Governance of Tenure

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security were endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and the FAO Council in June 2012. They are to:

- serve as a reference and set out principles and internationally accepted standards for practices for the responsible governance of tenure;

- provide a framework that States can use when developing their own strategies, policies, legislation, programmes and activities;

- allow governments, civil society, the private sector and citizens to judge whether their proposed actions and the actions of others constitute acceptable practices.

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Environmental Laureates and Rio+20

The European Environment Foundation sponsored the 1st International Covention of Environmental Laureates from 8-11 March 2012 with 63 participants from 37 States convening in Freiburg (Germany. The meeting concluded with the adoption of the "Freiburg Call for Action" in relation to UNCSD (Rio+20) calling upon the Conference to come up with actionable means to achieve sustainable development in the following critical areas:

• We urge governing bodies on all levels, as well as business and civil society, to become pioneers of change and successful social innovators;
• We have to move towards equitable budgets per capita for energy, emissions, land use, water and resources;
• To be sustainable, economic development must reduce overconsumption, be based on an ethical and fair financial system, eradicate poverty, and be in harmony with nature;
• Sustainable Development is a key security issue for all nations and has to be treated and funded as such.

Corruption and access to land

FAO and Transparency International have produced a working paper highlighting the link between weak governance and the likelihood of corruption in land occupancy and administration in more than 60 countries.  In particular, the paper notes that the rapid expansion of the biofuel industry has provided the opportunity for corruption in the land use sector in a number of countries.

FAO: REDD+ and Sustainable Agriculture

A new policy brief titled "Building bridges between REDD+ and sustainable agriculture:Addressing agriculture's role as a driver of deforestation" recommends, inter alia: promoting inter-sectoral policies; including integrated landscape approaches in the activities covered under different carbon finance funds; promoting evergreen agriculture, which combines agroforestry with conservation farming; reflecting on tenure rights, governance and other potential socioeconomic impacts during cross-sectoral REDD+ planning processes; and improving methods for landscape level carbon accounting.

CBD: Bushmeat Report

Key recommendations from a report prepared for the CBD Bushmeat Liaison Group include:
- implementation of community wildlife management and other improved wildlife-management approaches, such as game-ranching and hunting tourism;
- increase of raising of “mini-livestock'”(wild animals such as cane rats raised in small farms); and
- support of sustainable harvesting of non-timber forest products, such as bee-keeping.
The report also recognizes the need to clarify and define land-tenure and access rights, improve monitoring of bushmeat harvesting and trade, and enhance bushmeat-related law enforcement .

Reflecting on Biofuels and Land Use

A new report commissioned by IUCN and others, titled "Biofuels and indirect land use change," highlights:- findings that expanding biofuel production could displace agricultural production activities onto land with high natural carbon stocks;
- mitigation options considered by the European Commission for dealing with indirect land use change arising from the use of biofuels under the Renewable Energy Directive;
- a range of incentive-related options that could prevent or reduce the risks of indirect land use change for biofuels, but none of the current options encourage producers to adopt practices to reduce risks from indirect land use change.

OAS: Support for Rio+20 Process

The Department of Sustainable Development of the Organization of American States (OAS-DSD) has announced its intent to organize a series of hemispheric dialogues in a variety of sustainable development themes, such as Energy and Climate Change, Integrated Water Resources Management, Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Management, Risk Management and Environmental Law, Policy and Governance. The results of these dialogues will feed into the UNCSD (Rio+20) process through means such as policy papers and recommendations.

More Information

BCIE: Environmental Strategy

The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) has adopted an Environmental Strategy to guide its financing of sustainable development projects in Central America and promote environmental principles in its practices. The Strategy sets out general principles and calls for Bank action in six areas: biodiversity; waste management; energy; air pollution; land management; and water as a resource.

Press Release

Disasters and Land Use Law

A working draft of a new article titled: "Reconstituting Land Use Federalism to Address Transitory and Perpetual Disasters: The Bimodal Federalism Framework" is available for download. It seeks to provide a more comprehensive framework within which to analyze prospective mitigation or prevention of disaster risk and costs through a rebalancing - or reconstituting - of the respective roles of the federal and state governments in land use planning.

