The urban/peri-urban phenomenon is frequently studied as a territorial landscape for urban expansion, and a good deal of scholarship chronicles aspects of land annexation, housing construction, and infrastructure. But the question of how peri-urban water resources have been reallocated to serve urban needs has not received sufficient scholarly attention. Peri-urban water reallocation demands examination in arid regions where water is a critical resource. Mexico's northwest region represents one of the most critical examples; the most-drought prone region in Mexico, it is characterized by over-drafted groundwater sources and rapid urban growth. In this research, based on the case of Hermosillo, Sonora, I develop three distinct, yet related themes to examine the peri-urban phenomenon.First, this work draws on the notion of the "hydrosocial cycle" (Swyngedouw, 2004) to examine geographies of power at the urban-rural interface. Following Swyngedouw, we argue that urban water augmentation strategies reveal a distinct set of urban-rural relations of uneven social power where peri-urban water resources are "metabolized" in urban areas, reflecting the demands of powerful, politically connected urban individuals and populations over more disparate and marginalized rural producers. The Hermosillo case indicates that small-scale farming communities or ejidos are the most vulnerable water users because of their lack of political power in the governmental decision making process.Second, in this work, I examine how peri-urban rural livelihoods have been reshaped by cities' water reallocation causing ejidatarios in many cases to lose their livelihoods, but without creating new urban jobs as an alternative means of subsistence, resulting in a net negative outcome for ejido members.Finally, this research evaluates the land use/cover change dynamics and their effects in the peri-urban area of the city of Hermosillo. This study demonstrates that urban expansion causes at least two other types of land use/cover changes (LUCC) beyond the urban fringe that are not usually considered in LUCC studies. The research demonstrates that urban expansion in the peri-urban land is a broader and more complex phenomenon than previously understood and examines how water transfers act as a driver of land use/cover change.

This dissertation investigates overall the impacts of the modern extractive mining industry on the lives of local people in the region of Kedougou, and in particular in the villages of Sabodala and Faloumbo. It explores also, how the utilitarian narratives about corporate mining impacts shape both the understanding of the scope of mining- and of corporate-community relationships. Sabodala is one of the many communities all over the world that lack significance in the global economy simply because they are geographically isolated and were abruptly introduced to modern corporate mining. This dissertation investigates the impacts of modern extractive industry on the lives of rural communities in eastern Senegal. It investigates also how utilitarian discourses by the Senegalese state and corporations contradict the reality of corporate social (ir) responsibility in the mining region. Using the lenses of political economy, political ecology and livelihood sustainability, I investigate how governance plays out in the process of implementing corporate social responsibility as a vehicle for local community development. This case study has also shed the light on the fact that the state has neglected ethical issue. Doing an anthropology of place in Sabodala helped me to understand how this place is "wired" into the global market of gold and how this new "order" creates "disorders" at the local level. For example and interestingly, the realignment of power relations in the community was responsible for tensions, conflicts and de-structuring social cohesion and traditional stratification, as some members of the community have seen their economic status changed overnight while others were deprived. In reality, the expected grand benefits haven't "trickled down" to the wider society, and to paraphrase Ferguson, industrial mining in Senegal is not "socially thick". Meanwhile, as the pace of gold mining increases in Sabodala so too, do its rapacious demands on local natural resources (land, water, flora, and fauna), which simultaneously affect local livelihoods system.

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Abstract In 2001 a development program named FondeAgro was implemented in the northern region of Nicaragua with the aim to reduce poverty by rural development. During a ten-year period peasants in the departments of Jinotega and Matagalpa received expert assistance on farming in order to improve their livelihoods and create sustainable businesses as small- and medium- scale peasants. This study aims to present the reality of coffee producing farmers who participated in FondeAgro, ending in 2011. Research is made on if and how farmers continue with methods learned during the program and its effects on production- and livelihood development. Existing reports present the implementation of the program and farmers’ abilities to adapt and work with new methods, though this stretches only until the end of the program, 2011. Accordingly, there is no information on how farmers’ lives appear after the program’s end, why this research is carried through. A field study was conducted in the municipality El Cúa, department of Jinotega in northern Nicaragua in 2012. In order to visualize the complex pattern of poverty, access to or lack of capital assets the sustainable livelihoods framework is used for analysis. To further elucidate the effects of the development program and attainment of goals, a manual on development interventions by Sida is used as well. The conclusion of this research on the development program FondeAgro is that the effects of the program are positive and negative, differing mainly depending on farmers being small- or medium-scale producers. Many farmers have improved their livelihoods through their participation in FondeAgro but for some farmers there is no change to previous life situation. What seems to be decisive in order to continue with methods learned is what type of assistance that has been given to each farmer during the program years as well as possibilities to participate in cooperatives. The methods used to achieve the objectives of the program have not given the results hoped for and many farmers are still facing a future in severe poverty Keywords: Nicaragua, FondeAgro, agriculture, farmers, livelihoods, intervention

