Land Grab in Africa

Read the full article: Food Tank

Photo credit: Food Tank

More than 1,000 large-scale foreign land deals are now under contract for agriculture covering more than 26 million hectares of land, according to the new report by Land Matrix Initiative.

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Land Grab Update: Mozambique, Africa Still in the Crosshairs

On October 12, the government of Mozambique quietly announced that it would close its Agriculture Promotion Centre (CEPAGRI), the agency created in 2006 to promote large-scale foreign investment in the country’s agricultural sector. In a terse statement, government spokesman Mouzinho Saide gave no reason for the closure, saying only that its functions would be subsumed under a different agency in the Ministry of Agriculture.

Longtime Mozambique analyst Joseph Hanlon was not so shy, reporting in his October 18 Mozambique News Report that CEPAGRI was finished because those large-scale projects it was supposed to broker: “none of them have succeeded.”

Hyperbole aside, Mozambique’s grand visions of foreign capital modernizing its agricultural sector have indeed proven grandiose. Nowhere is this clearer than in the rich Nacala Corridor in northern Mozambique, where the ProSavana project promoted by Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique was going to transform 35 million hectares—nearly 100 million acres—into soybean plantations modeled on Brazil’s cerrado region.

Brazilian agribusinessmen walked away, seeing land that was hardly “unoccupied,” resistance from the communities occupying that land, and poor infrastructure to get any product to its intended markets in China and Japan. ProSavana lives on in name at least—and as an ongoing threat to farmers in the region—but so far, the project’s largest product is hubris. (See my previous articles here and here.)

But is land-grabbing over, in Mozambique and across Africa and the rest of the developing world? Now that crop and food prices have returned to their usual punishingly low levels, is the pressure off from foreign buyers looking to acquire large tracts of agricultural lands?

Not according to new data from the Land Matrix Initiative, which has been tracking such deals since the land rush took off in 2007. A large number of formerly announced deals have failed to materialize, as with ProSavana, but many that remain are now under contract and coming into production.

Land-grabbing: myth and reality

More than 1,000 large-scale foreign land deals are now under contract for agriculture covering more than 26 million hectares of land, according to the new report, “Land Matrix Analytical Report II: International Land Deals for Agriculture.” That area represents a remarkable two percent of arable land in the world. Nearly three-quarters of the projects have now begun production on some of the land.

Africa remains the largest target for land grabs, accounting for 42 percent of global deals with 10 million hectares under contract. Mozambique now ranks 18th among all target countries in area under contract, with 500,000 hectares in 60 concluded deals. That puts the country, which in the 2012 report was a top target in Africa, well behind Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Sudan, which have the most on the continent.

Read the full article: Food Tank

Land Degradation and Desertification in Mexico

 

 

The Assessment of Land Degradation and Desertification in Mexico: Mapping Regional Trend Indicators with Satellite Data

RESEARCH-ARTICLE

Martin Enrique Romero-Sanchez^∗, Antonio Gonzalez-Hernandez and Francisco Moreno-Sanchez

Abstract

Understanding the patterns of land degradation and desertification to develop mitigation strategies requires identification of methods for accurate and spatially explicit assessment and monitoring. Remote sensing data offer the possibility to develop strategies that outline degradation and desertification. The free access policy on satellite imagery enables a new pathway to measure, assess, and monitor land degradation using indicators derived from multispectral satellite data. This chapter seeks to explore a methodology for land degradation and desertification assessment and monitoring, based on freely available multispectral satellite data. The method identifies net primary productivity (NPP) and canopy cover (CC) as indicators of degradation. The trajectories of these indicators show patterns and trends over time. The methodological development presented here is intended to be a tool for regional landscape monitoring and assessment, enabling the formulation of corrective action plans. This methodology was tested in a semi-deciduous ecosystem in the southeast of Mexico.

Read the text: INTECH

Land Degradation and Desertification

 

Land Degradation and Desertification – a Global Crisis

Edited by Abiud Kaswamila,

ISBN 978-953-51-2707-9, Print ISBN 978-953-51-2706-2, 122 pages, Publisher: InTech,

Chapters published October 26, 2016 under CC BY 3.0 license

DOI: 10.5772/61629

Land degradation which is caused by multiple forces-extreme weather conditions and anthropogenic activities that pollute or degrade the quality of soils and land utility-negatively affects food production, livelihoods, and the provision of other ecosystem goods and services. Land degradation can also lead to climate change and affect human health. The problem is more pronounced in least developing countries due to overdependence of natural resources for survival. Sustainable ways to reduce land degradation and desertification demand research and advocacy of sustainable land management practices. This book is organized into two sections. The first section covers three major aspects, viz., an understanding of patterns of land degradation and desertification for developing mitigation strategies, land-atmosphere interaction from response of land cover to climate change effects of Karst rocky desertification, and the effect of unprecedented human activity into land degradation and desertification processes using natural and human-induced landscape research. The last section dwells on the relationship between soil degradation and crop production and an examination on how land degradation impacts the quality of soil in communal rangelands. Environmentalists, land-use planners, ecologists, pedologists, researchers, and graduate students will find this book to be an essential resource.

