Blog for People, Food and Nature

By Ruth Nogueron, People & Ecosystems Program at WRI (a Landscapes Initiative Co-Organizer), originally posted on the World Resources Institute Insights Blog. Today is the first annual International Day of Forests, celebrating and raising awareness of the importance of all types of forests. Trees and forests have featured prominently on the Landscapes Blog (and will be a ...

Friday marks the annual observance of World Water Day, during which issues around freshwater management come to the forefront. One of the major threats to the quality of freshwater resources is pollution from the land. In the past 50 years, use of synthetic nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers have risen substantially (9 and 3 fold, respectively), […] ...

“We have now, for the first time in human history, the capacity to not only feed a planet, but to do it with tools that allow us to look at biodiversity, look at ecosystem benefits, look at a sustainable way of doing this. We have the capacity, but do we have the will to do […] ...

We often discuss land and resource tenure here on the Landscapes Blog, whether it’s in relation to climate-smart agriculture or financing sustainable land management. Having that clear delineation of responsibility and a strong sense of ownership is fundamental to long-term sustainable management of natural resources and the various activities within a landscape. This is ...

By Danielle Nierenberg, Co-President of Food Tank: The Food Think Tank and Eve Andrews, Food Tank research intern, USA. March 8th is International Women’s Day. The day recognizes the steps that have been taken toward gender equality, while also acknowledging that much more needs to be done to level the playing field for women in all […] ...

“If you destroy the forest then the river will stop flowing, the rains will become irregular, the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation.” – Professor Wangari Maathai This vision of people and nature intertwined underpins the great strides in empowering women and their communities while protecting the underlying natural support systems […] ...

Dialogue, discussion, partnership, coordination, collaboration. Regardless of how it is framed, this notion of crossing sectors, disciplines, and interest groups has been a recurring theme in the spheres of sustainable land management, environmental conservation, food security, and rural development these first two months of 2013. Perhaps this elevated level of discussion stems ...

This week, the Landscapes Blog explored market approaches to promote integrated landscape management. Payment for ecosystem services and corporate commitments have served as ways to manage land and natural resources more sustainably. Today’s post looks at an example where the combination of different incentive mechanisms, including eco-labeling, market infrastructure, and ...

On Monday, the Landscapes Blog highlighted one market innovation, payment for ecosystem services, that when employed at a landscape scale can yield significant benefits to people, food, and nature, particularly in the case of small-scale farmers. But what about the larger producers of food, fuel, and fiber? There is growing movement among these keys actors […] ...

Clear land tenure and rights to natural resources are generally prerequisites to successfully implementing integrated landscape approaches, in which these structures enable a long-term view of managing land to sustain people and nature. As the week comes to a close, Alexandre Corriveau-Bourque and Madiha Qureshi (Rights and Resources Initiative) discuss this topic, which is of ...