Hydropower is often termed "green energy" and proffered as an alternative to polluting coal-generated electricity for burgeoning cities and energy-insecure rural areas. India is the third largest coal producer in the world; it is projected to be the largest coal consumer by 2050. In the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, India, over 450 hydroelectric power schemes are proposed or are under development. Hydropower projects ranging from micro hydro (run-of-the-river systems with generating capacity up to 100 kW) to large reservoirs (storage systems up to 2000 MW) such as the Tehri Dam are in various stages of planning, construction or implementation. Run-of-the-river hydropower projects are being developed in Uttarakhand in order to avoid some of the costs to local communities created by large dams. Stakeholders in this rapid hydropower expansion include multiple actors with often diverging sets of interests. The resulting governance challenges are centered on tradeoffs between local electricity and revenue from the sale of hydropower, on the one hand, and the impacts on small-scale irrigation systems, riparian-corridor ecosystem services, and other natural resource-based livelihoods, on the other. We focus on the Bhilangana river basin, where water dependent livelihoods differentiated by gender include farming, fishing, livestock rearing and fodder collection. We examine the contradictions inherent in hydropower governance based on the interests of local residents and other stakeholders including hydropower developers, urban and other regional electricity users, and state-level policymakers. We use a social justice approach applied to hydropower projects to examine some of the negative impacts, especially by location and gender, of these projects on local communities and then identify strategies that can safeguard or enhance livelihoods of women, youth, and men in areas with hydropower projects, while also maintaining critical ecosystem services. By assessing the Bhilangana basin case, we also offer hydropower-livelihoods-irrigation nexus lessons for headwater regions across the Himalayas and globally.

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ABSTRACT Violent and protracted conflicts, such as those that affected Mozambique and Angola (both countries with a Lusophone colonial heritage), have had severe consequences in terms of wartime dislocation and destruction, especially in rural areas. Land issues per se are not endogenously conflictive, but in post-conflict settings, the scramble for access to the assets necessary to (re-)establish livelihoods for large numbers of people, as well as the pursuit of land access by large-scale commercial interests who capitalise on a fluid land tenure situation to acquire resources, may occur. A nuanced and comparative study of Mozambique and Angola is undertaken that explores the relationship between violence, resources and the environment. It asks two questions: i) What accounts for the relationship between violence (evidenced in both brutal physical acts, threats and increasing vulnerabilities) and land as a resource? ii) Are there lessons to be learnt from these findings that are particular to countries emerging from protracted civil wars? The thesis explores the changing discourses around the concepts of human security and environmental security, and the pressing land issues confronting the African continent. It highlights the complexity of issues – political, social and economic – and the necessity for a theoretical shift away from the popular approaches towards alternative ways of understanding the connections between the environment, violence and resources. It examines the specific dynamics of a post-conflict environment, an area that has received little attention, despite its potential for playing a significant role in ensuring broad-based development and in peace-building. A modified livelihoods framework is also used to analyse land issues on the basis that land is an element of a wider livelihoods approach with a focus on poverty alleviation and wealth creation. Findings mirror those of other international researchers who have found that conflicts over land often have less to do with resource scarcity, but that “violence is more likely when resources are in great abundance or have great economic and strategic value” (Peluso and Watts, 2001: 5). Furthermore, findings support the calls for taking a more inclusive concept of violence and non-violence that recognises that the outward manifestation of disputes may not be violence in the form of civil war, but social disruptions (Liotta, 2005). The value of a post-structuralist political ecology for analysing these various connections is demonstrated in the research findings. It is one which does not search for ‘environmental triggers’ of violent conflicts, but looks at the reciprocal relationship between nature and humans. Both countries are confronting many of the land issues that are common to Africa and which suggest an important new phase in the politics of land. In Angola land tenure and shelter are now insecure for many in both rural and urban areas, while in both countries there is mounting competition and conflict over land and landed resources. There are increasing threats of exclusionary practices and land grabs, but also the more subtle, ‘non-traditional’ security threats of the destruction and damage to livelihoods, of deepening impoverishment, evident in "creeping vulnerabilities”. The findings of the research confirm that in dealing with both equity and efficiency issues, and environmental sustainability and political stability, land policies need to be well integrated into wider social, economic and environmental planning – at various levels, local to global – to strengthen sustainable security. vi Land conflicts are generally contained as local-level disputes, often camouflaged by government or suppressed. While conflict theory points to apparent triggers – differential impacts and political mobilisation – it must be acknowledged that these tensions are more often than not politically sustainable, as leaders justify overriding the interests of the poor in the interests of growth. Furthermore, peace is not the default mode of society: conflicts are at times an integral part of the transformation of land tenures systems and not necessarily destructive in themselves. Concerns need to focus, rather, on those cases where inequity and violence are politically sustainable, and what this means for human security. It is this issue that is recommended for further research. “In contrast to thinking about violent conflict, a human-centred conceptualisation of environmental security asserts the need for cooperation and inclusion to manage the environment for the equal benefit of all people and future generations” (Barnett, 2001: 128).