Read the full announcement: INTECH

Kenya investing in rehabilitation efforts to stave off the threat of desertification.

 

 

Kenya: Greens Drylands to Combat Land Degradation

By Justus Wanzala

Faced with growing degradation that is swallowing large swathes of land in arid and semiarid areas, Kenya is heavily investing in rehabilitation efforts to stave off the threat of desertification.

Charles Sunkuli, secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, says a programme targeting 5.1 million hectares of degraded and deforested land for restoration by 2030 was launched in September 2016. He added that Kenya is increasing its forest cover from the current seven percent to a minimum of 10 percent.

High levels of poverty, low water availability, deforestation and land degradation are fuelling conflicts among communities in East Africa.

“We have introduced an equalisation fund to help communities living in dry and degraded lands eke out at a living and participate in rehabilitation initiatives,” said Sunkuli.

He was speaking in Nairobi during the Fifteenth Session of the Committee of Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which concluded last week.

Afforestration, he noted, will mainly be done in the country’s arid and semiarid areas which make up 80 percent of Kenya’s land cover, although other areas of the country to are being targeted too.

To succeed in its ambitious endeavour, Sunkuli said Kenya is implementing a programme to promote drought-tolerant tree species such Melia volkensii (locally known as Mukau) in the country’s vast drylands to increase forest cover.

Read the full article: allAfrica

Desertification risk assessment tool

 

Photo credit: DESIRE

http://www.desire-his.eu/images/stories/rsgallery/display/D2.2.3%20fig%202a.jpg.jpg

Stage 4 in the process of linking desertification and land degradation indicators to land use practices

Effective land desertification protection requires both appropriate land management practices and macro policy approaches that promote sustainability of ecosystem services. It is preferable for actions to focus on protection or prevention rather than on rehabilitation of desertified areas since such areas are usually at high stage of land degradation and the expected profitability of applying measures is low.

Photo credit: DESIRE – http://www.desire-his.eu/images/stories/rsgallery/original/D2.2.3%20fig%206.jpg

The priority for land users is to apply appropriate land management practices to protect the productivity of sensitive areas to desertification and thus prevent active degradation processes.

A number of indicators have been shown to be important in affecting land degradation processes or causes. Many of the indicators are for properties that cannot easily altered at farm level (such as Soil depth, Slope gradient and Rainfall seasonality). However, indicators related to land management (such as No tillage, Storage of water runoff, and Grazing control) can be changed by the farmer.

A Desertification Risk Assessment Tool has been designed to enable users to

• analyse a wide range of alternatives for land management practices for reducing land desertification risk;
• evaluate and select the most important indicators through which desertification risk may be assessed in a variety of locales worldwide;
• develop a consensus among various groups (such as politicians, managers and experts) when assessing desertification risks.

Read the full article: DESIRE

UNCCD launched 3 publications to support countries’ translation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target (15.3) on land degradation neutrality (LDN)

 

 

UNCCD Publications Glean Lessons from LDN Target Setting

by WANGU MWANGI – Thematic Expert for Land, Soil, and Desertification (Kenya)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) launched three publications to support countries’ translation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target (15.3) on land degradation neutrality (LDN) into country-specific targets and actions.

The publications present a scientific conceptual framework for LDN, discuss lessons from 14 pilot countries and present building blocks for LDN target setting at the country-level.

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) launched three publications to support countries’ translation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target on land degradation neutrality (LDN) into country-specific targets and actions. Within the first year of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’s adoption, 102 countries embarked on voluntary LDN target-setting processes.

The three publications are titled: ‘Land in Balance: The Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality;’ ‘Scaling up Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting: From Lessons to Action – 14 Pilot Countries;’ and ‘Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality at the Country Level: Building Blocks for LDN Target Setting.’ The publications were presented during the fifteenth session of the UNCCD’s Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 15), held from 18-20 October in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting included an interactive session to hear experiences from countries involved in the LDN exercise.

Within the first year of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’s adoption, 102 countries embarked on voluntary LDN target-setting processes.

 Read the full article: IISD

Helping smallholders restore degraded forests

 

Photo credit: SciDevNet

Copyright: Ochieng’ Ogodo

African initiative calls for focus on land restoration

Ochieng’ Ogodo

Speed read

• A meeting has called for a need to create evidence to restore Africa’s forests
• Collaborations among universities could help generate more evidence
• Governments should be committed to helping smallholders restore degraded forests

Generating sufficient scientific knowledge to restore degraded land is critical in Africa because the continent largely depends on land and other natural resources for socioeconomic development, experts say.

Most populations, it was noted at the 1st African Forest Landscape Restoration (AFR100) Regional Conference this month (11-12 October) in Ethiopia, depend on land for livelihoods, but there has been massive degradation and this calls for, among others, adequate knowledge for restoration, particularly by small-scale farmers.

“Rivers are drying, Lake Chad is gone, Lake Turkana in Kenya is receding and [thus] people have to take restoration very seriously.”

Alice Akinyi Kaudia, Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

“This requires inter-universities collaborations because not all African universities are well endowed with enough resources to generate needed knowledge and tools,” says Alice Akinyi Kaudia, environmentsecretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. “It will [also] be useful to develop centres of excellence within them to address this urgently.”

