Since the global crises in the 2000s, many foreign and domestic actors have acquired large tracts of land for food and biofuel crop cultivation and other purposes in Africa, often leading to the displacement of the African people living on customary land. The weak customary land rights of ordinary African people have been viewed as one of the main factors making it possible for various land-grabbers to exploit customary land with different purposes.

Both human activities and climate change have changed landscapes significantly, especially in coastal areas. Sea level rise and land subsidence foster tidal floods and permanent inundations, thus changing and limiting land use. Though many countries, including Indonesia, are aware of these phenomena, the legal status of this permanently inundated land remains unclear. Indonesia refers to this land legally as obliterated land. This qualification makes former landowners uncertain, as it does not recognize their previous land rights, and creates disputes during land acquisition.

In 2019, residents of the rural district of San Rafael Comac in the municipality of San Andrés Cholula, Mexico, challenged the implementation of the 2018 Municipal Program for Sustainable Urban Development of San Andrés Cholula (MPSUD), a rapacious urban-planning policy that was negatively affecting ancestral communities—pueblos originarios—and their lands and traditions.

One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal’s (SDGs) aims is to enhance access to clean energy. In addition, other SDGs are directly related to the restoration of degraded soils to improve on-farm productivity and land management. Integrating Short Rotation Woody Crops (SRWC) for bioenergy into conventional agriculture provides opportunities for sustainable domestic energy production, rural economic development/diversification, and restoration of soil health and biodiversity.

Sustainable forest land management requires measuring and monitoring soil organic carbon. Visible and near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (Vis-NIR, 350–2500 nm), although it has become an important method for predicting soil organic carbon (SOC), requires further studies and methods of analysis to realize its full potential. This study aimed to determine if the size of the study area and soil sampling density may affect the performance of Vis-NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in the prediction of soil organic carbon.

ʻĀina (land) is central to Native Hawaiian culture and ways of life. The illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and annexation to the US resulted in the loss of Hawaiian crown and government land, which was placed in trust for the benefit of the Hawaiian people. These lands, now managed by the State of Hawaiʻi, were reconstituted as the Public Land Trust (PLT) with one of the articulated uses being the betterment of Native Hawaiians.

Climate change significantly impacts global agricultural productivity. Therefore, a more dynamic farming system is needed to enable farmers to better adapt to climate change while contributing to efforts to produce enough food to feed the growing world population. In the context of climate change, this study analyzed the empirical scientific literature on the link between climate-smart agriculture and farm productivity.

This review offers an examination of the historical and sociocultural context that should have informed the creation and management of the Bears Ears National Monument (BENM) in rural Southeastern Utah, USA—an area surrounded by ranching communities and sovereign Native American tribal lands. Because of elements such as cultural significance, ancestral ties, natural resources, and recreational value, the land of Bears Ears has different cultural meanings for various groups. The BENM is indeed a complex issue that can and should be viewed from multiple perspectives.

Land uses and terrain characteristics would likely influence the types and spatial arrangements of forest patches, and generally, forest fragmentation. Whereas prior research has focused mainly on direct land use-induced forest fragmentation, this study models the relationship between the spatial distribution of core forest patches, land uses, and terrain variables.

With globally more than 100,000 km2 impacted by surface mining at present, and with increasing demand for surface-mined products, land managers are challenged to address landscape degradation of decommissioned quarries, especially in urban areas. In this study, soil, microclimate, and vegetation community data were collected from geomorphologically distinct locations (quarry floor, platform with pond, quarry top, highwall edge) within an urban limestone quarry abandoned 70 years ago without reclamation in central Missouri, USA.

The aims of agricultural land management change continuously, reflecting shifts in wider societal priorities. Currently, these include addressing the climate crisis, promoting environmental sustainability, and supporting the livelihoods of rural communities while ensuring food security. Working toward these aims requires information on the character of agricultural land and how dynamic processes influence it. Remote and near-surface sensing data are important sources of information on the characteristics of soils, plants, water, topography, and related processes.

Whereas most contemporary frameworks evaluating land management aspects focus on institutional settings at a national level, the 8R framework of responsible land management aims at evaluating individual land management projects or interventions. This 8R framework is, however, still under development and needs testing, validation and further detailing, such that specific operational characteristics and internal and external effects can be included in the evaluation.