally conceived, is a source of revenue to supplement income from agriculture.

Property regimes shape the social relations, in particular, social settings, and represent an important element for external intervention and sustainable rural development. The introduction recalls common aspects and specific conceptualisations of property analysis in the field of economics, sociology and social anthropology and summarises main academic discourses about property rights in order to develop a differentiated understanding of property. In Section 1, general trends in property relations characterising modern rural societies are outlined.