50th Anniversary of Earth Day
This Earth Day marks the 50th Anniversary of a dedicated event to promote advocacy and education of environmental protection and our planet’s ecosystems. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson established the first Earth Day event in 1970, which sparked Washington D.C. to adapt the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency. Nelson, in a speech in Milwaukee before the inaugural Earth Day, stated:
“Our goal is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all human beings and all other living creatures, Our goal is a decent environment in its broadest and deepest sense.”
Global Land Alliance, shares Wisconsin roots, is dedicated to securing land tenure and sustainable natural resource management that is vital to protecting nature and the earth’s biodiversity. Over the past few months, this dedication can be highlighted in the following initiatives of Global Land Alliance:
Clarifying and securing forest tenure rights and the associated management practices and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities in forest areas continues to be a major focal point, in particular pilot implementation of the Forest Tenure Assessment Tools with the World Bank under the Securing Forest Tenure initiative.
Assessment of opportunities to advance the legal recognition of collective land and forest tenure rights, and readiness to scale-up forest tenure reforms in Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) countries. FCPF focuses in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, forest carbon stock conservation, the sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
Mitigating land degradation of highly sensitive ecosystems and sustainable agroforestry practices is foundational to mitigating climate change. However, interventions to sensitive communities requires long term agroforestry investments on land specifically in project areas where informal land tenure presents a significant challenge. Partnering with Dominican NGO partner REDDOM, we mutually developed a methodological model for the analysis of the social risks posed by systematic formalization in sensitive watersheds in Dominican Republic. The model was applied last summer in Hone watershed and will be applied to a further 6 watershed communities this year.
In what ways does tenure security affect land use? We completed a comprehensive study to examine the relationship between land tenure security and agricultural land use in two rural areas in Haiti. The study used extensive parcel-based land tenure and land use data collected during the implementation combined with post-project aerial photography, household surveys and statistical analysis to determine how/if secure land tenure affects farmers' agricultural decisions in rural Haiti.