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The report finds that Berau can meet its palm oil production needs and fulfill mill capacities by 2021-2023 by improving agricultural practices and reaching 90% optimum productivity, eliminating the need for further land expansion. While company plantations operate efficiently, independent smallholders face significant barriers, including lack of land certificates, limited access to finance, and inefficient transport routes to mills. The region lacks CPO refineries, resulting in most crude palm oil being exported to other provinces or Malaysia. The authors recommend strengthening smallholder cooperatives, improving bankability, and analyzing the business case for local refineries to increase regional value addition.

The report details a consultation process led by the Cameroon Climate Change Working Group under the African Climate Legislation Initiative to identify priority areas for climate legislation. Participants identified land use and farming as the most critical sectors for regulatory intervention and highlighted corruption and limited public participation as primary barriers to successful law implementation. As a result, the Legal Response Initiative provided a legal opinion on improving the delivery of rainfall forecasts to farmers, suggesting revisions to Decree No. 2005/118 regarding the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The document examines how a warming atmosphere increases the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation, contributing to higher inland flood risks in parts of the United States, particularly the Midwest and Northeast. It highlights that while climate change is a driver, land-use changes—such as development in floodplains and the removal of wetlands—significantly exacerbate flood risk. The report argues that current FEMA flood maps are inadequate because they rely on historical data rather than future projections. To mitigate these risks, the authors recommend reforming the National Flood Insurance Program, increasing funding for river gauge networks and flood mapping, and implementing nature-based infrastructure and stricter zoning regulations to discourage floodplain development.

The report examines the Lephalale Local Municipality's struggle to establish local governance and self-sufficiency in the wake of the Medupi coal power station project. It analyzes how the municipality, historically dependent on corporations like Eskom and Exxaro, navigates the complexities of land ownership, basic service infrastructure, and the influence of private capital and party politics to realize its ambition of becoming a post-apartheid city.

The report introduces Sustainable Land Bonds (SLBs), which are sovereign bonds used to finance low-carbon land management. Unlike standard bonds, SLBs are paired with Results-Based Payment (RBP) agreements where third parties offset interest costs if the issuing country meets specific emission reduction targets. This model aims to help tropical forest countries achieve their Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) while stimulating rural economic growth and attracting institutional investment.

The document outlines the legal outcomes of a Supreme Court decision on the Brazilian Forest Code, detailing the special regimes for landowners who deforested before July 2008, the role of the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA), and specific rules for Legal Forest Reserves and Permanent Preservation Areas (APP).

The document details the STF's decision that the 2012 Forest Code does not result in environmental regression, while specifying five points of unconstitutionality. It explains the benefits available to producers who deforested before July 22, 2008, including the suspension of fines through Environmental Regularization Programs (PRAs) and flexible restoration requirements. The briefing emphasizes that registration in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) by May 31, 2018, is mandatory for accessing these benefits and obtaining rural credit. It concludes that the law's implementation is essential for Brazil to meet its Paris Agreement goals, specifically the restoration of 12 million hectares and the elimination of illegal deforestation.

The authors argue that the Brazilian Supreme Court's decision on the 2012 Forest Code introduces a critical inconsistency regarding the Environmental Reserve Quote (CRA). While the court upheld the CRA's constitutionality, it diverged on the geographic criteria for compensation: requiring 'ecological identity' in one instance while maintaining the broader 'biome' criterion in another. This contradiction creates legal insecurity for rural producers and environmental agencies and may weaken the CRA market by making it more restrictive than other compensation alternatives.

The report analyzes the governance and utilization of Indonesia's Village Fund, finding that while the fund has grown significantly and is a major revenue source for villages, it is predominantly spent on transportation infrastructure. The authors identify five key challenges—including a lack of technical capacity, misaligned planning between village and district levels, and insufficient regulatory guidelines—that hinder the fund's potential to support environmental conservation and sustainable land use. To address these, the report recommends integrating village priorities into district planning, empowering the Village and Community Empowerment Office, creating specific sustainability guidelines, adopting a 'negative-list' for spending, and introducing a sustainability variable into the fund's allocation formula.

