The story of urbanization in Kenya should be one of cautious optimism. As an emerging middle-income country with a growing share of its population living in urban areas and a governance shift toward devolution, the country could be on the verge of a major social and economic transformation. How it manages its urbanization and devolution processes will determine whether it can maximize the benefits of its transition to a middle-income country.

Matters of environmental migration are frequently looked at from a humanitarian perspective.1 This policy brief will instead look at it with a lens focusing on land issues. The question of environmental migration is inevitably linked to the question of land for several reasons. First, climate and environmental change trigger and accelerate the loss of land due to sea-level rise, coastal erosion, landslides and other forms of land degradation.

The challenges of achieving both food security and sustainability have resulted in a confluence of demands on land within the European Union: we expect our land to provide food, purify water, sequester carbon, and provide a home to biodiversity and to external nutrients. All soils perform all these five functions, but some soils ‘are better at’ supplying selective functions. Functional Land Management is a framework for policy making aimed at meeting these demands by incentivising soil management and land use practices that selectively augment specific soil functions, where required.

A Bill for AN ACT of Parliament to consolidate the laws relating to energy, to provide for National and County Government functions in relation to energy,to provide for the establishment, powers and functions of the energy sector entities; promotion of renewable energy; exploration, recovery and commercial utilization of geothermal energy; regulation of midstream and downstream petroleum and coal activities; regulation, production, supply and use of electricity and other energy forms; and for connected purposes.

These guidelines provide a basis for engagement between the County Governments as planning authorities responsible for preparing, approving and implementing County Spatial Plans and the National Land Commission as a monitoring and oversight agency over land use planning. The County Government Act 2012 at section 110(1)(a) stipulates that the County Spatial Plans shall give effect to the principles and objects of county planning and development contained in section 102 and 103 of the same Act.

Global biomass demand is expected to roughly double between 2005 and 2050. Current studies suggest that agricultural intensification through optimally managed crops on today's cropland alone is insufficient to satisfy future demand. In practice though, improving crop growth management through better technology and knowledge almost inevitably goes along with (1) improving farm management with increased cropping intensity and more annual harvests where feasible and (2) an economically more efficient spatial allocation of crops which maximizes farmers' profit.

Este artículo describe y analiza los orígenes mitológicos y socioculturales de la producción de quinua en la zona altiplánica boliviano - peruana, con elementos de género y culturales, para apoyar la hipótesis del desequilibrio que está causando, en sus palabras, “una irresponsable masificación comercial del grano”. El ensayo forma parte de un trabajo inédito y más amplio del author.

 
El artículo de esta quincena, presentado en formato de ensayo, busca en la historia y la condición de mediterraneidad de Bolivia y Paraguay las raíces de una supuesta “condena extractivista”. El Comité calificador el Concurso de artículos, ensayos y fotografías 2015 le dio el segundo puesto, destacando el esfuerzo de la mirada histórica y la comparación de la situación de dos países en la región.

Global food production needs to be increased by 60–110% between 2005 and 2050 to meet growing food and feed demand. Intensification and/or expansion of agriculture are the two main options available to meet the growing crop demands. Land conversion to expand cultivated land increases GHG emissions and impacts biodiversity and ecosystem services. Closing yield gaps to attain potential yields may be a viable option to increase the global crop production. Traditional methods of agricultural intensification often have negative externalities.

This book exposes the key land use and environmental problems facing Kenya today due to lack of an appropriate national land use policy. The publication details how the air is increasingly being polluted, the water systems are diminishing in quantity and deteriorating in quality. The desertification process threatens the land and its cover. The soils are being eroded leading to siltation of the ocean and lakes. The forests are being depleted with impunity thus destroying the water catchments.

The Uganda National Land Policy (NLP) Implementation Action Plan is a deliberate resolution by the Government of Uganda to address major challenges that have hindered the implementation of land reforms, thereby impeding the optimal utilisation of land for socio-economic development and transformation. Although successive post-independence governments have made numerous efforts to streamline land governance and reconfigure the role of land in national development, the majority of these efforts have failed to address underlying issues and have thus remained unimplemented to date.

The first set of the land laws were enacted in 2012 in line with the timelines outlined in the Constitution of Kenya 2010. In keeping with the spirit of the constitution, the Land Act, Land Registration Act and the national Land Commission Act respond to the requirements of Articles 60, 61, 62, 67 & 68 of the Constitution. The National Land Policy, which was passed as Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2009, arrived earlier than the Constitution, with some radical proposals on the land Management.