The Kumasi peri-urban area is characterised by high rates of conversion of agricultural land to private housing. Kumasi, Ghana, is also situated across a major drainage divide, resulting in a range of water quality and supply problems. Collaborative DFID-funded research by Royal Holloway, University of London, with government and NGO partners in Ghana, aims to develop and pilot a sustainable co-management approach to peri- urban watersheds.

As the pace of decentralisation in Africa quickens, how can external agencies help communities fulfill new management responsibilities? A study from Niger has implications for other parts of Africa where commitment to decentralised natural resource management is offering scope for radical new approaches to transferring power to local people.

Latest report from Friends of the Earth's Coporates Campaign looking at linkages between financial institutions, pulp and paper manufaturers and paper merchants in forest destruction. The report focuses on the activities of Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Ltd (APRIL) - one of the worlds largest pulp and paper companies - and their subsidiary operations in Sumatra.

In 1995, corrupt officials secretly awarded all of Cambodia’s unallocated forest, 35 per cent of the country’s total land area, as concessions to logging companies. How have these rogue loggers exploited political instability and weak government institutions to plunder Cambodia’s timber? Can anything be done to check the depredations of the ‘untouchables’ before Cambodia is logged out?

Collection of ten papers looking at the impacts and issues arising from fuelwood use. Also case studies from a number of countries covering forest energy strategies and the development of alternatives.The papers included are as follows:Factors affecting fuelwood use in Taita, Kenya.Fleuret, A. 1983 Fuelwood use in Zanzibar town.Masoud, R.S. 1991Woodlots, woodfuel and energy strategies for Ciskei.Bembridge, T.J. 1990 Fuelwood scarcity in rural Africa: possible remedies.McClintock, J. 1987Stoves and deforestation in developing countriesGill, J.

This toolkit provides a framework for main-streaming gender in rural development activities.It addresses the lack of conceptual and practical tools in the area of sustainable land management. Its modular design allows for individual approaches and targets development staff at the project and programme levels, with the aim of helping them to find practical ways of dealing with gender issues in rural development activities.

How can the process of tropical deforestation be controlled? We now know a good deal about the causes of deforestation but not its control. Research from the University of Leeds in Thailand and the Philippines fills this gap, showing that changes in the domestic political scene explain how deforestation processes have been controlled in the two countries. Environmental constraints and increases in agricultural productivity can curb the demand for farmland to some extent.

The 21st Century opened with a commitment to involving forest-local communities in the processes of securing and sustaining forests. But what is the relationship between people’s right to land and the manner in which they may be involved in the management of forests?

A University of Leeds collaborative study has probed links between environmental change and famine – two problems perceived to lie at the heart of Africa’s current crisis – in the context of another all too often linked to the continent - warfare and civil unrest. Land hunger and environmental depletion in the aftermath of war are often cited as causes of famine that in turn will lead to further conflict. Is such a chain reaction really at work? Is there an inevitable causal link between environmental degradation and violent conflict?

How can integrative analysis (IA) of city systems improve understanding of the links between environmental and social problems? Can this analysis inform future decision- making? Collaborative research by the Australian National University and Mahidol University, Thailand, uses IA to analyse environmental problems, land use, and behaviour patterns in Bangkok. Do the roots of the city’s environmental problems lie in the nature of decision-making by stakeholders at every level, as the article suggests?

Everyone agrees that logging and agriculture can cause deforestation. But does shifting cultivation, or ‘slash and burn’ farming destroy forests particularly? Are local farmers solely to blame? Recent research by Overseas Development Institute (ODI) suggests the role of shifting farming in starting forest fires has been exaggerated. It is not, in fact, a major cause of biodiversity loss. The report finds that the causes of deforestation are many and varied, and that governments and international investors are also responsible.

Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model this report identifies the links among economic growth, poverty alleviation, and natural resource degradation in Brazil.