Large-scale land acquisitions have increased in scale and pace due to changes in commodity markets, agricultural investment strategies, land prices, and a range of other policy and market forces. The areas most affected are the global “commons” – lands that local people traditionally use collectively — including much of the world’s forests, wetlands, and rangelands. In some cases land acquisition occurs with environmental objectives in sight – including the setting aside of land as protected areas for biodiversity conservation.

The drylands of the world occur on every continent, covering some 41% of the terrestrial surface. One third
of humanity inhabits these harsh degrading landscapes, eking out a living through adaptive processes that
have served them well until recent increases of land degradation. Growing pressures from population growth,

Because vulnerability is a conceptual construct rather than a directly observable phenomenon,

most vulnerability assessments measure a set of “vulnerability indicators”. In order to identify

the core approaches and range of variation in the field, we conducted a systematic literature

review on local vulnerability to climate change. The systematic review entailed an

identification of frameworks, concepts, and operationalizations and a transparency assessment

of their reporting. Three fully defined relevant frameworks of vulnerability were identified:

The contemporary concern about anthropogenic release of greenhouse gas (GHG) into the

environment and the contribution of livestock to this phenomenon have sparked animal

scientists’ interest in predicting methane (CH4) emissions by ruminants. Focusing on milk

production, we address six basic nutrition models or feeding standards (mostly empirical

systems) and five complex nutrition models (mostly mechanistic systems), describe their key

characteristics, and highlight their similarities and differences. Four models were selected to

2013 has been a fruitful year for ICARDA marked by research accomplishments and a sense of gratitude. Our longstanding partner countries provided important support in making decentralization of the Center’s research a reality. This transition positions our research programs to more expressly target agroecosystem-based solutions, needed for wider impacts.