Understanding the complexity of land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes and their driving forces and impacts on human and environmental security is important for the planning of natural resource management and associated decision making. This study combines and compares participatory field point sampling (pfps) and remote sensing to explore local LULC dynamics. The study was conducted in two peasant associations located in the central Ethiopian Rift Valley, which is a dry-land mixed farming area exposed to rapid deforestation. From 1973-2006, the area of cropland doubled at the expense of woodland and wooded-grassland in both of the study sites. Major deforestation and forest degradation took place from 1973-1986; woodland cover declined from 40% to 9% in one of the study sites, while the other lost all of its original 54% woodland cover. Our study concludes that assessing LULC dynamics using a combination of remote sensing and pfps is a valuable approach. The two methods revealed similar LULC trends, while the pfps provided additional details on how farmers view the changes. This study documents dramatic trends in LULC over time, associated with rapid population growth, recurrent drought, rainfall variability and declining crop productivity. The alarming nature of these trends is reflected in a decrease in the livelihood security of local communities and in environmental degradation. Given these dry-land conditions, there are few opportunities to improve livelihoods and environmental security without external support. If negative changes are to be halted, action must be taken, including building asset bases, instituting family planning services, and creating opportunities outside these marginal environments.

Background: Increased flooding and newly formed rills and gullies were observed in the Cheleleka wetland watershed, over the past three to five years. These events are due to problems related to land use changes and are adversely affecting land productivity. This study was conducted to quantify, analyze and map soil erosion risk areas using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation.Results: Only 13.6 percent of the study area has a soil loss value less than 10 ton per hectare per year with the remaining area experiencing a higher soil loss value. A large area, 53.6 percent of the watershed, is under severe to extremely severe soil loss (>45 ton per hectare per year). Another 17.3 percent of the study area has annual soil loss of 20-45 ton per hectare.

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Strategies for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) could become an important part of a new agreement for climate change mitigation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We constructed a system dynamics model for a cocoa agroforest landscape in southwestern Ghana to explore whether REDD payments are likely to promote forest conservation and what socio-economic implications would be. Scenarios were constructed for business as usual (cocoa production at the expense of forest), for payments for avoided deforestation of old-growth forest only and for payments for avoided deforestation of all forests, including degraded forest. The results indicate that in the short term, REDD is likely to be preferred by farmers when the policy focuses on payments that halt the destruction of old-growth forests only. However, there is the risk that REDD contracts may be abandoned in the short term. The likeliness of farmers to opt for REDD is much lower when also avoiding deforestation of degraded forest since this land is needed for the expansion of cocoa production. Given that it is mainly the wealthier households that control the remaining forest outside the reserves, REDD payments may increase community differentiation, with negative consequences for REDD policies. (Résumé d'auteur