SDG15 Life on Land

This site contains links to the activities and tools ESCAP has used to strengthen environment statistics in Asia and the Pacific. It also contains a collection of outputs from these activities. One of the purposes of the self-learning materials is to provide background to reading the guidance documents. Another purpose is to provide insights into policy applications and data sources.

Poor terrain conditions as result of climate change, made it hard for farmers to cultivate their land during the dry season. In terms of labour and indigenous knowledge women play a key role in the agricultural sector in India, but very often it is not recognised by the overall community as they lack the power to make decisions. The livelihoods of women farmers who don’t have land rights are particularly insecure in these conditions.

The area around Toda Ladi in Jaipur was a wasteland, totally barren and uncultivable. Because of lack of vegetation and water scarcity, land degradation and desertification were on the rise. Villagers, mainly women, would cut down the already scarce vegetation, to collect wood for cooking and fodder for their cattle, leading to worsening deforestation.

After the civil war, Cambodia has experienced high deforestation rates caused by illegal logging and unsustainable practices. Community forestry, a model of forest management that puts local communities at the centre of decision making, can accelerate reforestation. However, local people often lack adequate incentives and direct benefits from such engagement, and institutional bias against allocating high-value forests to communities persist. Community management of forests is a journey, which requires policy and legislative reforms.

The mining sector in Mongolia has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years, bringing along environmental and social consequences and negatively impacting the livelihoods of local communities and herders. While examining cases where land rehabilitation was needed, the Mongolian Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD) found that there were no guidelines to assess environmental damage. In 2005, CHRD started to use public interest strategic litigation in the context of mining.

Most villagers around the Tonlé Sap lake rely on fishing activities to make a living, depending heavily on the seasonally flooded forests for fresh water, food, fuelwood and other essential natural resources. Overfishing and extreme weather conditions eroding the forests are threatening the survival of these communities, who are at risk of further marginalization.

Via Interaxion offers a catalog of health, education, development, environment, migration and peace initiatives around the world to encourage action, interaction, discussion and collaboration among development practitioners.

Will you fight for the future!


 
 

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