December 12, 2013
Setting the Standard: Improving Monitoring and Evaluation for Sustainable Supply Chains
In athletics, when a team has been under-performing for a long time, a new coach often takes over by implementing changes in process: how the team practices, player diets and curfews, the tactics used during the game. Doing things the “right way,” or “sticking to the plan” is emphasized. But as the team improves, and […] ...
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December 10, 2013
Experimenting with Certification: Towards a Sustainable Livestock Sector in Brazil
Peter Newton
International Forestry Resources and Institutions Research Network, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan
Last week’s guest authors honed in on issues of partnership, support, and reducing risk within supply chains. Major commodities such as soy and palm oil formed the basis of these discussions, but one of the major contributors to land cover change and degradation was largely absent – cattle. Today’s author, Peter Newton, a postdoctoral research fellow [&hellip ...
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November 25, 2013
Rice, Rain, and Harvests: How Vision and Collaboration Can Put Climate Adaptation into Action
By Jessica Thorn, Biodiversity Institute in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford As the two-week UNFCCC 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19) concluded last week, it’s appropriate to turn our attention to future challenges that climate change will present agriculture and land use. Today’s guest author relays the utility of considering the future for […] ...
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November 13, 2013
Recognizing Common Ground: Finding Meaning in Integrated Landscape Management
Rachel Friedman
University of Queensland
Seth Shames
Sara Scherr
‘Landscape’ and related phrases such as ‘landscape approach’ are increasingly emerging in international policy, practice, and research discussions. At the first ever Global Landscapes Forum this weekend, during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP19) meeting in Warsaw, landscape concepts will be given a full airing before climate change ...
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November 11, 2013
A COP19 Must: Integrating Adaptation and Mitigation in Climate Finance for Land Use
By Sara J. Scherr, President, EcoAgriculture Partners The UNFCCC 19th Conference of Parties starts today, and so the world gathers to discuss how to avoid further escalation of the climate crisis (mitigation), and how to deal with the problems we face on an already warming planet (adaptation). What we have learned over the past decade […] ...
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November 6, 2013
Farming Carbon and Ecosystem Services in a Sunburnt Landscape
By Brenda Lin, Research Scientist, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia Discussing responses to climate change impacts often centers on mitigation or adaptation, yet as we’ve seen with integrated landscape management, the two are not mutually exclusive and often there are additional co-benefits from these actions. Today, Bren ...
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October 30, 2013
Livestock for Climate: More than mitigation from improved animal agriculture
Rachel Friedman
University of Queensland
A long-standing contention in climate change negotiations, and more broadly in discussions of solutions, is often the explicit separation of mitigation and adaptation. Contributing nearly 15% of human-induced emissions, the livestock sector draws particular attention from the mitigation side. While a recent FAO report, building on the findings in Livestock’s Long Shadow ...
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October 7, 2013
Studying Success: Integrated Landscape Initiatives in Latin America
Natalia Estrada-Carmona
CATIE
English Español Over the past couple of weeks, acknowledging and embracing multiple objectives related to food, environment, and social wellbeing has surfaced as a common theme from our Roundtable authors in discussing the intensification of agricultural systems, and particularly as an impetus for adopting a landscape perspective. So too did this important theme stand out in ...
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September 27, 2013
What Does ‘Intensification’ of Agricultural Production Look Like at Landscape Scale?
By Norman Uphoff, SRI-Rice, Cornell University Wednesday’s post from Professor Joern Fischer provided some background on agricultural intensification, benefits and pitfalls, and a movement toward “sustainability.” In particular, he noted how landscape scale adds complexity to intensifying practices, but also helps build resilience. Professor Norman Uphoff provides a concr ...
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September 16, 2013
Reviewing Integrated Landscapes in Africa: Lessons for Drylands
Jeffrey C. Milder
Rainforest Alliance
Over the past months, this blog has featured many inspiring “success stories” of integrated landscape initiatives from around the world. But are these just a series of interesting anecdotes—each stemming from its own unique context—or can we begin to derive some generalized principles that might help inform practices and policies for future landscape initiatives in [&he ...
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