Links

The Rooftop Gardening Project

The Rooftop Gardening Project is an innovative partnership between Alternatives, an international cooperation network, and Santropol Roulant, a community organisation in Montreal. Together we are making widespread rooftop gardening a reality in Montreal and around the world. Our novel soil-less gardens empower urban residents to produce their own food, green their neighbourhoods and build healthy communities.

http://english.rooftopgardens.ca/

(Added: Fri Nov 11 2005   Modified: Mon Nov 28 2005   Hits: 341)

The Soy Case

Soy production has been booming the past 25 years. Most of this protein and oil containing bean goes as animal feed to the meat industry in Europe and China. Protein from fish meal has become scarce, other animal sources have been forbidden because of BSE, but the demand for meat is rising rapidly world-wide. As a result of the focus on monoculture export crops, such as soy, millions of people in one of the world's biggest food exporting regions are now suffering from malnutrition. GM-soy is contaminating the countryside and the risen use of pesticides is polluting water and soil. This resource discusses the soy case in Latin America. (A SEED, 2006)

http://aseed.tuxic.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=108

(Added: Wed May 24 2006   Hits: 300)

China's Organic Revolution

This article examines the rapid growth in China's organic food sector, and explores its causes, future directions and relevance to the country's food production and export strategies (John Paul, Journal of Organic Systems, 2007.

http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/Vol%202(1)/pdf/PaullCHINA_Hill.pdf

(Added: Thu Nov 08 2007   Hits: 79)

Collecting fog on El Tofo

International Development Research Centre, May 2, 2003. In the early 1990s, the global news media became entranced by a small town in northern Chile that was using a new and innovative technology to draw much-needed water from fog. The technology worked well and the increased water supply helped to transform the town. But, more than 10 years later, the mesh nets of the fog collectors are in a total state of disrepair. What caused the community to abandon the project that had brought it abundant water and high hopes for the future? And what can be learned from the El Tofo experience?

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-30617-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

(Added: Tue May 06 2003   Modified: Tue Sep 26 2006   Hits: 234)

Common Ground? Investigating the importance of managing land

Research shows that people's capacity to access and use land is important for economic growth, for poverty reduction, and for promoting both private investment and transparent, accountable government. But all too often, land management issues only hit the headlines when they develop into conflicts. This toolkit shows journalists how they can use research on land management to enrich their journalism and broaden the debate. (Panos, 3 April 2006)

http://www.panos.org.uk/PDF/reports/relaytoolkit1.pdf

(Added: Tue Apr 04 2006   Hits: 164)

Deserts, no one's home but a place for all?

Article on core issues related to desertification; update on work in progress

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/15259/89415

(Added: Sat Feb 16 2002   Modified: Tue Jun 07 2005   Hits: 229)

Financial Information Engine on Land Degradation (FIELD)

This is the FIELD System, the dynamic knowledge management tool of the Global Mechanism for searching, collecting and disseminating financial information related to land degradation. The features and components of the FIELD System are designed with the purpose of facilitating access to public domain information on UNCCD financing, which is available in a variety of formats and data repositories, such as documents, publications, proprietary databases, web-sites, online information systems, and networks.

http://www.gm-unccd.org/English/Field/main.htm

(Added: Thu Dec 18 2003   Modified: Thu Jun 09 2005   Hits: 149)

Gender and desertification: expanding roles for women to restore drylands

This review examines the impact of desertification on women, their role in the management of natural resources and drylands, and the constraints they face. It presents project experience in addressing women as natural resource users and managers in dryland areas, highlights some of the approaches used to reach women more effectively, and provides recommendations for expanding women's roles in order to restore dryland areas. (IFAD, KfW, 2006)

http://www.ifad.org/pub/gender/desert/gender_desert.pdf

(Added: Thu Jun 22 2006   Modified: Mon Aug 14 2006   Hits: 130)

Global Deserts Outlook 2006

The 500 million people who live in the world's desert regions can expect to find life increasingly unbearable as already high temperatures soar and the available water is used up or turns salty. Most deserts, says the report, will see temperatures rise by 5-7C by the end of the century and rainfall drop 10-20%. The melting of glaciars in mountainous regions will also affect the amount of water available in the drylands from rivers. The report also proposes that deserts become the powerhouses of the next century, capturing the world's solar energy and potentially exporting electricity across continents. (UNEP, 6 June 2006)

http://www.unep.org/geo/gdoutlook/

(Added: Wed Jun 07 2006   Hits: 91)

Iranti Wanti: The Poison - Leave It

The nuclear industry in Australia is gearing to undergo a massive expansion. The Federal Government is now proposing a national radioactive waste dump in the central desert homelands of South Australia. The dump will open the door to high level waste and threaten country and culture for thousands of years. We say "NO RADIOACTIVE WASTE IN OUR NGURA IN OUR COUNTRY" "It's strictly poison and we don't want it." The waste dump will seed the industry's expansion by allowing continued and increased production of nuclear waste and is an 'out of sight, out of mind' response to the waste problem.

http://www.iratiwanti.org

(Added: Mon Jun 21 2004   Modified: Thu Jun 09 2005   Hits: 217)

Land and Water Rights in the Sahel: Tenure challenges of improving access to water for agriculture

The study supports a process of policy debate and exchange of experience on how to tackle issues raised by the interface between water and land rights in the Sahel. It involves a range of actors working to improve access to water - policy makers, development practitioners, user and producer associations, community leaders and other civil society actors - and discusses practical ways to take account of land tenure issues in water programmes. Focusing on irrigation and pastoral water points, it also explores issues concerning linkages between rights over water, land and other natural resources in wetlands. The focus is on the Sahel, but relevant material from other Sahelian countries provides additional insights and reference is made to developments in other sub-Saharan African countries. (Lorenzo Catula, IIED, June 2006)

http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/full/12525IIED.pdf

(Added: Fri Jul 07 2006   Hits: 103)

