November 26, 2014
Analog Forestry: Creating Productive Landscapes by Imitating Forest Structure
Adam Kabir Dickinson
International Analog Forestry Network
As we look toward the 2014 Global Landscapes Forum, one of the key challenges we are faced with is to find a way for agricultural landscapes to contribute to ecosystem integrity and safeguard biodiversity. If one were asked to come up with a defining question or challenge for contemporary landscape restoration, it might go something […] ...
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November 25, 2014
Making Large Land Initiatives in Africa Work: Policy Reforms that Support Ecosystem-Based Approaches
Robert Mgendi
UN Environment
Richard Munang
This post is part of an online discussion on large-scale land interventions that runs through December 14th. Can these initiatives fulfill their promises? Comment below or send a max 800 word response to a.waldorf@cgiar.org. Nearly 240 million people, or 1 in every 4 persons, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) lack adequate food. Rec ...
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November 24, 2014
Global Landscape Restoration: The Art of the “Do-able”
Peter Besseau
The Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration
This post is part of an online discussion on large-scale land interventions that runs through December 24th. Can these initiatives fulfill their promises? Comment below or send a max 800 word response to a.waldorf@cgiar.org. It is easy to be intimidated by the Bonn Challenge to restore 150 million hectares of degraded forest landscape ...
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November 21, 2014
A Story of Coffee, Conservation and Livelihoods in the Pico Duarte Region of the Dominican Republic
Lee Gross
EcoAgriculture Partners
The Pico Duarte Coffee Region and surrounding Madres de Las Aguas (Mother of Waters) Conservation Area are areas of critical ecological, economic, and social importance to the people of the Dominican Republic. During the 2000s, much attention was paid to the establishment of protected areas in this Caribbean island nation for the conservation of biodiversity […] ...
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November 19, 2014
Innovation in Family Farming for Food Security and Poverty Alleviation
Sarah Lowder
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Terri Raney
Jakob Skoet
In recognition of the International Year of Family Farming, the recently published 2014 edition of FAO’s annual flagship publication The State of Food and Agriculture focuses on how to promote innovation among family farms to achieve sustainable food security and poverty alleviation. Family farms are key to ensuring long-term global food security. Defining & estimating s ...
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November 17, 2014
Sacred Forests as Bioreserves: Conserving Natural Resources & Protecting Livelihoods
Elise Ursin
EcoAgriculture Partners
Jes Walton
The Siliserh Chhind Landscape encompasses 30 villages in Rajasthan, India and is characterized by Siliserh Lake and the flat-topped Aravalli hills, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. Water scarcity and low rain falls (with the exception of monsoon season) leave much of this area somewhat infertile, and therefore, growing crops is not […] ...
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November 14, 2014
Developing Resilient Farming Systems: A Case From Chitikhola, Nepal
Sandesh Timilsina
Karnali Technical School
Basu Raj Kadariya, a progressive farmer from the Chitikhola village in the Tanahun district of Nepal, has faced many ups and downs in farming. Kadariya and other farmers once cultivated their lands to produce a handful of grains, limited to feeding their families for a few months out of the year. However, limited irrigation, poor […] ...
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November 11, 2014
New Curriculum: Monitoring & Evaluation for Sustainable Land Management
EcoAgriculture Partners, along with Cornell University, the Environmental Resources Management Center for Sustainable Development and TerrAfrica, has recently released a new curriculum for a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) course for sustainable land management practitioners. This curriculum, entitled A Landscape Perspective on Monitoring & Evaluation for Sustainable L ...
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November 10, 2014
Climate-Smart Agricultural Landscapes: A Closer Look at Shinyanga, Tanzania
Sarina Katz
EcoAgriculture Partners
The United Nations’ 2014 Climate Summit engaged nations and leaders from government, finance, business and civil society in meaningful discussions around the imminent threat of climate change and possibilities for mitigating and adapting to its devastating effects. Because it is estimated that farmers will need to feed 9 billion people by 2050, food security and agricultur ...
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November 7, 2014
Preserving Evolutionary History Alongside Tropical Agriculture
Daniel Karp
University of California, Berkeley
The Nature Conservancy
Luke Owen Frishkoff
How to feed an ever-growing human population while simultaneously preserving Earth’s biodiversity is a major global challenge. Accomplishing both of these goals requires that we understand the potential for agricultural landscapes to harbor biodiversity. In tropical Costa Rica, where we do the majority of our fieldwork, landscapes are extremely heterogeneous. Agriculture can ...
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