Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

[NAIROBI] Some of the farmers who lost their crops in the Horn of Africa drought this year may be able to afford farming next season, with the help of a ‘micro-insurance’ scheme.Kilimo Salama — Swahili for ‘safe farming’ — was launched last year, providing small-scale farmers in Kenya with crop insurance by combining mobile phone [...]

There is growing interest in the production of biofuels from woody biomass. Critical to the financial success of producing biofuel is identifying the optimal location for the facility. The location decision is especially important for woody biomass feedstock owing to the distributed nature of biomass and the significant costs associated with transportation. This study introduces [...]

This study assesses the extent and location of salt-affected soils worldwide and their current land use and cover as well as the current technical and economic potential of biomass production from forestry plantations on these soils (biosaline forestry). The global extent of salt-affected land amounts to approximately 1.1 Gha, of which 14% is classified as [...]

Calculating the costs and benefits of investing in biofuels may become easier for policymakers with a guide launched by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).The Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) Analytical Framework, released last month (17 May), was developed over the past three years and tested in Peru, Tanzania and Thailand.Heiner Thofern, head of [...]

The Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme (SCTS) was launched in 2006 to improve food security by directly providing cash transfers to the country’s most destitute households. Although government-implemented cash transfer schemes have gained popularity throughout Latin America, these schemes are just emerging in Africa. While where there is evidence of the beneficial impact of cash [...]

We use recent data on transport costs in West Africa, including the added burden of bribes and enforced delays, to show how such costs represent a deterrent to investment in — and therefore the sustainability of — agricultural assets. We focus on data for two important tree crops in West Africa, cashew and shea. We [...]

Growing attention has been paid to gender in ecological economics, political ecology and development studies but a focus on gender in resource extraction conflicts is still rare. This article explores women-led resistance movements to commercial logging in South-eastern Cameroon, focusing on the moabi tree (Baillonella toxisperma). The latter provides oil, medicine and other non-timber products [...]