The Center for International Forestry Research has developed and adapted various participatory tools for use with forest communities and other natural resource dependent groups. The tools have diverse applications: stakeholder identification, decision making, planning, conflict management, information collection, landscape assessment and other uses. The Guide to Participatory Tools for Forest Communities is intended for environment and development practitioners, researchers and local government officials.

Increasingly, geospatial web applications such as www.fixmystreet.com or www.seeclickfix.com are being integrated within citizen participation processes in spatial planning and the provision of communal services. Recently, several of these platforms have been launched in Latin America and other countries of the Global South.

Discusses ways of studying economics of household level activities in pastoral production systems, with particular reference to the collection and analysis of data on household income and expenditure as well as resources inventory.

Reviews differences between crop production and pastoral production, considering their effects on research possibilities; and describes basic methods that may be used to collect household level data, esp. informal & formal surveys, enumeration and the use of questionnaires.

This year's annual report in addition to the 2007 research work also covers key events in the first half of 2008, particularly matters pertaining to the continuing global food price crisis. There is a special section on the record-high food prices; and an introduction to ILRI's 'Improving Market Opportunities' Theme. This annual report comprises three chapters, viz., East Africa; South Asia; and Southern Africa.

The paper identifies poverty and malnutrition, low crop and livestock productivity, widespread land degradation and underutilization of some resources as a major problem of highlands. To tackle these problems, a systems approach to research has been adapted and research has been conducted under the following themes: intentional food/feed production strategies, feed utilisation strategies, livestock mediated soil, water and nutrient management strategies, and spatial integration of system improvement strategies.