It took scientists more than three decades to transform a perceived desertification crisis in the Sahel into a non-event. Looking beyond the Sahel, the chapters in this book provide case studies from around the world that examine the use and relevance of the desertification concept.

This edited volume brings together the work of scholars from different disciplines including sociology, political science and anthropology, and analyses how global institutions are embedded in local contexts within development aid. It examines theoretical and empirical implications of the diffusion and anchoring of world polity institutions at the local and global levels.

This paper is an abridged version of an earlier scoping study entitled Sri Lanka Country Report: Land Watch Asia Study prepared in 2010 by the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement through the support of the International Land Coalition (ILC).

A lack of respect for the role of local people in land use planning and local farming traditions have led to the encroachment of forest land in many areas in Viet Nam, hindering the sustainable management of forest resources. Based on a review and assessment of overlapping forest land boundaries, and taking into account local customs, this brief offers a solution to this challenge.

In Guatemala, a history of discrimination and inequality of opportunity led to a 36-year conflict that finally subsided with a Peace Agreement in 1996. Improvements since then have prevented a return to conflict and begun to create the conditions for sustained stability.

Successful adoption of natural resource management technologies requires that important fundamentals of property rights be established. Because disputes over property rights occur universally, the ability to successfully defend one's rights to property exercises a central influence on the tenure security necessary for technology adoption.

This training manual has thus been developed to enhance the knowledge and skills in gender mainstreaming, including gender analysis and the integration of the findings from the analysis into the design of forestry interventions.

Over the past 20 years scholars have repeatedly highlighted the complex relationship between conflict, peace and economics. It is today accepted that economic factors at the global, regional, national and local levels can promote conflict in various ways and that economic factors are therefore central in establishing a sustainable post-conflict peace.

Responding to the academic void on the impact of socio-ecological conflicts on peacebuilding and conflict transformation, I turn to resistance against large-scale land acquisitions in post-war contexts. Promising in terms of reconstruction and economic prosperity, the recent rush on land may, however, entail risks for reconciliation processes and long-term peace prospects.

Based on empirical case studies in four countries in South (Nepal) and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Myanmar and Viet Nam), this issue paper examines how REDD+ can be a driver of conflict (and cooperation), particularly between forest communities, governments and REDD+ project developers, as well as between and within communities and within national government agencies.

We use community and household data with plot-level information to explore the determinants of different forms of land conflicts and the conflicts’ impact on agricultural productivity in Uganda.

When the guns are silenced, those who have survived armed conflict need food, water, shelter, the means to earn a living, and the promise of safety and a return to civil order. Meeting these needs while sustaining peace requires more than simply having governmental structures in place; it requires good governance.