Tenure
Climate-Smart Conservation Agriculture, Farm Values and Tenure Security: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the Congo BasinBackgroundThe Congo Basin forest houses a high amount of biodiversity and is an important area to conserve in light of climate change. This region is also important for agriculture and local livelihoods, though current practices are degrading the forest. Certain policy issues surrounding land tenure and investments may be hindering climate smart agriculture. Open access copy available |
A cautionary note for forest landscape restoration in drylands: cattle production systems in northwest Madagascar’s dry forestsBACKGROUNDIt is evident that land tenure security is crucial for successful restoration. Unfortunately, in Madagascar, dry forests are considered unoccupied and unowned even when communities have long-established claims under customary tenure systems. The authors stated that collective tenure recognition efforts were underway in Madagascar, but limited knowledge of agropastoralist cattle production strategies impeded the efforts to develop tenure reforms. The authors examined how cattle raisers in the Boney Region in northwest Madagascar organize pastoral spaces and cattle production strategies in the area’s dry forest. Open access copy available |
The political ecology playbook for ecosystem restoration: Principles for effective, equitable, and transformative landscapesBackgroundGlobally, land degradation and forest loss continue despite an increasing number of projects working towards ecological restoration. The authors of this paper argue that one of the reasons that restoration projects have been unable to achieve their goals and ensure ecological resilience is that they ignore the underlying issues of political inequity and injustice that drive ecological degradation. Open access copy available |
Anything but a story foretold: multiple politics of resistance to the agrarian extractivist project in GuatemalaBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Oil palm expansion without enclosure: smallholders and environmental narrativesBackgroundOil palm expansion has been shown to cause deforestation and reduce land and resource availability for communities located near plantations. It has also been shown to have mixed impacts on local livelihoods. Some studies point to socially different impacts, with small and marginal farmers less likely to benefit from oil palm expansion while others find significant increases in incomes. This paper seeks to understand the factors that make smallholder farmers participate in oil palm expansion, and outline the varied narratives that are used by the proponents of oil palm expansion. Available with subscription or purchase |
Inverting the moral economy: the case of land acquisitions for forest plantations in TanzaniaBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
Jatropha plantations for biodiesel in Tamil Nadu, India: Viability, livelihood trade-offs, and latent conflictBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
Resistance, acquiescence or incorporation? An introduction to land grabbing and political reactions ‘from below'BackgroundWhile several research studies have examined the processes surrounding rural land transformation(s), and, in particular, the accumulation of public land by private entities, there are few studies that examine the responses of locally impacted people to these processes. This paper introduces a set of articles which discuss the varied reactions that local people have to the acquisition of public land and the ways in which they are formed and expressed. Open access copy available |
Grey areas in green grabbing: subtle and indirect interconnections between climate change politics and land grabs and their implications for researchBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?BackgroundThe authors introduce a set of papers which collectively discuss discourses and processes surrounding the transfer of ownership, user rights, or control over land and resources to meet environmental goals such as the production of biofuels or carbon sequestration, dispossessing some of their land while contributing to increasing the accumulation of property for others. The papers were originally presented at the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing and contribute to existing debates around land grabbing by building on the concept of ‘green grabbing’, wherein the appropriation of land is justified on environmental grounds. Open access copy available |
