Who can access and use the land? The answer to this age-old question is changing fast in many parts of rural Africa. Land that used to be allocated within the community by chiefs is now increasingly changing hands in more diverse ways. The wealthy and well-connected within the community or from…

The New Climate Economy (NCE) and The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate have released two new reports. The first is titled, 'The Sustainable Infrastructure Imperative: Financing for Better Growth and Development', and identifies the main barriers to financing sustainable infrastructure…

The overall objective of this paper is to explore the potential pathways linking climate change, migration and increased risk of conflict.

An urgent reconsideration of rural development is needed for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The current strategies and patterns of rural development are failing to meet either the socioeconomic or the environmental Goals of this Agenda.

A range of international bodies like the United Nations and the Rio Conventions set international targets like the Sustainable Development Goals and specific targets to combat poverty, climate change and desertification. Many of these targets are directly related to our natural environment…

Renewable Energy in the Water, Energy & Food Nexus- A new IRENA report, says that integrating renewable energy in the agrifood supply chain alone could help to rein in cost volatility, bolster energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to long-term food sustainability (January…

Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015 aim to end hunger and poverty, to protect the Planet, and to ensure peace and prosperity for all. The soil organic carbon (SOC) stock is a major planetary resource supporting many critically important ecosystem services (ESs)…

Climate change to shift global spread and quality of agricultural land. Changing temperatures and rainfall patterns contribute to soil erosion and desertification. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region predicted to lose the most land suited to growing crops

Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals requires drylands sustainability.Treating drylands as global environmental commons enables better tailored governance responses. Key nested governance elements for drylands involve setting goals, monitoring and delivering sanctions across scales. The present…

Increasing affluence is often postulated as a main driver for the human footprint on biologically productive areas, identified among the main causes of biodiversity loss, but causal relationships are obscured by international trade.

The Expert Review of the First Order Draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) will take place from 11 June to 5 August 2018. Expert Reviewers can register at https://www.ipcc.ch/apps/comments/srccl/fod/ until 29 July 2018.

Environmental Science & Policy journal special issue on Implementing Land Degradation Neutrality: from policy challenges to policy opportunities for national sustainable development. Edited by Graciela Metternicht, Mariam Akhtar-Schuster, Victor Castillo.

The authors present us with a new narrative, rethinking our relationship to, perception and use of wetlands, championing the already existing natural solutions and community approaches that can change our fate, showing how we can work with nature rather than against it.