The AFR100 conference was organised by the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development, Federal German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank, and the World Resources Institute.

Read the full article: SciDevNet

The restoration of 5 million hectares of degraded land to help fight desertification.

 

Photo credit: Anadolu Agency

UN pushes for action on African desertification

Two-day event in Nairobi comes less than week after Kenya said 1.3 million citizens faced hardship in drought-hit areas

By Magdalene Mukami

NAIROBI, Kenya

The UN spoke out strongly about desertification in Africa on Tuesday less than a week after Kenya’s government said 1.3 million citizens were facing starvation in drought-hit regions.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) met for a two-day event in Nairobi and called on the Kenyan government to push for the restoration of five million hectares of degraded land to help fight desertification.

Dry spells have caused hardship in the arid and semi-arid lands of northern Kenya.

Monique Barbut, UNCCD executive secretary, said: “Every single country should take such a commitment to make sure that by 2030 we are not losing more land than what we are restoring.”

Barbut called on Kenyans to look into alternative sources of clean fuel in order for the country to achieve 10 percent forest cover, a goal set by the country’s environment ministry.

Read the full article: Anadolu Agency

Land degradation and Global Goals

 

Photo credit: UN NEWS CENTRE

In the Liptako-Gourma region, Niger, an area that has experienced large-scale land degradation and water scarcity, a villager takes extra precautions to keep her supply of water clean. Photo: UNDP/Rabo Yahaya

Tackling impacts of land degradation vital to achieving Global Goals – senior UN treaty official

 

The head of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification told delegations gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, to assess the treaty’s implementation, the impacts of land degradation affect the sustainability of the entire world, so a global effort is needed to tackle it, including through the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Monique Barbut, the Executive Secretary of the Convention, known by its acronym UNCCD, opened meeting by stressing: “Ignoring land degradation neutrality (LDN) could be political suicide.”

Moreover, she stressed that LDN remains a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target – under Goal 15 – and populations will experience real benefits in terms of climate change, rural employment and food security.

Read the full article: UN NEWS CENTRE

Restoration of Degraded Land in Kenya

 

Photo credit: WRI

Kenya committed to restore 5.1 million hectares of degraded landscapes. Photo by Aaron Minnick/WRI

Kenya to Restore Denmark-sized Area of Degraded Land

by  Hayden Higgins 

and Aaron Minnick

Kenya announced on September 8th that it will restore 5.1 million hectares (12.6 million acres) of degraded land, an area roughly the size of Denmark, to more productive use. The move is poised to improve livelihoods, curb climate change, safeguard biodiversity and more.

As a result of poor land use, including overcultivation and overgrazing, Kenya has been quickly losing land todesertification. The drylands that make up much of the country are particularly susceptible.

Kenya’s restoration plan is not only notable because it will reverse some of this degradation, but because of how the country set its international target.

WRI participated in a technical working group that used a novel research approach to map Kenya’s different land areas. That group found 38.8 million hectares (96 million acres)—more than 65 percent of Kenya’s total land area—suitable for restoration. The goal announced last Thursday represents more than 13 percent of the total restorable land area. (View the map here.)

 

Read the full article: World Resources Institute

 

Soil and land restoration (CIAT)

 

Photo credit: CIAT

CIAT and partners focus on soil and land restoration in Paraguay

by CIAT Comunicaciones

There is a first time for everything, as the saying goes. And for CIAT´s Soils Research Area, the project “Confronting the challenges of smallholder farming communities: Restoration of degraded agroecosystems,” provided the entry point for a new effort in Paraguay to enhance the livelihoods of smallholder producers through restoration of soils and landscapes that are degraded, and conservation of those that are still in good health.

With assistance from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ, its German acronym) and financial support from Germany´s Federal Ministry of Cooperation and Economic Development (BMZ), the project is focusing on two regions of strategic importance.

One is the buffer zone of the Mbaracayú Biosphere Reserve, which is a major remnant of the Atlantic Forest in Paraguay. CIAT scientists are working in this area with the Moisés Bertoni Foundation to help smallholders improve their systems for producing yerba mate (used to make a traditional beverage) in the shade of native tree species. The idea is to establish green corridors in the landscape, which has been extensively deforested, with severe soil degradation resulting from large-scale production of soybean and other crops.

Read the full article: CIAT-CGIAR

IN MY DESERTIFICATION LIBRARY: BOOK NR. 33

 

Negotiating a sustainable future for land (FAO-UNEP 1997)

Posted by Prof. Dr. Willem VAN COTTHEM

Ghent University – Belgium

Having participated in all the meetings of the INCD (1992-1994) and all the meetings of the UNCCD-COP, the CST and the CRIC in 1994-2006, I had an opportunity to collect a lot of interesting books and publications on drought and desertification published in that period.

Book Nr. 33

Please click: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bQTLznW_03rvTWp0Z4o3NQrHaVt90sFlz16XuUks8gg/edit?usp=sharing

or see negotiating-a-sustainable-future-for-land-fao-unep-1997