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While park-people conflicts have received worldwide attention, the extent of illegal resource extraction and the relationship with communities' livelihoods has gained little attention in the literature. Thus this paper investigates the impact of socio-economic factors involved in illegal fuel wood and fodder extraction at Bardia National Park in Nepal. Household questionnaires, key-informant interviews and focus groups were conducted to identify different plant species used by households and explore the causes and mode of resource extraction in three buffer zone villages in the park. Altogether 50 different plants were identified by villagers that were used regularly for different livelihood purposes. Almost half of the respondents met their needs by illegally and regularly extracting resources from the park. Incentive schemes in the form of development projects were important but not sufficient in meeting the basic needs of households' especially for such daily items such as fuel wood and fodder. The results described in this paper showed that proximity and access to resources either in the national park, the buffer zone community forest or the government forest, and impact on the livelihoods significantly influenced the likelihood of illegal resource extraction activities. Villages that differed in terms of their location to the resource base, the provision of alternative resources and influence of these on their livelihoods showed significant differences in terms of their patterns of resource extraction and use of these resources. As resource use options, resource interest, and resource extraction patterns were different between villages and dependent on circumstances specific to villages, site-specific management strategies were necessary and more influential than the enforcement of 'one-size fits all' policies. It is suggested that park management plans should be flexible and adaptive enough to meet site-specific contexts and to endear wider support from local communities.

South Africa is likely to experience higher temperatures and less rainfall as a result of climate change. Resulting changes in regional water endowments and soil moisture will affect the productivity of cropland, leading to changes in food production and international trade patterns. High population growth elsewhere in Africa and Asia will put further pressure on natural resources and food security in South Africa. Based on four climate change scenarios from two general circulation models (CSIRO and MIROC) and two IPCC SRES emission scenarios (A1B, B1), this study assesses the potential impacts of climate change on global agriculture and explores two alternative adaptation scenarios for South Africa. The analysis uses an updated GTAP-W model, which distinguishes between rainfed and irrigated agriculture and implements water as an explicit factor of production for irrigated agriculture. For South Africa to adapt to the adverse consequences of global climate change, it would require yield improvements of more than 20 percent over baseline investments in agricultural research and development. A doubling of irrigation development, on the other hand, will not be sufficient to reverse adverse impacts from climate change in the country.

As the climate change problem becomes more eminent, there is more pressure to increase efforts in all sectors and countries. The land-use sector is seen as an option to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and key in achieving a balance in GHG emissions and removals by sinks by 2050, as envisioned in the Paris Agreement. This article presents two comparative case studies within the climate change arena and aims to understand how and why: 1) tropical deforestation and forest degradation have secured a prominent place on the international climate change agenda, while 2) agriculture has not secured a prominent place. We use the agenda-setting multi-stream approach (MSA), while adding a framing layer. Based on primary data (including an international workshop with forest and agriculture experts, interviews, and participation in key international meetings), and secondary data, this article concludes that REDD + is an example of how a condition was framed as a problem, a viable proposal was developed, and political will and receptivity was shown, all of which placed REDD + high on the agenda, and generated its legal and methodological framework over the course of ten years. In these efforts, the role of policy entrepreneurs was key. Agriculture, on the other hand, is a more complex sector with multiple interests and millions of stakeholders. The consideration of agriculture, in particular its mitigation component, is therefore a highly contentious issue. The fear of new binding commitments and the potential threat to food security and production, and the lack of a convincing proposal that addresses the multiple values of agriculture has impeded substantive progress. Also, the absence of a committed policy entrepreneur limits the place of agriculture in the climate change agenda under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Cotton cropping in Pakistan uses substantial quantities of resources and adversely affects the environment with pollutants from the inputs, particularly pesticides. A question remains regarding to what extent the reduction of such environmental impact is possible without compromising the farmers' income. This paper investigates the environmental, technical, and economic performances of selected irrigated cotton-cropping systems in Punjab to quantify the sustainability of cotton farming and reveal options for improvement. Using mostly primary data, our study quantifies the technical, cost, and environmental efficiencies of different farm sizes. A set of indicators has been computed to reflect these three domains of efficiency using the data envelopment analysis technique. The results indicate that farmers are broadly environmentally inefficient; which primarily results from poor technical inefficiency. Based on an improved input mix, the average potential environmental impact reduction for small, medium, and large farms is 9, 13, and 11 %, respectively, without compromising the economic return. Moreover, the differences in technical, cost, and environmental efficiencies between small and medium and small and large farm sizes were statistically significant. The second-stage regression analysis identifies that the entire farm size significantly affects the efficiencies, whereas exposure to extension and training has positive effects, and the sowing methods significantly affect the technical and environmental efficiencies. Paradoxically, the formal education level is determined to affect the efficiencies negatively. This paper discusses policy interventions that can improve the technical efficiency to ultimately increase the environmental efficiency and reduce the farmers' operating costs.

The impending threats of catastrophic climate change and peak oil are driving our society towards increased use of biomass for energy, chemical compounds and other materrials - the beginnings of a biobased economy. As alternative development models for the biobased economy emerge, we need to determine potential applications, their perspectives and possible impacts as well as policies that can steer technological and market development in such a way that our objectives are met. Currently, it is still far from clear what will be the most sustainable routes to follow, which technologies should be included and how their development will affect, and be affected by, research, public opinion and policy and market forces. (E-book available via MyiLibrary)

This study investigates the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) over the period 1990-2014, while considering agricultural activities, energy use, trade openness and mobile use as driving forces of environmental degradation. The empirical results verify an inverted U-shaped connection between carbon emissions and economic growth. This study confirms the unfriendly impact of agriculture on the environment. Electricity consumption and trade openness likewise exhibit similar impacts on carbon emissions. Mobile use however reduces pollution. A unique revelation from this study is that the interaction between electricity consumption and agricultural activities has an additional pernicious effect on the environment. The methodologies applied for testing the impact of selected independent variables on carbon emissions in BRICS are the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) and the Fully Modify Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) for long run regression. Empirical evidence confirms that agriculture exerts a negative impact on the environment in BRICS countries. This study therefore recommends the adoption of cleaner energy processes and enabling high-tech and clean foreign investment.

Currently, Jatropha seeds are mainly used to produce biodiesel, and a resultant press cakeis obtained as a by-product. Jatropha press cake fractionation and conversion into variouspotential products using biorefinery, could improve the economic value of Jatropha seed.The objectives of this study were to calculate the potential generated income and economicvalue of products from Jatropha. These were classified into two product groups: 1) Ruralproducts, and 2) Industrial products. The potential generated income is the summation ofthe net profit and the labour costs. Using the national gross domestic product (GDP) percapita as a reference, we calculated and compared the potential economic value, whichexpresses the number of people that could obtain a certain income for every hectare ofJatropha plantation, in five selected countries. These countries consisted of four developingcountries: Tanzania, Mali, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia, and a developed country, theNetherlands. This study shows that the potential generated income from rural productsper hectare of (imported) Jatropha was much lower than the income of one person inIndonesia and the Netherlands. In Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Mali, the potential economicvalue per hectare Jatropha suggests that manufacturing rural products can generate potentialincome for one person. Manufacturing industrial products can generate potentialincome for one person in the Netherlands and approx. 7e39 people in Indonesia,Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Mali. In conclusion, the potential generated income is highlydependent on the GDP per capita and the price of the selected products in each country.