EEA Report on Landscape Fragmentation

The European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment have released a report, titled “Landscape Fragmentation in Europe,” demonstrating how land areas in Europe become unable to support high levels of biodiversity when they are split into smaller and smaller parcels. It concludes there are several proactive policies that could provide more effective protection of remaining unfragmented areas: wildlife corridors could successfully reverse the trend of fragmentation; planners should aim to upgrade old roads instead of building new roads, and to "bundle" new infrastructure; where the volume of traffic has fallen, roads should be reduced in size or dismantled completely; and cumulative effects need to be considered more effectively, based on the precautionary principle, to avoid repeating mistakes of the past.

Climate Change, Deforestation and the Future of African Rainforests

The Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests (OCTF) will host an international conference from 4-6 January, 2012 at Oriel College, Oxford University to provide a multidisciplinary examination of the effects of climate change and deforestation on the fate of African tropical forests in the 21st century.

There is currently a call for abstracts and more information is available here: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/africa/index.php and http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/africa/programme.php.

The Steering Committee encourages papers which explore the following issues:

 - What are the potential scenarios of climate change and land use change for African forest regions?

 - What do we know about the sensitivity of African forests and their communities to these changes, and what consequences will these changes have for the future of the region?

 - How can this knowledge influence policy decisions on development and climate change adaptation?

 - What are the gaps in our knowledge and priorities for research?

GEF: Programme for Desertification and Food Security in Africa

According to IISD Reporting Services, the 40th meeting of the GEF Council, together with the 10th meeting of the Council of the Least Developed Country Fund (LDCF) and Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), has approved an integrated land-use programme to fund investments to address priorities set by 12 African countries in West Africa and the Sahel.

The new programmatic approach will address desertification and food security in Africa, including through a US$108 million project administered by the World Bank. Further commitments expected by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and other international donors for related programming are expected to draw close to US$3 billion.

The programme includes the Great Green Wall Initiative, which will create a biological corridor along Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. It also includes Benin, Togo and Ghana, which also have important savannah and forest systems linked to the Sahel/Sahara region.

The goals of the programme are to: expand investment in sustainable land and water management technologies in order to help communities adapt production systems to climate variability and change; improve land use planning; and improve climate and water monitoring network improvements, institutional cooperation within and across countries, and evidence-based policy development.

GEF Press Release

Biocultural Heritage Website

A new website draws on research by the International Institute for Environment and Devleopment (IIED), research partners and indigenous and local communities in Peru, Panama, Kenya, India and China to present biocultural strategies and methodologies for horizontal networking amongst marginalised communities; and emerging biocultural legal and policy frameworks. It provides guidance and downloadable resources for grassroots organisations, researchers, practitioners and policymakers.

Biocultural heritage includes a wealth of biological resources – from genetic to landscape level – and long standing traditions and practices for their sustainable use and adaptive management. It also describes the bundle of rights that support indigenous peoples and local communities – Traditional Resource Rights.

UNCCD: Call for Input to COP-10

The Secretariat of the UNCCD has called for parties to provide input on draft advocacy policy frameworks on gender and on the integration of land and soil issues into the intergovernmental process on climate change. Comments are also requested on the draft version of "Global Drylands: A United Nations System-wide Response," which was was developed by the Environment Management Group (EMG).

The documents are scheduled to be discussed at COP-10, which will convene in October 2011. Comments are requested by 15 June 2011.

UNCCD Gender Policy Framework for the UNCCD and its Secretariat

Study on the Integration of Land and Soil Issues into the Intergovernmental Process on Climate Change

Global Drylands: A United Nations System-wide Response

UNECE: Compendium of Legal Instruments

UNECE has published the “Compendium of Legal Instruments, Norms and Standards 2011,” which contains a list of conventions, norms and standards that have been negotiated under its auspices.These legal instruments cover: environment, transport, timber, energy, trade, housing and land management.

Article: Indirect Land Use Change and Bioenergy

A recent article titled: "The iLUC dilemma: How to deal with indirect land use changes when governing energy crops" has been released here. The article covers the current state of the discussion and also analyses the approaches developed for taking indirect land use change into account. Assessment criteria for coping with the iLUC dilemma are developed and policy recommendations are derived from that.