142,466 research outputs found
Scaling up sustainable land management and restoration of degraded land
No full textWith current rates of land degradation reaching
ten to twelve million ha per year, there is an
urgent need to scale up and out successful,
profitable and resource-efficient sustainable
land management practices to maintain the
health and resilience of the land that humans
depend on. As much as 500 million out of
two billion ha of degraded land, mainly in
developing countries, have restoration potential,
offering an immediate target for restoration
and rehabilitation initiatives.1
In the past,
piecemeal approaches to achieving sustainable
land management have had limited impact.
To achieve the ambitious goals of alleviating
poverty, securing food and water supplies,
and protecting the natural resource base, we
need to recognize the inter-connectedness of
the factors driving land degradation, so that
solutions can be taken to scale, transforming
management practices for millions of land users.
An analysis of the critical barriers and incentives
to achieve scaling up suggests that the most
appropriate options should be selected through
the involvement of stakeholders at all levels,
from local to national and international. New
incentives for land managers as well as the
public and private sectors are required to achieve
a land degradation-neutral world
INDIGENOUS LAND TENURE AND LAND USE IN ALASKA: COMMUNITY IMPACTS OF THE ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT
Full text linkThrough the utilization of qualitative methods such as archival analysis, semi-structured interviewing, comparative and extended case studies, and observation, this paper closely examines two related Alaska Native communities. Our purpose is to document the impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) on land tenure, land use, and community structure. In all, 41 interviews were conducted, focusing on the following issues: (1) the role of the tribal government in relation to the regional and village corporate structure; (2) the recent changes in traditional land uses; and (3) how group decisions are made regarding land management and distribution of resources. By locating ANCSA within a broader context of economic, political, and cultural globalization that seeks to substitute traditional collective rights in land with individual tenure in a "free market" economy, the findings of this research may carefully and cautiously be applied beyond North America to other indigenous-state struggles regarding control of land and resources.United States. -- [Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act], Indians of North America -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Alaska, Land tenure -- Law and legislation -- Alaska, Indians of North America -- Alaska -- Claims, Indians of North America -- Land tenure -- Alaska, Indians of North America -- Alaska -- Government relations -- History, Land Economics/Use,
The changing face of the Constantia Valley a temporal study of land use change in a heritage landscape
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.The study of land use change and urban morphology requires a multi-layered approach. Case studies are needed to gain an understanding of the local factors that are driving land use change and forming urban landscapes. This study will provide a temporal perspective on land use change in the Constantia Valley, a high income suburb on the outskirts of Cape Town. It will contextualise the efforts to conserve its heritage and, furthermore, attempt to explain the factors underlying the observed changes in the urban form. This study, through the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping and a series of interviews, examines how and why the urban form of the Constantia Valley has changed. Finally, based on the findings the possible future urban form of Constantia will be considered
Indicator of land consumption risk: a methodological approach to manage periurban areas
No full textPeriurban areas are constantly subjected to the pressure of urbanization and the permanence of agriculture is the most important mean against soil consumption, but only competitive farms can protect green open spaces competing with the urban growth and sprawl. Soil is a non renewable resource because the time of degradation is quick, but the regeneration process, when it is possible, is very slow (EC, 2006). The permanence of agriculture can play a fundamental role for the economic and environmental sustainability of local development.
This work considers the farm as the unit of analyses and, finding different factors which influence the efficiency of farms, creates an Indicator of Land Consumption Risk (ILCR), that measures the vulnerability of periurban areas. Factors could affect the farm in relation to the soil loss both positively, if they back up and promote the farm performances, and negatively, if they reduce farm functionality. At the same time, the factors could be endogenous, if they depend directly on the farm management, and exogenous, if they depend on external pressures.
By integrating and summarizing these factors an Indicator of Land Consumption Risk at farm scale was created and a Spatial Multicriteria Analysis approach based on GIS technologies was used to produce maps showing different levels of risk consumption due to fragility of agriculture. This methodology is based on economics and social data at farm and municipality scale and propose different kind of scenarios, projecting the effect of chosen policy on the land.
The study area is the Province of Milan, Lombardy, Italy, where competition between urban and rural areas, property speculation, demographic pressure increase the land consumption risk and are threats to the existence of the peri-urban agriculture. The average rate of urbanization is around 35% in the whole province, in the municipality of Milan it’s around 69%, but in some areas it reaches the 82%, especially in the North of Milan (ONCS, 2009).
Main result of the work is the Map of Land Consumption Risk of the Province of Milan that identifies the areas where fragility of agriculture and land consumption risk are higher.