Livestock production is central to the livelihoods of millions of people in Nigeria, and indeed across the continent. Understanding how livestock based economies function and the issues that constrain them has long been an important task for actors interested in supporting rural development. In recent years, the One Health agenda has provided a new impetus for studying and tackling the interconnections between human, animal and environmental. Whilst this is welcome, it tends to be selective in its modus operandi of intersectoral collaboration as advocated. This new risk repeats the tendencies of earlier scholarship in understanding rural animal production systems as a vertical system. In particular, gender analysis of addressing the growing threats of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) is lacking in One Health as evidenced in the findings from the study areas of Kachia Grazing Reserve and the Jos Plateau. There is thus a need to illustrate the importance of integrating gender equality into the One Health concept of programmes especially in pastoralist areas. Through the use of a qualitative approach of eliciting needed information by the use of a range of qualitative methods at the community and household levels, this thesis, based on three case studies provides substantial new empirical contributions to this debate. Specificially, chapter four, by exploring the strategies employed by the study population to cope with, as well as to build their resilience to the inadequacies of the Kachia Grazing Reserve, argues that these inadequacies affect gender, gender relations, and livelihoods. As a reinforcement to these assertions, chapter five explores the role of women self help groups in the KGR and argues that these self help groups could be used as instruments in propelling the One Health concept in pastoral areas like that of the KGR. Lastly, chapter six explores the effect of conflict and violence on gender, gender relations and livelihoods in the Jos Plateau and examines how timely and effective delivery of One Health could act as a conflict resolution in conflict and violence inflicted pastoralist areas of the Jos Plateau. This thesis, in a way, gives possible explanation to the reticence of gender in One Health. Thus, in recognition of the potentials of the One Health concept, and in considering the realities on ground and the importance of integrating gender equality in its programme planning and delivery, the analysis of data from the three case studies of this thesis brings into focus the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of gender analysis affects delivery of One Health programmes in local pastoralists communities.

<p>This Bachelor‟s thesis aims at explaining the relationship between forests and climate change, a subject that has been given a lot of attention in environmental discussions in recent years, particularly because forests are a source of carbon dioxide emissions and in the same time have the potential to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration. However, with the importance of mitigation as a background, the focus of this study is on adaptation. The purpose is to identify mutual benefits from the diverse forest ecosystems, and examine the possible benefits from forests to the rural poor population in Tanzania, in a future scenario of increased vulnerability to climate change. The methodology for the study can be divided into two parts, one qualitative literature study and one field study in Babati District northern Tanzania, limited to interviews and excursions. This thesis gives details about the scientific projections and local perceptions of climate change and the effects of climate change. The results of the thesis highlights the importance of sustainably managed forests and agroforestry systems, which have been successful in Babati through local participation; economic incentives such as carbon credit and other payments for ecosystem services, which is a possible future extension of forestry activities; and increased integration between sectors, which make sure that adaptation within different sectors can be done simultaneously.</p>