June 11, 2014
Women as the Primary Source of Information – Sustainable Rangeland Management in Northwestern Kenya
By Gabby Abrego, Conservation International “Our livelihood is our land and the cows,” Beatrice Lemparia explains as she begins to describe life as an indigenous Mukogodo Maasai woman. Beatrice comes from one of the semi-nomadic, pastoralist communities that lives northwest of Mount Kenya. “You are not a complete Maasai without livestock, even if subjected to […] ...
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June 6, 2014
Biodiverse Planting for Carbon and Biodiversity on Indigenous Land
By Anna. R. Renwick, NERP Environmental Decisions Hub, University of Queensland, Brisbane Climate change has prompted the development of methods to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and many countries have established emissions trading schemes that offer incentives to offset carbon emissions. In addition to carbon storage, these schemes have the potential to deliver ot ...
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June 2, 2014
Promoting Synergies Between Biodiversity and Livelihoods in Coffee Landscapes
By Getachew Tadesse, Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz Agriculture was probably 8,000 years old by the time Arabica coffee was first domesticated in the montane forests of Ethiopia around 800 AD. Throughout its history, agriculture has been largely dependent on natural ecosystems and native biodiversity and will continue to be so [&hellip ...
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May 27, 2014
The Forgotten Majority? – Peruvian Smallholders at the Farm-Forest Interface
Peter Cronkleton
CIFOR
Mary Menton
In recent decades, Peru has experimented with policy reforms to promote more sustainable forest management. At the same time, donors and NGOs have introduced community forestry initiatives that have tried to encourage rural people to participate legally in the forestry sector. However, it’s not clear whether these efforts have had a widespread positive effect on […] ...
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May 22, 2014
Assessing Sustainable Palm Oil Production With The Help of Dung Beetles
By Claudia Gray, Post-doctoral research fellow in ecology and conservation, University of Sussex, UK Every time you go to the supermarket, you are likely to buy something containing palm oil. In the UK and the US, 10 – 50% of all items in an average shopping basket contain it. Palm oil is the world’s most […] ...
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May 19, 2014
The Role of Spatial Data in Grassland Restoration
Timo Pitkänen, University of Turku, Finland
Semi-natural grasslands are often habitats dominated by a high diversity of indigenous plant species, which are characterized by their small size and tolerance for disturbance. The long-term history of the emergence of these plants is not fully known, but it is well known that they cannot survive without moderate disturbances that keep their tall and […] ...
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May 9, 2014
What is the Potential for Responsible Soy Production?
Kedar Mankad
This year’s 9th annual Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) conference (May 7th-8th) took place at a critically important time for the industry. With relatively high prices, increasing overall demand from China, and another year of drought in palm oil production areas, the emphasis on increasing production is strong. The question then for participants at the RTRS […] ...
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May 7, 2014
Growing Green: Green Winemaking Practices
By Madeline Blasberg, Certified Wine Consultant for Etching Expressions Winemaking, when all things are considered, can be a very dirty business. Chemical pesticides, fertilizers, weed killers, and hours of diesel-burning machinery add up to a considerable social and environmental impact. Around the world, wineries are implementing eco-friendly practices, conceptualizing the ...
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May 2, 2014
Transforming Commodity Markets for Conservation at the Landscape Level
Kedar Mankad
The environmental impacts of commodities have been a hot topic lately, from haze in Indonesia, carbon emissions from Brazil, and environmental degradation and poverty in Cote d’Ivoire. What do these stories have in common? They are all intertwined in global value chains for major agricultural commodities: palm oil, soy, and cocoa. Areas of production of […] ...
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April 30, 2014
The Cultural and Ecological Significance of European Wood-Pastures with Reference to Central Romania
By Tibor Hartel, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Department of Environmental Science and Art, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Wood-pastures are probably the most important ecological and cultural identity bearing landscapes of the European continent. These are grazed landscapes with trees and shrubs—similar landscapes evolved in prehistoric times under natural phenomena, ...
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