Grasslands in South Africa have been extensively transformed and fragmented, but are poorly protected. Commercial afforestation poses a particular threat to grassland biodiversity because areas suitable for forestry coincide with those supporting the greatest richness of endemic and threatened biota. To comply with international forestry standards, commercial timber growers leave “ecological networks” of interconnected open corridors within plantations: however, the value of these networks for conservation is unclear.

The premise of this paper is that the key to effective water resources management is understanding that the water cycle and land management are inextricably linked: that every land use decision is a water use decision. Gains in agricultural water productivity, therefore, will only be obtained alongside improvements in land use management. Expected increases in food demands by 2050 insist that agricultural production - and agricultural water use - must increase.

Slash and burn agriculture is a traditional and predominant land use practice in Madagascar and its relevance in the context of forest preservation is significant. At the end of a cycle of culture, the fields become mostly weed covered and the soil fertility starts to drop. As a consequence, these fields are abandoned (they are called “monka”) and the farmers, in the best case, re-use old surfaces where the vegetation has recovered to some extent. Nevertheless, some of the farmers continue to extend part of their cultures into the natural forest.