Land struggles [pdf]

This paper is intended to highlight a selection of local perspectives on the root causes of land loss in Cambodia, the Philippines and Brazil. (Focus on the Global South, October 2007)

http://www.landaction.org/spip/IMG/pdf/LandStruggles_f10_color.pdf

(Added: Tue Apr 15 2008   Hits: 51)

Land Tenure and the Management of Land and Trees (pdf)

The Case of Customary Land Areas of Ghana by Keijiro Otsuka, Agnes R. Quisumbing, Ellen Payongayong, and J.B.Aidoo. January 1999.

http://www.ifpri.cgiar.org/themes/mp17/briefs/mp17_cocobrief.pdf

(Added: Tue Mar 02 1999   Modified: Tue Jun 07 2005   Hits: 295)

Native Title Report 2005

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner, Tom Calma, argues in the Native Title Report 2005 that the Australian Government's proposal to encourage private ownership and leases of communal land under Indigenous title will not lead to improved economic outcomes for Indigenous people. Tabled in Australia's federal Parliament in February, this report assesses the issues and the potential impacts of the Indigenous land leasing proposal, as well as providing some alternative economic development strategies and initiatives. (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, 2006)

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/ntreport05/index.html

(Added: Mon Apr 03 2006   Modified: Thu Jun 22 2006   Hits: 204)

Paraguay Sojero: Soy Expansion and Its Violent Attack on Local and Indigenous Communities in Paraguay: Repression and Resistance [pdf]

In Paraguay, the expansion of (GM) soy production by Brazilian sojeros, supported by biotech and agrochemical corporations, local and national authorities, and the financial sector, is currently the main cause of violence against small farmers and their organisations, and of severe damage to people's health and to food crops due to fumigations with agrochemicals. Grupo de Reflexion Rural from Argentina presents a new report providing detailed accounts of the current violent acts against rural and indigenous communities in Paraguay, which are strongly related to the expansion of (GM) soy production. (Grupo de Reflexion Rural, 2006)

http://www.aseed.net/images/stories/agrocadabra/soy/paraguay-humanrights-report-72dpi.pdf

(Added: Wed May 24 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 246)

Peru tribe battles oil giant over pollution

The Achuar tribe living in the Amazon rainforest of north-eastern Peru are now invading the territory of the big companies and taking them on at their own game. Last year they filed a class-action lawsuit against oil giant Occidental Petroleum, in Los Angeles for contamination of their land (24 Macrh 2008, Dan Collyns, BBC).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7306639.stm

(Added: Tue Mar 25 2008   Hits: 17)

Soil and Trouble: Interactive Map

An interactive version of the map published in Science's 11 June 2004 special issue on soils. The map depicts barriers to productive farming posed by soil and climate conditions, including erosion risk -- as well as focusing on a few "hot spots" experiencing intense soil degradation.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5677/1616/DC1

(Added: Fri Jun 18 2004   Modified: Thu Jun 09 2005   Hits: 264)

The Global Mechanism (GM) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

The Global Mechanism (GM) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was established as an instrument to facilitate the rationalisation of resource allocation and the mobilisation of additional resources to combat land degradation and poverty.

http://www.gm-unccd.org/

(Added: Thu Dec 18 2003   Modified: Thu Jun 09 2005   Hits: 139)

The Rural Development Institute

The Rural Development Institute is a nonprofit organization of attorneys helping the rural poor in developing countries obtain legal rights to land.

http://www.rdiland.org

(Added: Mon Mar 19 2007   Hits: 181)

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Website

The international community has long recognized that desertification is a major economic, social and environmental problem of concern to many countries in all regions of the world. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was adopted in Paris on 17 June 1994.

http://www.unccd.int/

(Added: Mon Jun 21 2004   Modified: Thu Jun 09 2005   Hits: 143)

Unmasking the New Green Revolution in Africa: Motives, Players and Dynamics

This report provides an analysis of the key players promoting the New Green Revolution in Africa and the dynamics among them. It is hoped that by understanding the forces behind the push for this externally led development paradigm, African civil society would have a better handle on tackling the challenges ahead and on providing locally available, environmentally sustainable, socially acceptable and culturally sensitive alternatives based on equity and justice (E C.Dano, Third World Network, 2007).

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/par/Unmasking.the.green.revolution.pdf

(Added: Fri Dec 21 2007   Hits: 92)

Violations of Peasants Human Rights 2005

Since 2004 Via Campesina has released an annual report on violations of peasant's rights in different parts of the world highlighting important cases and typical forms of violations on peasants' human rights. This new report of violations of peasants' rights contains grave cases in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and South Africa. We learn about peasants who are facing forcible evictions from their lands and situations in which their right of access to productive resources is neglected. The report also presents other cases of violations of civil and political human rights. (Via Campesina & FIAN International, 2005)

http://www.fian.no/nedlasting/g37e-01PeasantsRights.pdf

(Added: Wed May 24 2006   Modified: Thu Feb 08 2007   Hits: 116)

Who Benefits From Land Titling? Lessons from Bolivia and Laos (pdf)

Households in the developing world are becoming more feminised through the breakdown of marriages, the impact of civil war and HIV/AIDs. This research in Bolivia and Laos PDR shows, despite legal and policy contexts which support equal access to titling for both men and women, women still face significant social, political and cultural constraints to acquiring rights to land. (International Institute for Environment and Development, 2007)

http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/14553IIED.pdf

(Added: Tue Mar 04 2008   Modified: Thu Mar 20 2008   Hits: 66)