Blog for People, Food and Nature

The Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals’ tenth session opens today to deliberate and negotiate the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. It is not hyperbole to say that their recommendations to the UN General Assembly, set to be delivered in September, will have an enormous impact on the future of all life on earth. […] ...

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) acknowledges the fact that climate change is a crosscutting issue with the need for an integrated approach to food security, environmental quality, human welfare and other development goals. Agriculture is uniquely situated between climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, because it is both a major contributor to the world’s changin ...

The United Nation’s International Day of Forests and the Tree brings attention to these aspects of our landscapes. Forests and trees fill many roles, ranging from cultural and spiritual importance to sustenance, livelihoods, watershed protection and important carbon sinks in the face of climate change. Despite the many purposes and capacities of forests, we are destroyin ...

Productive agricultural landscapes, healthy communities and resilient livelihoods are all dependent on the sound management of freshwater resources. 2014 World Water Day gives us the opportunity to recall that integrated watershed management is an important factor in realizing sustainable ecological and social systems. The Pokhara Valley of Nepal holds Rupa Lake, where an agric ...

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative has a potentially large role to play in international actions to combat climate change. Sustainable management of forests and forest carbon stocks does more than just preserve the world’s forests and sequester atmospheric carbon – it provides long-term sustainability and economic develop ...

By Sacha Jellinek, University of Melbourne’s Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions Agricultural landscapes in south-eastern Australia are largely cleared of native vegetation, with whatever remains surviving in small, isolated remnants surrounded by a sea of livestock grazing and/or industrial cropping. To explore the effectiveness of replanted areas for maintaini ...

By Emmanuel Torquebiau, French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) Multipurpose mosaic landscapes can simultaneously serve the objectives of biodiversity conservation and agricultural production. This beautiful vision is also a formidable challenge because conservation of natural resources has historically been at odds with the development paradig ...

The year 2013 saw record high numbers for agricultural production and more stable commodity prices than the previous several years, but findings from the International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2013 Global Food Policy Report suggest that the state of global nutrition and food security is still fragile. The report focuses on major food policy developments […] ...

By Emma van der Zanden/Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam; Alexander van Oudenhoven/Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University; Matthias Schröter/Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University Ecosystem services are a contested but useful concept for highlighting the benefits that humans get from healthy ecosystems and la ...

Editor’s note: Originally posted on FoodTank.com, this piece by a co-author of the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative’s new report, City Regions as Landscapes for People, Food and Nature urges people who care about sustainable development to break down the divide between urban and rural. In the past few years, there has been […] ...