All publications and documents

Close to 15% of the Earth's land and 10% of its territorial waters are covered by national parks and other protected areas; coverage of marine protected areas increased by almost 300% in the last decade; and eight in 10 key biodiversity areas worldwide lack complete protection. With 14.7 % of the Earth's land and 10 % of its territorial waters under protection, the world is on track to meet…

On the 17th of June 2016, the United Nations will be celebrating the World Day to Combat Desertification. This year’s theme is “Protect earth. Restore land: Engage people” (see figure 1). This day is the opportunity to showcase the action of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), too often hidden behind its shiny twin sister, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)…

Land is the most critical economic resource for the vast majority of the rural poor who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. In particular, women’s land rights are fundamental to rural development outcomes, as women’s ownership and control over land can affect what households produce and how the proceeds from agricultural production are allocated within the family. Yet,…

We explore strategies among farmers in semi-arid Tanzania to cope with drought, and investigate if access to a local supplemental irrigation system (the Ndiva system) can improve coping capacity. Results show high dependency on local ecosystem services when harvests fail, and indicate that farmers commonly exhaust asset holdings during droughts. Ndiva access did not have any direct effects on…

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) remains the only ‘Rio Convention’ that is not well served by the scientific community and lacks the equivalent of an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) or the proposed IPBES (Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). The mounting pressures on land (and water) that can drive its…

The relationships between land use and biodiversity are fundamental to understanding the links between people and their environment. Biodiversity can be measured in many ways. The concept covers not only the overall richness of species present in a particular area but also the diversity of genotypes, functional groups, communities, habitats and ecosystems there. As a result, the relationships…