Integrating traditional land use and land rights into spatial planning approaches
Our interest is to learn how to incorporate customary rights and claims into formal spatial planning processes.
News
09 February, 2012Promoting legal timber trade for sustainable forest management in Ghana
The domestic timber market in Ghana is large (2.5 million m3) and will expand significantly as Ghana’s population is predicted to double by 2030 to almost 50 million. More than 700,000 livelihoods depend on this trade. Non-regulation of the domestic timber market will lead to forest degradation, loss of environmental services and rural and urban poverty, as well as jeopardizing the legal international timber trade.
20 January, 2012The CELOS Management System: a contribution to improved forest management
The CELOS Management System (CMS) is a system for harvesting tropical rainforests which aims to cause minimal disturbance to the ecosystem while also providing economic return. CMS was developed by the Centre for Agricultural Research in Suriname (CELOS) and the Agricultural University of Wageningen (The Netherlands; nowadays WUR). Starting in the 1960/70s, it was originally developed for Suriname, but has gained international recognition.
18 January, 2012Food security and energy development in Viet Nam
The economic structure of Vietnam has drastically shifted since the mid 1980's from an agriculture based system to one that is multi-based.
Productive Landscapes
Tens of millions of hectares of natural tropical forests have been transformed. Many of these areas are degraded yet they provide a living to millions of people. Forests, often degraded or regrowing after disturbance, survive as remnants in a matrix of lands used for other purposes. Well-managed forests and landscapes present opportunities for productive activities that are crucial for sustainable livelihoods, food security, national development and the provision of environmental services. Intensified agriculture, small-scale agro-industrial plantations, small scale logging from farm lands, restoration of forests, biodiversity conservation and biomass storage are functions that can be combined in such productive landscapes.
Towards productive management of transformed forest landscapes
The general challenge is to reconcile the competing claims and interests of multiple stakeholders at various spatial scales through negotiated trade-offs of landscape level functions, often in a context of weak governance. The general question to be answered is whether this leads to resilient and flexible solutions that benefit livelihoods and the environment under a range of scenarios of change.
TBI supports landscape governance by providing information about the socio-economic and environmental basis of livelihoods to decision makers. The development and application of participatory planning, negotiation and adaptive learning tools; support to participatory and informed decision making; and evaluation of the approaches and effectiveness of landscape level interventions in terms of livelihoods, biodiversity and environmental services are the principal means by which TBI achieves this goal.
TBI's interests include
- Using the potential of REDD+ and other Payments for Environmental Services to restore environmental functions and achieve sustainable livelihoods in transformed forest landscapes;
- Management of the impacts of physical infrastructure on landscapes and forest-dependent livelihoods;
- Using the High Conservation Value approach as a means for responsible planning and management of agricultural developments in landscapes.
Assessment of the consequences of forest land allocation as a tool for improving livelihoods and forest quality
The best options for land management at the landscape level take an integrated natural resource management approach. The outcomes from land allocation will partly depend on the policy settings at all levels of governance and the ways these policies are pursued at the operational level.
Creating Syngergy in Forest Research: HUAF-IDS Mutual Capacity Development in Forest Area
A North-South partnership between TBI Viet Nam, HUAF and IDS/UU has contributed to the institutional strengthening of HUAF and created a dynamic network of participants in various fields and disciplines. The partnership offers students and staff members a great opportunity to conduct field research in Viet Nam in a development-oriented, interdisciplinary and international context. This cooperation has formed the basis of interesting discussion forums and new educational initiatives on issues related to forests and people.
News
11 March, 2011Forest Land Allocation Review Workshop organized in Nam Dong
[MAP_NEWS_ARTICLES_THEMES]
14 September, 2010Research on forest land allocation policy under way
[MAP_NEWS_ARTICLES_THEMES]
