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The purpose of this paper is to assess the sustainability of a forestry management strategy in checkmating desert encroachment and it also examines the impacts of the Forestry II program on agricultural productivity in the rural communities.

The study adopted a quantitative approach in assessing the rural farmers’ level of participation in the Forestry II program in which 201 respondents were interviewed in the study area. Structured questionnaires’ were also administered to afforestation officials/extension workers in the two states regarding the different components of the projects and probable cause(s) of failures/successes as well as the level of involvement of the community in the project. Field observations of the project sites were also carried out with a view to examining the level of achievements on the physical components of the projects.

The findings of this study revealed that, involvement of the stakeholders and participation of the community was lacking at the early stage of the program and the negligence of indigenous knowledge as well as the influence of bottom up approach was not incorporated in the project. The study further revealed that, appreciable positive impacts have been recorded at various levels of its implementation. The improvement of livelihood of the rural people through increased forest products supply was noted, fuel-wood and poles supply were also increased and this had gone a long way in creating employment for the rural dwellers.

The study involved the establishment of shelterbelts, windbreaks, woodlots, orchards and nurseries which were complimented by social forestry, and which raised public awareness through campaigns such as school forestry programs, forestry extension services and a fuel-wood conservation program.

The study articulated success and failure as well as a detailed assessment of the Forestry II project. The study showed that government could significantly combat desertification in the arid zones through sustainable afforestation if adequate resources were employed.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which an afforestation programme as spelt out in the Forestry II programme has checked the encroachment of desert in the arid and semi‐arid zone of northern Nigeria.

The study is carried out in the afforestation project states aimed at evaluating the success/failure of the program. Field observation and a site visit are conducted on some communities as well as policies relevant to forestry sector are reviewed.

The preliminary findings of this paper indicate that the afforestation projects had a positive impact on both biophysical and socioeconomic environment and contributed to the sustainability of the afforestation programme.

This paper is primarily focused on the various components of the Forestry II programme and the extent they have helped in combating desertification.

The paper addresses the need for sustainable afforestation projects and discusses on how the community effort and participation of women plays an important role during the afforestation programs.

I. Thermonuclear Fusion Progress examines two major thrusts in fusion research, namely, magnetic and inertial confinements, together with safety and environmental features. The prospects for a new enormous energy source in the twenty‐first century appear to be good. II. Global Warming and US Forestry Strategies considers seven US policy options relating to global warming with respect to forestry strategies. Concludes that a universally supported eco‐friendly solution is obstructed by political and vested interests, together with other factors.

The purpose of this research is to determine institutional commitment to sustainability by examining Natural Resource Extension program inputs, activities, and participation.

A document analysis of Natural Resource Extension planning and reporting documents was conducted to provide contextual and historical data for the study and 58 in‐depth interviews were conducted with Natural Resource Extension personnel in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and the Oregon State University Extension Service.

This research moves beyond the familiar teaching and research functions of higher education institutions and focuses on Cooperative Extension, which is the outreach arm of universities. The paper discusses challenges and opportunities associated with implementing sustainability through these outreach education programs. In both Alabama and Oregon, the Agriculture, Home Economics, and 4‐H programs dominate human and economic resource investment in Cooperative Extension. Natural Resource Extension programs in Alabama and Oregon represents 6 and 14 percent, respectively, of all program expenditures in Cooperative Extension. Both states have educational programs that address sustainability of natural resources and those programs were interdisciplinary in nature. Little evidence is found extensive participation in Natural Resource Extension programs by environmental groups, minorities, and other non‐traditional clientele. Lastly, Oregon's political context was more conducive to broadening Natural Resource Extension program work in sustainability.

Educational institutions such as Natural Resource Extension programs at universities play a significant role in educating private landowners, the public, and professionals about various aspects of forestry and natural resources. Based on this study of Natural Resource Extension programs in Alabama and Oregon, the following are needed for extension to address natural resource sustainability through its educational programs: sufficient intellectual and financial commitment to sustainability, diverse and inclusive participation in programs, and collaborative interdisciplinary programming. The analysis presented here can aid other educators as they explore sustainability through educational programming.

Since, Natural Resource Extension programs address societal concerns through problem solving, grassroots education, and research and technology dissemination, they are poised to do work in the sustainability arena. No study to date has examined sustainability from the aspect of Natural Resource Extension educators in Oregon and Alabama. An understanding of current investment in sustainability through education is fundamental to building a strong Extension program in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to unpack the conflation between the silence and purported passivity of the Third World NGOs (TNGOs). Explaining the invisibility of their voices in the critical and post-development perspectives, it locates the inquiry in the context of the action of these TNGOs.

