Forest Tenure

Previous field research on the Horqin Sandy Land (China), which has suffered from severe desertification during recent decades, revealed how land use on a sand-dune topography affects both land degradation and restoration. This study aimed to depict the spatial distribution of local land use in order to shed more light on previous field findings regarding policies on a broader scale.

Local forest management is essential for enhancing the sustainability of both communities’ livelihoods and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Land Degradation (REDD+) projects. However, few studies have examined the impact of forest ownership and control on community engagement and the functioning of communities in a co-managing conservation initiative.

This paper summarizes the deliberations at a meeting convened by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation held in Beijing in October 2015. Farm power and mechanization are agricultural production inputs that will be essential to raise the labor and land productivity required if Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2 (ending poverty and hunger) are to be achieved.

Forest tenure reform has no doubt attained significant gains in promoting social justice and equity in the forest sector, through legal recognition of the communities’ property rights over forest lands in many developing countries. This includes the right to harvest and market trees that the communities planted.

The forest reforms unfolding during the last two decades in the western Amazon have embraced policy regimes founded on the principles of sustainable forest management.

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program, or REDD+, has been the international community’s first real attempt to create a global forest governance system which would impact countries on national, regional and even local scales. This paper provides an in-depth analysis on the impact of REDD+ on forest-dependent communities.

This article analyzes agricultural sustainability in the context of land degradation, rural poverty and social inequality, taking China’s Loess Hills as an example.