Blog

This is the second of three blogs examining the issues of the COVID-19 pandemic for sustainable landscape programs. The first blog discusses how deforestation and forest fragmentation can increase the likelihood of future pandemics.

• 11/24/2020
• Eric Haxthausen

In 1976, Salvador Dali painted an 99 ¼ inch by 75 ½ inch oil painting he called “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - Homage to Rothko (Second Version)” (Figure 1). When viewed up close, we see the nuanced details of the artist’s work and are likely distracted by the dominant figure that is so clearly in focus.

• 11/06/2020
• Agrilinks

The end of USAID’s five-year LESTARI project (2015-2020) in Indonesia is an opportunity to recognize USAID’s collective achievements with the Government of Indonesia in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from land use in both biodiverse and carbon-rich landscapes.

• 11/02/2020
• Tedi Rabold

This is the first of three blogs examining the lessons and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for sustainable landscapes programs. At a time when everyone is focused on the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) some might think that ongoing efforts to support programming in sustainable landscapes have little to offer at the current moment.

• 10/19/2020
• Eric Haxthausen

Complex relationships between the climate, population growth, land cover change, and other interactions make decisions on land use planning, water permitting, and donor investments in natural resources management challenging. Decision-making on how and where to make investments is improving in Tanzania due to development partners becoming more proficient in using sophisticated environmental analysis tools such as composite index mapping.

• 10/08/2020
• Leif Kindberg, John Whiting

Perú es el cuarto país con el mayor volumen de turba tropical, cuya mayor parte se encuentra relativamente menos degradada en comparación con otras regiones del mundo. Sin embargo, esto podría cambiar. La creciente presión del desarrollo y la carencia de políticas específicas de protección ponen en riesgo a las turberas de Perú y sus reservas de carbono.

• 10/06/2020
• Isabela Barriga

Peru stands as the country with the fourth-highest volume of tropical peat, most of which is relatively less degraded than in other regions of the world. However, this could change. Increasing development pressure and lack of peatland-specific protection policies puts Peru's peatlands— and its carbon reserves—at risk. 

• 10/01/2020
• Isabela Barriga

Planners at USAID and in host country governments need to choose how to invest funds to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land. Should they focus on establishing or strengthening protected areas in the east? Restoring mangroves in the north? Improving timber harvesting practices in the south? In each country, there are many choices.

• 09/28/2020
• Tim Holland

The ways we use land—for instance, agriculture, forestry, urban development, or ecosystem protection—has long-term impacts on global climate change. Approximately one quarter of net global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come directly from land use (like agriculture) and land use change (like deforestation).

• 09/22/2020
• Noel Gurwick, Isabela Barriga, Julia Bradley-Cook

The amount of development assistance available for clean energy, sustainable landscapes, and climate adaptation investment is relatively small. Partner governments have multiple urgent and competing needs for public expenditures, recently exacerbated by the global pandemic and recession.

• 08/19/2020
• Dr. Eric Hyman

Why do many community-based forestry enterprises (CBFEs) perform poorly even after years of donor and government investment? This was one of the questions that motivated a USAID Productive Landscape (ProLand) project investigation into CBFEs as a strategy for improving land management.

• 08/14/2020
• Mark Donahue, Ian Deshmukh

Half the world’s total mangrove deforestation since 2000 has taken place in Indonesia, where the main driver is conversion for shrimp ponds. A new cost-benefit analysis by the USAID-funded Climate Economic Analysis Development, Investment, and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity sheds light on the financial and economic value of mangrove conservation, including impacts on near-shore fishing and greenhouse gas emissions.

• 08/11/2020
• Dr. Eric Hyman

Competition for natural resources such as water, land, and forests can be a source of contention, and sometimes even violence. Climate change can exacerbate these issues by impacting resource availability and quality. As climate variability increases, so will its potential to worsen conflict. 

• 08/10/2020
• Isabela Barriga

To enable scaling of climate programs, development assistance organizations can help partner countries leverage new sources of financing, including institutional investors, impact investors, and international and domestic capital markets. However, new approaches are necessary to achieve impacts on a much larger scale.

• 07/29/2020
• Eric Hyman

One of the major challenges in monitoring forests is identifying forest degradation processes. Degradation events can be “small, subtle, and temporary,” making their identification difficult. However, recent years have seen advancements in satellite remote sensing technology, which has in turn revealed changed patterns of illegal deforestation activity in the Amazon rainforest.

• 07/24/2020
• Kelsey E. Herndon, Africa I. Flores-Anderson