Gabon’s oil wealth coincides with the fact that it is one of the most forested countries in Africa; about four-fifths of its land area is covered by forests. But this is not really a coincidence. The central hypothesis of this report is that oil rents have enabled a series of pro-urban, anti-rural policies that, together with the low demographic pressure, have been key in protecting forests from degradation and deforestation. In particular, forest conversion to cropland has been contained. Most probably, oil has helped expand forest cover in absolute terms.

Large-scale land acquisitions have increased in scale and pace due to changes in commodity markets, agricultural investment strategies, land prices, and a range of other policy and market forces. The areas most affected are the global “commons” – lands that local people traditionally use collectively — including much of the world’s forests, wetlands, and rangelands. In some cases land acquisition occurs with environmental objectives in sight – including the setting aside of land as protected areas for biodiversity conservation.

This report provides a synoptic analysis of the legal and governance frameworks that relate to the use and management of mangrove forests globally. It highlights the range of challenges typically encountered in the governance and tenure dimensions of mangrove forest management. This assessment forms part of a broader study that includes national-level assessments in Indonesia and Tanzania. It was carried out under the USAID-funded Tenure and Global Climate Change Program.

Most of the world’s remaining tropical forests lie in areas that are customarily managed and/or legally owned by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. In the context of climate change and global efforts to protect and enhance the capacity of forests to capture and store greenhouse gas emissions, the question of who owns the trees and the carbon stored therein is paramount. Clarifying this question is crucial, both for the future of the planet, and for up to 1.7 billion people worldwide who rely on forests for their livelihoods.

En este ensayo se analiza la compleja y contradictoria dinámica socio-geográfica de la Amazonía, con especial atención en sus múltiples territorialidades de las que emanan diferentes potencialidades para el futuro de la región.

...The forests of the Dawna Tenasserim are under pressure from deforestation due to
agricultural expansion and logging, forest fragmentation, subsistence poaching, commercial
poaching for the illegal wildlife trade, unsustainable harvesting of non-timber forest products
and wild meat, and major infrastructure development such as roads, pipelines and dams...WWF is conserving the Dawna Tenasserim Landscape
as an intact ecosystem with protected and connected
habitats for wildlife, and safeguarding its valuable

Forest Inform Pty Ltd provides "Land Logic Services" that combine government agencies' and stakeholders’ decision rules with accurate spatial data to resolve forest land use conflicts, integrate regional development, prepare conservation plans, and Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).

Executive summary: "The high incidence of forest conflict in Southeast Asia underscores the need for conflict-transformation tools to maximize
the positive impacts and reduce potential damage. Mediation is considered one of the most effective approaches in
transforming conflict over natural resources. Mediation is often chosen when negotiation between conflict parties fails due
to the complexity and intensity of the conflict and because of unequal negotiating power. It is also chosen when the judicial

Abstract: In large parts of the world, forests remain the domain of the state in which the rights of forest-dependent
peoples are denied or insecure. E fforts to restore justice to, and alleviate the poverty of, these marginalized
communities have often focused on tenurial reforms. S ometimes those reforms have led to important improvements
in livelihoods, mainly by stabilizing communities’ land use systems and by giving them greater
security. H owever, these improvements have not prevented communities from suffering other forms of

Introduction: "This
might
refer
to
our
relationship
with
the
environment
just
as
well
as
to
that
between
a
man
and
a

woman.

Our
relationship
with
the
environment
requires
careful
attention
for
we
must
take
care
of
it
if

...the customary rights of communities and
Indigenous Peoples to forests, rangelands, and wetlands are often not
written down or shown on government maps, but they are a fundamental
reality. They cover more than 50 percent of the world’s land surface, yet
new research by RRI in 2015 showed that just 10 percent of the world’s
land is legally recognized as community-owned.2
This means that governments formally recognize communities’
ownership rights to less than 20 percent of the land they have
historically owned.

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is a CGIAR Consortium Research Centre. ICRAF’s headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya, with six regional offices located in Cameroon, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya and Peru.

The Centre’s vision is a rural transformation throughout the tropics as smallholder households increase their use of trees in agricultural landscapes to improve their food security, nutrition security, income, health, shelter, social cohesion, energy resources and environmental sustainability.