The Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), with support from the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), performed the Ghana Land Tenure Baseline Survey, the first of its kind survey of tenure rights among cocoa farmers in Ghana. CRIG surveyed almost 1,800 cocoa farmers operating 3,900 cocoa plots regarding various land tenure issues within customary sharecropping arrangements and on owner-managed land. This report describes the findings from the Survey.

This study assessed the contribution of Geita Gold Mine (GGM) to the livelihoods of local communities in Geita District. Specifically, it assessed the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility implementation, determined the extent to which GGM has contributed to socio-economic development in the study area, and examined the communities’ perceptions of environmental problems associated with mining activities and their impact on community well-being. A cross-sectional research design was employed, in which qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection were used.

A fact-finding mission team was formed as a result of consultative meetings on the land dispute between the village government and pastoralists in Vilima Vitatu village in Babati district. The team was comprised of the following members: Kassian Mshomba (LHRC), Seif Mangwangi (Majira), Diana Mawalla (PINGOs Forum), Hamadi Sadick, Emmanuel Cornel (PINGOs Forum), Asraji Mvungi (ITV), Rodgers Luhwago (The Citizen), Bakari Mnkondo (Uhuru), Bernard Baha (HakiArdhi) and Chambi Chachage (Independent Researcher).

The world is increasingly encroaching on indigenous peoples’ traditional lands. Around the globe, indigenous communities are forced to cede ground to state development, corporate land grabs, rising sea levels, environmental degradation, and population growth. The right to land provides the basis for access to food, housing, and development. But for indigenous peoples, traditional lands are more than this; they represent essential ties to their ancestors, their culture, and their languages. Losing their land means losing their way of life.

Public land is a resource that should be effectively managed in the public’s best interest in line with provisions of the Constitutions of Kenya and the Land Act. The management framework governing land use and development decisions on public land should ensure protection and sustainable management of the land. Despite these provisions in law, recent media reports point toresurgenceof public land grab. The Land Development and Governance Institute commissioned this research study to establish the status of the public land management in Kenya.

Matters of environmental migration are frequently looked at from a humanitarian perspective.1 This policy brief will instead look at it with a lens focusing on land issues. The question of environmental migration is inevitably linked to the question of land for several reasons. First, climate and environmental change trigger and accelerate the loss of land due to sea-level rise, coastal erosion, landslides and other forms of land degradation.

Restoration of mangroves is often considered a way to minimize losses incurred from their decline and to provide additional services to coastal communities. However, the success of restoration programs is often focused on biological or ecological criteria. The situation is no exception in Bangladesh, which houses the world's largest mangrove plantations. This study has been undertaken in a south-central estuarine island (Nijhum Dwip) of the Bangladesh coast and aims to understand societal perception on the achievements of a plantation program.

Stands of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) rank among the most biologically diverse plant communities across the intermountain region of western North America. Marked declines of aspen have occurred in recent decades, likely due to a combination of effects from changes in fire regimes, herbivory, climate (e.g. drought), and interspecific competition with conifer species. However, it is poorly understood how the effects of these factors are manifested at a landscape scale over decadal time periods.

Mediterranean agro-forestry systems are undergoing rapid change due to abandonment. This turns formerly cultivated or grazed oak-tree parklands (i.e., savanna-type formations called “dehesas”) into flammable formations of scattered trees within a matrix of shrubs with open spaces. Wildfires can now occur, threatening the persistence of these formations. Fire-prone shrublands commonly regenerate after fire from seeds stored in the soil.

Both fire and conifer encroachment can markedly alter big sagebrush communities and thus habitat quality and quantity for wildlife. We investigated how conifer encroachment and spring prescribed burning affected forage and cover resources for a sagebrush specialist, the pygmy rabbit. We studied these dynamics at spring prescribed burns in southwestern Montana and eastern Idaho during the summer of 2011.

To assess the spatial patterns of forest expansion (encroachment and densification) for mountain pine (Pinus uncinata Ram.) during the last 50 years at a whole mountain range scale by the study of different topographic and socio-economic potential drivers in the current context of global change. The study area includes the whole distributional area of mountain pine in the Catalan Pyrenees (north-east Spain). This represents more than 80 municipalities, covering a total area of 6018 km².

The encroachment of woody species in natural grasslands has recently increased, especially in arid and semi-arid environments. In the Mediterranean region, this is mainly attributed to the dramatic decrease of the traditional human activities such as pastoral management and fuelwood collection, which controlled the encroachment of woody species. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Juniperus oxycedrus encroachment on herbage production and floristic diversity in a natural grassland.