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The paper assesses the escalating poaching crisis of African elephants, driven by ivory demand in Asia, particularly China. It proposes a strategic framework prioritizing targeted demand reduction and reinforced anti-poaching efforts, while cautioning that domestic trade bans are only effective as complements. The author emphasizes the need for range states to coordinate the simultaneous disposal of ivory stockpiles to remove incentives for criminal syndicates and to increase the 'use value' of elephants for local communities through eco-tourism and payment for ecosystem services (PES) to prevent habitat conversion.

The document analyzes Mexico's 2015 INDC, which commits to unconditional reductions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 22% and black carbon by 51% relative to a 2030 baseline. While noting Mexico's leadership as the first developing country to submit an INDC and its identification of a 2026 emissions peak, the analysis warns that current policy trajectories projected by external sources suggest emissions would continue to increase without further action. The authors recommend formalizing a robust baseline policy to avoid high-carbon lock-in and improving transparency regarding the expected emissions trajectory and the specific conditions required to meet conditional targets.

The report analyzes the legal processes for converting forests in the Republic of Congo into agricultural or mining land. It highlights a critical lack of a national land-use plan, which leads to overlapping land use and insecurity. The document details the requirements for declassifying permanent forest estates and obtaining deforestation permits, while arguing that the rights of local communities and indigenous people (LCIP) are insufficiently protected. It also notes that the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) does not adequately cover the legality of conversion timber.

The paper argues that while supply chain traceability is a necessary first step, it is insufficient for achieving large-scale sustainability. Instead, it advocates for a 'landscape management approach'—managing agricultural production and ecosystem protection across connected areas of land rather than on a plantation-by-plantation basis. This strategy involves five key steps: defining landscape boundaries, partnering with government and business, allocating land to its highest value use, increasing productivity, and monitoring results. The document highlights a pilot project in Sei Mangkei, North Sumatra, and identifies significant opportunities to utilize degraded lands in North Sumatra and Central Kalimantan to reduce deforestation pressure.

The report finds that illegalities are pervasive across DRC's industrial logging concessions, with every visited site between 2011 and 2014 showing violations. These range from over-harvesting and tax avoidance to human rights abuses and the use of fraudulent CITES permits. Despite laws like the EU Timber Regulation and the US Lacey Act, significant volumes of high-risk timber continue to flow to China, Europe, and the US, driven by weak government enforcement and a culture of impunity in the DRC.

The IAI Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) evaluates the implementation of an interdisciplinary research model combining natural and social sciences to create policy-relevant solutions in the Americas. The report highlights the success of specific projects, such as meteorological data compilation for crop yield modelling and ecosystem service vulnerability assessments. However, the SAC identifies a critical lack of regional data infrastructure to serve decision-makers and the public. Key recommendations include integrating social scientists from the start of projects, establishing a regional data services framework, and improving capacity building through interdisciplinary workshops.

The SAC reports that the IAI's interdisciplinary model, combining social and natural sciences, is producing useful results and serving as a global example. While evaluating CRN3 projects, the SAC identified a critical regional lack of infrastructure for hosting and distributing data and services. The committee recommends integrating social scientists from the start of project design and strengthening capacity development to better link science with policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The document reviews Claude Martin's analysis of tropical rainforests, highlighting the shift from viewing commercial logging as the primary driver of deforestation to recognizing the central role of agriculture and agro-industrial land conversion. It details the importance of biodiversity, the role of protected areas and remote sensing in conservation, and the emerging threat of climate change, which risks turning forests into net greenhouse gas sources. The text also emphasizes the human rights risks faced by environmental advocates and the need to integrate natural capital into economic policy.

The report examines the challenges and successes of implementing Western sustainability and development agendas within Vietnam's highly centralized party-state. It analyzes how historical legacies, including Chinese influence and the impact of the US war, shape current governance and social dynamics. Through various case studies—including hydropower strategic environmental assessments, poverty reduction programs like Chia Sẻ, and research on Agent Orange—the author demonstrates that while the Vietnamese state is open to experimental pilot projects, it remains resistant to reforms that challenge its monopoly on power or its paternalistic view of ethnic minorities. The document concludes that long-term engagement and an understanding of local cultural contexts are essential for effective policy advice in Vietnam.