ILCR is a new instrument of governance to manage green open space in periurban areas where agriculture has particular features due to her relationship with the urban place. This tool could be an important support to policies and institution to planning and government of periurban
Roads, lands, markets, and deforestation : a spatial model of land use in Belize
Full text linkRural roads promote economic development but also facilitate deforestation. To explore the tradeoffs between development and environmental damage posed by road building, the authors develop and estimate a spatially explicit model of land use. This model takes into account location and land characteristics and predicts land use at each point on the landscape. They find that: (a) market access and distance to roads strongly affect the probability of agricultural use, especially for commercial agriculture; (b) high slopes, poor drainage, and low soil fertility discourage both commercial and semi subsistence agriculture; and (c) semi-subsistence agriculture is especially sensitive to soil acidity and lack nitrogen (confirming anthropological findings that subsistence farmers are shrewd judges of soil). Spatially explicit models are analytically powerful because they exploit rich spatial variation in causal variables, including the precise siting of roads. They are useful for policy because they can pinpoint threats to particular critical habitats and watersheds. This model is a descendant of the venerable von Thunen model. It assumes that land will tend to be devoted to its highest-value use, taking into account tenure and other constraints. The value of a plot for a particular use depends on the land's physical productivity for that use and the farmgate prices of relevant inputs and outputs. A reduced-form, multinomial logit specification of this model calculates implicit values of land in alternative uses as a function of land location and characteristics. The resulting equations can then be used for prediction or analysis. The model was applied to cross-sectional data for 1989-92 for Belize, a forested country currently experiencing rapid expansion of both subsistence and commercial agriculture. A geographic information system was used to manage the spatial data and extract variables based on the three kilometer sample grid. Three land uses were distinguished:"natural"vegetation, comprising forests, woodlands, wetlands, and savanna; semi-subsistence agriculture, comprising traditional milpa (slash-and-burn) cultivation and other nonmechanized cultivation of annual crops; and commercial agriculture, consisting mainly of sugarcane, pasture, citrus, and mechanized production of corn and kidney beans. Two dimensions of distance to market were distinguished: the distance from each sample point to the road, and on-road travel time to the nearest town. Data on a wide variety of land and soil characteristics were also used.Wetlands,Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Land Use and Policies,Forestry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Energy and Environment,Wetlands
Modalities for Scaling up Sustainable Land Management and Restoration of Degraded Land
No full textTo tackle inter-connected global challenges of population growth and migration, climate change, biodiversity loss, and degrading land and water resources, changes in land use and management are needed at a global scale. There are hundreds of options that can improve the sustainability of land management and prevent or reverse degradation, but there are almost as many socio-cultural, institutional and policy barriers preventing their adoption at scale. To tackle this challenge, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research’s Dryland Systems Program and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification convened an expert group to consider barriers and incentives to scaling up sustainable land management (SLM) and land restoration practices, as part of the first Global Land Outlook. The group reviewed existing frameworks for scaling up relevant interventions across a range of contexts, and identified eight critical success factors: i) adaptively plan; ii) consistently fund; iii) select SLM options for scaling up based on best available evidence; iv) identify and engage with stakeholders at all scales; v) build capacity for scaling up; vi) foster institutional leadership and policy change to support scaling up; vii) achieve early tangible benefits and incentives for as many stakeholders as possible and viii) monitor, evaluate and communicate. Incentives for scaling up were identified for the private sector, farmers and their communities and policy makers. Based on these findings a new framework for scaling up is presented that analyses the contexts in which there is evidence that specific SLM interventions can be scaled up and out, so that scalable SLM options can be screened and adapted to these contexts, piloted and disseminated. This will then help countries achieve land degradation neutrality and comply with the Sustainable Development Goal 15, “Life on Land”
Measurement of the ratio of prompt χ c to J / ψ production in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV
Full text linkThe prompt production of charmonium χ c and J / ψ states is studied in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. The χ c and J / ψ mesons are identified through their decays χ c → J / ψ γ and J / ψ → μ + μ - using 36 pb - 1 of data collected by the LHCb detector in 2010. The ratio of the prompt production cross-sections for χ c and J / ψ, σ (χ c → J / ψ γ) / σ (J / ψ), is determined as a function of the J / ψ transverse momentum in the range 2 < p T J / ψ < 15 GeV / c. The results are in excellent agreement with next-to-leading order non-relativistic expectations and show a significant discrepancy compared with the colour singlet model prediction at leading order, especially in the low p T J / ψ region
Enhancing the contribution of land reform to Mexican agricultural development
Full text linkThe purpose of this paper is to consider whether the institutional factors associated with the Mexican land reform ( ejido ) sector constrain agricultural growth. Parting from the assumption that the ejido may be considered a more or less fixed element of Mexico's cultural and political scene, the paper focuses on the piecemeal changes that could help to enhance growth and productivity within the existing structure. The author finds no conclusive evidence that individual ejidos are significantly less productive than private farms, and hence, it seems unlikely that privatization of ejidos would greatly improve agricultural growth. He recommends the following improvements to the existing structure : giving the ejidatarios titles to their parcels of land, simplifying restrictions for private farmers on holding size and land use, ending restrictions on renting or sharecropping by ejidatarios, allowing ejidatarios to sell their land parcels to other members of their ejido, improving management of communal land, and extending credit directly to individual ejidatarios on the basis of their creditworthiness.Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Banks&Banking Reform,Land Use and Policies,Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction
Making negotiated land reform work : initial experience from Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa
Full text linkThe author describes a new type of negotiated land reform that relies on voluntary land transfers negotiated between buyers and sellers, with the government's role restricted to establishing the necessary framework for negotiation and making a land purchase grant available to eligible beneficiaries. This approach has emerged-following the end of the Cold War and broad macroeconomic adjustment--as many countries face a second generation of reforms to address deep-rooted structural problems and provide a basis for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. The author describes initial experiences in Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa. It is too soon to know whether negotiated land reform can rise to the challenges administrative land reform failed to solve but the data so far suggests that: 1) Negotiated land reform can succeed only if measures are taken to make the market for land sales and rentals more fluid transparent. 2) Productive projects are likely to be the key to market-assisted land reform. The potential for project productivity establishes an upper bound on the price to be paid and a basis for financial intermediaries to evaluate the project. It also requires beneficiaries to familiarize themselves with the realities they're likely to confront as independent farmers and the limits to how much land reform can help them achieve their goals. 3) The only way to effectively coordinate the entities involved in the process is through decentralized, demand-driven implementation. 4) The long-run success of land reform depends on getting the private sector involved and using the land purchase grant to"crowd in"private money.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Municipal Housing and Land,Land Use and Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Municipal Housing and Land,Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction,Banks&Banking Reform
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