The former Soviet Central Asian republics have undergone de-intensification of their livestock sectors, resulting in an increased reliance on natural pastures. Property rights systems are key to the sustainable management of this resource. However, as the authors demonstrate, it is not easy to implement the respective reform processes.

Tropical forage grasses and legumes as key components of sustainable crop-livestock systems in Latin America and the Caribbean have major implications for improving food security, alleviating poverty, restoring degraded lands and mitigating climate change. Climate-smart tropical forage crops can improve the livestock productivity of smallholder farming systems and break the cycle of poverty and resource degradation.

Throughout the world, demands on finite soil resources are ever increasing, and can lead to irreversible soil degradation, as the soil is used beyond its “bio-capacity”. A quarter of the inhabitated land area has already been affected by human-induced soil degradation. Against this background, soil remediaton is becoming more and more important. Focusing on the rehabilitation of oil-contaminated soil in Kuwait, the following article shows how it works, and where the problems lie