The document outlines a framework for institutional learning to address the climate crisis, emphasizing that traditional reports are insufficient to drive change. It presents findings from the ICF Learning for Change Dialogues, including the tension between monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and learning, the need for institutional incentives, and the challenge of aggregating micro-level project learning to the portfolio level. The guide proposes ten emerging principles for effective learning—such as framing learning as a strategic path to impact and 'failing fast'—and provides a set of dimensions (e.g., supply vs. demand, top-down vs. bottom-up) to help organisations design and evaluate their learning interventions.

The report finds that Uganda faces a critical biomass deficit by 2020, which climate change will likely exacerbate. While the government's current electricity expansion plan can cover potential hydropower losses from reduced precipitation, it requires significant investment. Adaptation focuses on reducing biomass dependence through fuel switching and energy efficiency.

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This report provides an overview of the water-energy-food nexus in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on the interdependencies between these sectors and the challenges posed by climate change, population growth, and resource distribution.

The program targets the global supply chains of palm oil, soy, and beef, which are identified as primary drivers of approximately 80% of worldwide deforestation. It employs a 'whole of supply chain' theory of change, arguing that deforestation can be eliminated if production is localized in the right areas (avoiding natural forests) and follows sustainable practices. The program is structured into four child projects: Support to Production, Generating Responsible Demand, Enable Transactions, and Adaptive Management and Learning. Key geographic focuses include the Amazon and Cerrado in Brazil, the Chaco in Paraguay, and palm oil production in Indonesia and Liberia. The program seeks to leverage a total cost of $443.2 million, including $40.3 million from the GEF Trust Fund, to shift the market from voluntary niche sustainability to a mainstream norm.

The report details a three-year project (April 2012 to September 2015) funded by the UK Department for International Development to empower civil society organisations (CSOs) and indigenous people and local communities (IPLC) in West and Central Africa. The project focused on increasing access to forest legislation, creating legal knowledge networks through Legal Working Groups (LWGs), and developing diagnostic tools to analyse the recognition of six focus rights: access to information, participation in decision-making, access to justice, property rights, rights of use, and the right to a share in profits. Key outcomes included the creation of legal databases, the provision of legal training, and the drafting of legislative proposals to improve forest governance and the implementation of Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) and the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR).

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) evaluated the land sector (AFOLU) plans within the initial INDCs of the US, EU, and Mexico. The analysis finds a stark contrast between developed and developing nations: while the US and EU provide reasonable accounting standards, they lack specific action plans to realize their substantial mitigation potentials. In contrast, Mexico provides a highly transparent and ambitious plan, including a goal of zero deforestation by 2030 and a target for emissions to peak and decline by 2026. The report emphasizes that the land sector is critical for closing the global emissions gap, but current INDCs from developed nations are insufficient in detail to determine if their ambitions match their capacities.

The publication examines 24 REDD projects or programmes, concluding that their structural characteristics often harm forest communities and fail to reduce overall global emissions because they function as offsets.

The document examines the drivers and impacts of biofuel expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically focusing on jatropha- and sugarcane-based fuels. It argues that while biofuels are driven by goals of energy security and economic development, they are linked to significant trade-offs including GHG emissions, deforestation, and food insecurity. The author concludes that the lack of comprehensive understanding of these trade-offs, combined with institutional and market failures, hinders the sustainability of biofuel investments in the region.

The analysis finds that while agricultural prices influence deforestation, conservation policies implemented in 2004 and 2008 were critical in curbing forest loss. These policies helped avoid an estimated 73,000 km2 of deforestation between 2005 and 2009, preventing the release of approximately 2.7 billion tons of stored CO2.

The study finds that while agricultural prices drive deforestation, conservation policies implemented in 2004 and 2008 significantly curbed forest loss. Counterfactual simulations estimate that these policies avoided approximately 73,000 square kilometers of deforestation from 2005 to 2009, equivalent to 2.7 billion tonnes of stored carbon dioxide. The analysis indicates that the deforestation slowdown did not result in a major downturn for the local agricultural sector or municipal GDP per capita.