This paper initially highlights the general characteristics of rangelands and pastoral production systems of the Tibetan Plateau.The article finds that:given the realities of life in a heterogeneous and marginal environment, the issue of secure resource tenure, both customary and legal, is fundamental for effective rangeland managementa simple shift in tenure from the communal (traditional and subsistence) to individual household level (ranching and commercial) will not be enough to facilitate a change in behaviour toward "rational" livestock operationsmany institutional mechanisms must be

This paper summarises the importance of wetlands in relation to climate change and eaxmines their potential role in the measures for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) under the Kyoto Protocol. The links between REDD concepts and wetlands are explored for the following reasons:

Land rental markets can potentially improve the access to land for land-poor households that possess complementary resources that can enable them to utilize land efficiently. Land rental markets can also enable landowners who are poor in non-land resources to rent out their land such that their land is utilized more efficiently and they themselves can get a better income and improved welfare from their land resource. This report assesses the land rental market that is dominated by a reverse tenancy system with relatively poorer landlords and less poor tenants.

Professor Kjell Havnevik is retiring from the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in 2015. For four decades, he has carried out research, taught and supervised students as well as participated in policy debates on different aspects of agriculture, the environment and African and international development policies. His output has been voluminous and is internationally recognised. His academic record includes research and teaching positions at universities and research institutes in Tanzania, Norway and Sweden as well as shorter assignments in several other countries.

Traditional land tenure systems in Togo have been undermined but not destroyed by the introduction of private property and ‘modern’ tenure reform. However, confusion over land tenure issues has proved to be an obstacle to efforts to promote efficient resource management and to combat desertification.

Recent arguments have stated that the new livestock development policy will carry a high social cost, that the reality of range degradation in Botswana has been ignored, and that there is no basis for assuming that de-stocking would decrease the productivity of rangeland.

This paper addresses the issue of land security and sustainability. The paper tackles the assumption that, in the case of China, giving farmers more secure land rights would undermine the function of land as a social safety net and, as a consequence, not be sustainable or command broad support.The report draws on data from three provinces, one of which had adopted a policy to increase security of tenure in advance of the others.

This study analyses the determinants of land tenure insecurity and its impact on intensity of use of purchased farm inputs among households in southern Ethiopia. Seventeen percent of the households stated that they were tenure insecure. The feeling of tenure insecurity could be caused by the land redistribution policy in Ethiopia where household size has been the main criterion used for land allocation after the land reform in 1975. This would imply that land rich households should be more tenure insecure.

Since the early 1990s, the dominant consensus in the debate on land rights reform in sub-Saharan Africa has been that external interventions to privatise land rights are usually inappropriate and likely to remain so.

The paper examines how derived rights have evolved through settlement, loan, rental or purchase contracts and how these arrangements have developed as a result of national policy and socio-economic history. It goes on to examine how the unique circumstances of "established" and "pioneer" farming areas show differing patterns of change in arrangements over time.