Enhancing Sustainable Agriculture blog posts

Situated in the far east of Sudan, the Gash Die is where the ‘wild’ Gash River comes to a stop in a desert territory – a so-called inland Delta. Since the 1970's, the fortunes of Gash Die have been on a steep decline.

If tomorrow, all of East Africa’s wetlands disappeared, what costs would governments incur? While it is nearly impossible to place a quantitative value on wetlands, a new project is exploring methods of valuation of wetlands in the Nile Basin.

We’d like to present you with a summary of what’s been in scientific and popular literature this month on the theme of Ecosystem Services and Resilience.

Science on the Pulse: what is the best way to navigate through the mountain of publications that emerged from 2014 to find the gems that should absolutely be on your reading list? For those looking to brush up on their knowledge on ecosystem services and resilience, we're sharing the top ten reads as identified by a polling of the ESR Working Group.

The WLE Focal Region Writeshop process was distinctive in that it turned the focus on identifying research outcomes as the basis for designing research. In each writeshop we challenged researchers to think beyond traditional research approaches. Instead of starting with a research output at they assumed would be useful in the region, we reversed the process.

Over the last two decades, “ecosystem services” have taken center stage in the field of conservation as a way of emphasizing that protecting nature should be about sustaining and enhancing the benefits nature provides to people. But how do we do this in practice and achieve both conservation and development goals? Can WLE rise to the challenge?

We are all searching for ‘innovation’. It seems to be bandied about in every meeting and in every project proposal. WLE is in the process of designing and facilitating a series of workshops across four focal regions to foster innovation at the regional level.

Most people have played some kind of game in their lifetime. Be it cards, monopoly, or Farmville, this unique form of entertainment allows us to escape reality and spend time focusing on inconsequential goals. But a new realistic game provides a platform for engaging in difficult conversation about cooperative water and land management.

In 2009, businesses and farmers operating in Naivasha received a rude wake up call. Lake Naivasha almost dried up. In a basin that supports over 60% of Kenya’s flower industry, accounting for over 1% of the country’s GDP, policy makers and businesses were quick to respond.