Land Use Practices

The Effect of Carbon Credits on Savanna Land Management and Priorities for Biodiversity Conservation

BACKGROUND:

Investing in habitat protection and sustainable management is crucial to curb the rapid decline in biodiversity. A carbon market offers financial incentives to modify land use or management practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the effects of such market-based conservation strategies in ecosystems like tropical savannas are still largely unexplored. The paper highlights the potential of emerging carbon markets as a means to fund improved land management practices that could benefit both biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

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Complementary ecosystem services from multiple land uses highlight the importance of tropical mosaic landscapes

Background

Tropical agricultural landscapes feature a mosaic of diverse land uses, yet the ecosystem service bundles and materials they provide to rural households remain poorly understood. In northeastern Madagascar, shifting cultivation for hillside rice production and agroforests for cash and subsistence crops have largely replaced old-growth forests. The landscape consists of forest fragments, small-scale vanilla agroforests, rice paddies, and subsistence farming plots at various stages of the shifting cultivation cycle.

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Why environmental impact assessments often fail

Background

Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) aim to mitigate the environmental costs of development, particularly in biodiversity-rich developing nations. While governments and corporations claim EIAs as safeguards against environmental harm from roads, dams, mines, and housing, many are ineffective or even worthless. Weak assessments fail to prevent projects that destroy habitats and endanger species. Key shortcomings include insufficient funding, narrow focus on immediate project areas, conflicts of interest among consultants, and poor governance that grants developers undue influence over policy decisions.

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Foresters' beliefs about farmers: a priority for social science research in social forestry

Background

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Forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala: A decade later

BACKGROUND:

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant shift in conservation strategies from traditional command-and-control approaches to more inclusive, community-focused philosophies. This transition was driven by the recognition of the failures of strict protectionism, which often led to diminished ecological and institutional resilience. Simultaneously, the recognition of rural communities as both impacted by and impactful within natural systems has grown, advocating for incentive-based, participatory strategies to address human-environment conflicts effectively.

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Reforesting Bare Hills in Vietnam: Social and Environmental Consequences of the 5 Million Hectare Reforestation Program

Background

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The tree planting and protecting culture of cattle ranchers and small-scale agriculturalists in rural Panama: Opportunities for reforestation and land restoration

Background

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Peasants, agroforesters, and anthropologists: A 20-year venture in income-generating trees and hedgerows in Haiti

Background

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Rural Women, Poverty and Natural Resources: Sustenance, Sustainability and Struggle for Change

Background

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Gender equality, food security and the sustainable development goals

Background

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