Maasai pastoralists are calling for international support to stop the Tanzanian government's plans to evict thousands of people from their ancestral lands in Ngorongoro and Loliondo to make way for tourism, development and wildlife hunting. In a public letter, Maasai community leaders argue that the Tanzanian government is falsely blaming livestock grazing and population growth for environmental degradation, to justify the mass evictions.

This book uncovers the conflicts and politics of food provisioning in Colombia: who produces what and where, and with what socio-economic effects. The book explains the re-emergence of national agrarian movements, their contestation of the dominant development narratives and their engagement in discussions about food sovereignty with the state.

This blog post published by the Food Research Collaboration discusses the Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirement that would become part of the UK’s planning system under the new Environment Bill. BNG requires that building developments must prove they produce a 10% increase in biodiversity value, which can be achieved by buying biodiversity “credits” from farmers who change their production practices. The blog argues that the policy will reward farmers who currently manage their land unsustainably, and not those who already farm in biodiversity-friendly ways.

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has released the first draft of a new Global Biodiversity Framework. The framework is built around a vision of “living in harmony with nature” by 2050, and sets out 21 targets for protecting biodiversity to be achieved by 2030. It stresses that civil society, indigenous and local communities, women, youth and business and finance communities must all be involved in implementing the framework.

This paper argues that the way the concept of “biodiversity” is defined and used is blocking progress in protecting nature. It notes that the mainstream Western conservation movement tends to focus on charismatic species and wilderness.

This book examines the relationship between capitalism and the commons. Table readers may be particularly interested in the book’s discussion of agricultural land ownership and squatting, agroecological networks in Colombia, and women’s access to land in Africa.

An recording of the launch event for the UK’s National Food Strategy, held on 29 July 2020, is now available online. The National Food Strategy is a year-long review of the UK’s food system. Read more about the review here and read the FCRN’s summary of Part One of the review here.

This report from the Convention on Biological Diversity summarises the most recent information on trends in biodiversity. It finds that none of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets - the deadline for most of which is 2020 - have been fully met, although six of the targets have been partially met. It also describes the areas of the targets where progress has been made.