The authors use a simulation-based multi-criteria land use optimization procedure to identify scenarios that balance terrestrial carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, land and water use, and food security. The analysis indicates that substantial increases in agricultural productivity are key to achieving better outcomes across these goals, with potential terrestrial carbon sequestration reaching 98 GtC and biodiversity risk reduction of 53%. The research also examines synergies and trade-offs between these global scenarios and local or national goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The document examines the Brazilian rural credit system, highlighting a mismatch between the location of financial institutions and agricultural potential. It argues that the complex network of banks and cooperatives, combined with diverse and fluctuating funding sources, creates artificial uncertainties for farmers, potentially leading to poor investment decisions. The brief recommends simplifying the structure of rural credit to improve policy effectiveness and resource allocation.

The document analyzes the Brazilian rural credit system, highlighting that the availability of financing is often determined by the distribution of banks and cooperatives rather than local agricultural potential. It identifies significant geographic concentration in the South and Southeast regions and a complex web of funding sources and programs that lead to inconsistent credit conditions for producers.

The briefing analyzes the legal instability resulting from the Brazilian Supreme Court's (STF) decisions regarding the 2012 Forest Code. It highlights contradictions in the court's treatment of the July 22, 2008, cutoff date, the Environmental Reserve Quote (CRA), and the amnesty for past environmental infractions, warning that these inconsistencies create a 'Frankenstal' code that threatens environmental outcomes.

The paper finds that agricultural expansion in the Matopiba region, driven by soy cultivation, significantly increased GDP per capita and improved access to durable goods and electricity in municipalities within the Cerrado biome. While agricultural and services GDP grew, there were no significant effects on manufacturing GDP, local population, or educational outcomes.

The agriculture and land sectors (AFOLU) contribute approximately 24% of total GHG emissions, but also sequester about one third of annual anthropogenic emissions. While technical potentials for mitigation are high—with some estimates suggesting up to 23.8 GtCO2e yr-1 through conservation and restoration—significant uncertainties remain regarding the persistence of carbon sinks and the practical implementation of large-scale removals. Achieving Paris Agreement goals requires a combination of reducing deforestation, sustainable land intensification, and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies, though these are often hindered by institutional, economic, and socio-cultural barriers rather than just technical limitations.

The assessment finds that Goal 7's indicator for including land-use targets in NDCs has been met, with 116 of 165 countries proposing quantified emission mitigation targets. It also details the Green Climate Fund's (GCF) development of a two-track financing approach for REDD+, including a results-based payments pilot program and funding for early-stage readiness and implementation. However, the report notes that 105 countries have made land-use targets conditional on international financing and that current ambitions may be insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature goals.

The report concludes that Goal 7 was achieved through the adoption of the Paris Agreement, specifically Article 5, which dedicates a section to land use and forests. As of September 2017, 116 of 165 countries that submitted Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) included land use in quantified emissions targets. The document also notes that the Green Climate Fund (GCF) began piloting a framework for REDD+ results-based payments in late 2017, although many countries' land-use targets remain conditional on international financing.

The report estimates that Agro-Manitoba has the potential to sequester between 1.3 and 3 megatonnes of CO2e per year. It evaluates six practices: wetlands, forestry, riparian buffers, minimum tillage, perennials, and cover crops, using both a maximum one-year snapshot and a 30-year cumulative approach. The analysis highlights that while cover crops and wetlands offer the highest sequestration potential, forestry and riparian buffers provide significant rates despite smaller land areas. The findings are aligned with the province's Growing Outcomes in Watersheds (GROW) program, suggesting a strong policy basis for incentivizing these practices to offset emissions from Manitoba's agricultural sector.

The article introduces a framework for comparative urban research in the developing world, asserting that urban transformations—including land use, construction patterns, and environmental regulation—reveal the underlying national political settlements and clientelism. The author illustrates this approach through narrative sketches of Kampala, Kigali, and Addis Ababa.

The Czech Greens, as part of Prague's governing coalition since 2014, struggle to implement sustainable urban visions against pro-business forces and a legacy of neoliberalism. Key conflicts center on restricting the power of private developers to ensure the provision of public goods and expanding public transport to reduce car dependency. While the party has successfully lowered public transport costs and improved developer transparency through new planning centers and public participation, they face significant opposition from coalition partners and developers who favor suburban expansion. The party also views the improvement of regional transport links as a strategic way to bridge the political divide between pro-European urban centers and Eurosceptic rural areas.