All publications and documents

State of the World's Forests 2003 provides information on developments and areas of current attention as regards forest resources; the management, conservation and sustainable development of forests; the institutional framework; and the international forest policy dialogue. SOFO 2003 includes contributions from non-FAO authors on such subjects as science and technology in the forest sector;…

The 1969 to 1973 drought in the African Sahel helped focus world attention on desertification. Ever since, misconceptions have arisen from the poorly understood processes of desertification, which are often wrongly attributed solely to droughts. Droughts are common in arid and semi-arid lands, but it is the deadly combination of continued land abuse during periods of deficient…

In this study, the award-winning environmental analyst Lester Brown and his colleagues have charted progress in building the eco-economy - an economy in harmony with the Earth's ecosystems, not undermining them. This edition of the biennial reader highlights 12 key trends, from population growing by 80 million annually, to ice melting, to the boom in use of solar cells. It explains,…

The "tragedy of the commons" is a central concept in human ecology and the study of the environment. It has had tremendous value for stimulating research, but it only describes the reality of human-environment interactions in special situations. Research over the past thirty years has helped clarify how human motivations, rules governing access to resources, the structure of social…

The proposed English-French-Spanish-Russian glossary contains principal terms dealing with the investigation and development of arid lands. The terms have been included on desert environment, several regional terms, terms on land melioration, pasture management and desertification control. The terms have been arranged alphabetically. By selecting terms the author used the terminology…

The remit of this paper is to identify and examine “success” stories in combating desertification. It is worth clarifying at the start the working definitions of “land degradation” and “success” to be used in the paper. The UNCCD defines Land degradation as: “reduction or loss, in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, of the biological or economic productivity and complexity of…