CIFOR

By Barbara Fraser, originally published at Forests News In Bolivia, Mother Earth has the right to life, biodiversity, clean water and air, equilibrium, restoration and pollution-free living. That law, passed in 2012, gives humans the duty to protect those rights. But the landlocked country in the heart of South America is also committed to expanding food […]

Louis Putzel, Senior Scientist for CIFOR’s Forest and Environment program, speaks about the importance of Chinese domestic and international forest policy for the UNFCCC climate negotiations at COP20 in Lima, Peru.  In this two-part interview, Putzel explains how China’s own forest conservation measures have led to increasing imports of tropical timber, including from Peru. As […]

This blog by Joan Baxter was originally published at Forests News To the agro-food industry and smallholder farmers in the tropics, it’s a veritable miracle plant. To many NGOs and indigenous groups, it’s a grave threat to land rights and to the environment. So which is it? How can a single plant — the oil […]

By Michelle Kovacevic, originally published at Forests Climate Change Madre de Dios, a region of Peru best known for its gold fever, is not the only place in the country where a piece of land can be classified as a mining concession and farmer’s field at the same time. Millions of hectares of land in Peru are […]

By Martha Cuba, originally posted on CIFOR’s Forests Blog Preliminary research shows somewhat limited village-level participation in early-stage efforts at curbing emissions through avoided tropical deforestation, according to scientists presenting at a recent conference. The findings from Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) initiatives in six countries relate to REDD+ safeguards, which were created to mitigate […]

Originally published at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Forest News Call it a “policymaker’s cookbook.” A group of international experts from academia, research institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has developed a typology to analyze the policy “ecosystem” for different land-management tools. “Our goal is to understand what combinations of actions by citizens, consumers, […]