All publications and documents

While it is clear that lifestyles based on less materialistic pursuits benefit the natural environment, it remains unclear how they may contribute to quality of life. Building forth on recent psychological and other related fields of research, this paper combines primary and secondary qualitative data to suggest how voluntary simplicity contributes to subjective wellbeing. Policy makers looking…

This edition of FAO’s State of the World’s Forests (SOFO 2014) analyses data on the socioeconomic benefits of forests, showing that well managed forests have tremendous potential to contribute to sustainable development and to promote food security: goals that are at the heart of FAO’s mandate. Forests are widely known as the world’s largest repository of terrestrial biodiversity…

The first years of the twenty-first century will be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale. An estimated 500 million acres, an area eight times the size of Britain, was reported bought or leased across the developing world between 2000 and 2011, often at the expense of local food security and land rights. When the price of food spiked in 2008, pushing the number of hungry…

The 2014 Year Book shows how scientific endeavour and policy actions have led to innovative solutions and vital advancements. Yet these are frequently outpaced by overall economic growth. For example, as the fuel efficiency of cars has increased, the size of the vehicle fleet continues to grow. Similarly, as the aquaculture sector expands in response to the demand for food, scientists expect that…

Natural Resources Forum, a United Nations Sustainable Development Journal, focuses on international, multidisciplinary issues related to sustainable development, with an emphasis on developing countries. The journal seeks to address gaps in current knowledge and stimulate policy discussions on the most critical issues associated with the sustainable development agenda, by promoting research that…

To celebrate the International Year of Family Farming, The State of Food and Agriculture 2014: Innovation in family farming (SOFA 2014) offers a groundbreaking study of family farming.The report contains the first comprehensive estimate of the number of family farms in the world – at least 500 million.This means that families run about nine out of ten farms. Additional analysis shows that…