Edmund Geoffrey Barrow

• Consultant at Athari Advisory Services

Restoration of degraded ecosystem functions and services is an important component of conservation and sustainable development because it allows people to improve human livelihoods by reviving important ecosystem services. For restoration to be achieved a variety of factors must be in place such as policies, laws, capacity and spaces in which to de...

We analyze how governments and the international community expand protected areas (PAs) to reduce biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation at a cost to indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) in terms of rights and conflict. This contradicts commitments made by the conservation community to UNDRIP and Indigenous Peoples’ (IPs) and other...

Forests of the Americas and the Caribbean are undergoing rapid change as human populations increase and land use intensifies. We applied the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) criteria and simple cost-efficiency analyses to provide the first regional perspective on patterns of relative risk integrated across multiple threats. Based on six indicators...

Sustainable development aims at addressing economic, social, and environmental concerns, but the current lack of responsive environmental governance hinders progress. Short-term economic development has led to limited actions, unsustainable resource management, and degraded ecosystems. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may continue to fal...

Designing natural resource management projects that support local representation and accountable governance If they are to yield effective, equitable outcomes, natural resource management projects need to work with representatives who are responsive and accountable to local people. This brief presents practical suggestions on how projects can avoid...

The Responsive Forest Governance Initiative (RFGI) is a research, training and practice program that focuses on environmental governance in 12 countries in Africa. This work was based on the premise that nations worldwide have introduced democratic decentralization reforms aspiring to make local government responsive and accountable to the needs an...

African countries are at different stages of decentralizing rights and responsibilities for forest resources management to local communities. However, there is still reluctance on enabling security of tenure rights for different reasons. This lack of clarity on rights and entitlements has constrained the sustainable management of forests for liveli...

In response to growing demand for ecosystem-level risk assessment in biodiversity conservation, and rapid proliferation of locally tailored protocols, the IUCN recently endorsed new Red List criteria as a global standard for ecosystem risk assessment. Four qualities were sought in the design of the IUCN criteria: generality; precision; realism; and...

The newly developed IUCN Red List of Ecosystems is part of a growing toolbox for assessing risks to biodiversity, which addresses ecosystems and their functioning. The Red List of Ecosystems standard allows systematic assessment of all freshwater, marine, terrestrial and subterranean ecosystem types in terms of their global risk of collapse. In add...

This paper presents ecosystem (Miombo and Acacia woodland) restoration that has taken place in Shinyanga, Tanzania since 1985. Prior to 1985, the region had been degraded of its Acacia and Miombo woodlands (as part of tsetse fly eradication and cash crop based agricultural expansion). As a result, these two ecosystems nearly collapsed. By 2004, mor...

An understanding of risks to biodiversity is needed for planning action to slow current rates of decline and secure ecosystem services for future human use. Although the IUCN Red List criteria provide an effective assessment protocol for species, a standard global assessment of risks to higher levels of biodiversity is currently limited. In 2008, I...

Definitions of terms. (PDF)

We begin by briefly examining the achievements of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and offering it as the model and motivator for the creation of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (RLE). The history of the RLE concept within IUCN is briefly summarized, from the first attempt to formally establish an RLE in 1996 to the present. Major activitie...

'This book aims to inspire the conservation community not to regard poverty reduction as someone else's job but to take responsibility for it as part of ecosystem restoration. Though no solutions are perfect, the text and examples given offer encouraging and useful guidance.' Gill Shepherd, poverty and landscapes thematic leader, IUCN Forest Conser...

The IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) is the IUCN's youngest commission, established in 1996. It is a network of volunteer experts, numbering approximately 800, from around the world working on ecosystem management related issues, for example climate change adaptation, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), Red List of Ecosystems (RLE), fisheri...

Laura A. German, Alain Karsenty, Anne-Marie Tiani

Extensive land-use by pastoralists and their livestock in arid lands can enhance biodiversity and support the long-term conservation of important wildlife habitats. Pastoralists are sophisticated and dynamic managers of their natural resource base and they employ elaborate land use strategies for conserving species and important habitats. However,...

A global overview of decentralization processes in Africa, Asia and Latin America, developed as input for the United Nations Forum on Forests

The Turkana silvo-pastoral system is a traditional natural resource management strategy for dry lands that forms a sensible basis for improvement. Involvement of the local people is vital in adapting and improving the system, to bring out the potentials that exist in terms of broad land management strategies and more specifically in terms of indivi...

Usufruct rights to trees (Ekwar) in the Turkana silvo-pastoral system are an important aspect of natural resource management, particularly in the drier central parts of Kenya. Originating from a participatory forestry extension program, a survey was carried out that showed the extent and duration, often in excess of one generation, of occupancy of...

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Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 1.Kenya land laws and trees 3 2.Trees and the Turkana silvo-pastoral system 7 3.Tree access rights and present-day pastoral development 11 4.Trees, pastoralism and the law 14 5.Implications for the future of pastoral development 16 Notes 19 References 22 Appendix

"This paper presents evidence that community-based enterprises, by innovating in their use of the commons, are contributing to both local and global 'social learning' on ways to reconcile biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction. We argue that this is a key benefit of commons management in the African cases profiled in this paper: an indigen...