The paper follows the phronetic research approach, which involves a case study of a locally developed Indian NGO. It uses phronetic inquiry along with Ashis Nandy’s notion of “silent coping” as the conceptual framework. To explain the purported passivity of TNGOs in the texts under global circulation, the paper uses Walter Mignolo’s discussion on “texts in circulation”.

The uncertain nature of action – that it begets further action possibilities; precludes the prospect of visualizing such action spaces in the context of their generation. This emergent nature of local action spaces makes it difficult to capture them within the dominating global discursive structures, thereby creating local spaces of agency for the TNGO actors. Selective appropriation of artefacts and texts from the global circulation and the creation of alternate stake structures at the local level support the realization of such action spaces. Further, such local artefacts and texts do not travel into texts circulating globally, thereby rendering the TNGOs invisible and silent in the reading of global texts and leading to the TNGOs being framed as passive.

This paper locates the voices and acts of the TNGOs and highlights the mechanisms that enable them to silently cope with structures of discursive domination, thereby contributing to post-development studies and post-colonial organizational analysis.

Arguing that a gendered invisibility surrounding climate justice contributes to the overall vulnerability and burden placed upon the ability of women from disadvantaged communities, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of developing a participative gender framework for climate justice with the potential to address the policy and programme vulnerability gap within climate change and conflict in Sudan’s Savannah Belt.

In utilising gender responsive discourse analysis, along with setting out the history of gender engagement within social forestry, this paper examines both the method of Sudan’s reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) development and its content.

The paper’s findings demonstrate that the REDD+ programme in Sudan provides ample evidence of the importance of integrating climate justice and gender approaches to policy, programming and projects through ensuring women and local community participation at all levels and interaction within policy and programme development, along with its implementation.

The paper is theoretical in nature but did draw upon case studies and consultations, and the author was involved in some of the research.

The paper provides a positive and arguably original example of social forestry within the Savannah Belt and its utilisation as a best practice that has fed into Sudan’s REDD+ Proposal/Policy Document so as to potentially drive and streamline similar such initiatives across Sudan.

The concept of National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) is advocated at international, regional and national levels. The concept is thought to foster sustainability of livelihoods against impacts of climate change. This paper analyses the mainstreaming of NAPA into national development plans in Lesotho as accentuated by policies and programmes.

The analysis is broadly qualitative and reviews policies and projects on agriculture and food security, environment, forestry, water and irrigation aimed at sustaining rural livelihoods. Data from relevant government documents, commissioned studies’ reports, literature and key stakeholders are used.

Although the mainstreaming entry point for NAPA is identified in the country’s Vision 2020 and National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2012/13-2016/17, financial, technical, human and other resources are inadequate to ensure its effective implementation. There is little evidence of NAPA mainstreaming into development plans by the line ministries of finance and economic development other than donor-funded projects. Absence of climate change policy influence means NAPA is not well-factored into the national development agenda, as mainstreaming is difficult without appropriate policies. Most projects with effect on climate change impact abatement originate from specific sectors and are disconnected from each other.

Based on the findings, ways to leverage NAPA via mainstreaming are discussed. It is concluded that NAPA mainstreaming offers a promising avenue for initiating and promoting sustainable livelihoods in Lesotho. The study demonstrates the applicability of the presented sustainable livelihood framework.

Introduction This account of an operational manpower planning study is presented to show how the available ingredients were mixed to produce a very successful and useful end product. It highlights, in particular, the cooperation between personnel management (Forestry Commission), manpower planning analyst (Civil Service Department Statistician) and trade union (Civil Service Union) which was such a productive feature of the exercise.

This study primarily seeks to focus on how entrepreneurial orientation (EO) may have influenced the evolution of SMEs in a constrained environment, namely the forestry industry. It also aims to find out how EO still acts on strategic intentions, management behaviour of the business leader and the SME's performance.

The approach takes the form of an empirical study based on a sample of 717 forestry SME owner‐managers, with cluster analysis of the data, taking a population ecology perspective.

The study reveals the existence of two types of forestry SMEs. The first, which could be referred to as an entrepreneurially‐oriented enterprise, generates a large portion of its revenues from out‐of‐forest activities. The second type is a small‐business‐oriented enterprise. In the context of the forestry sector, many opportunities to start a business were created following the decision of large corporations to subcontract their wood supply. The study shows how entrepreneurial orientation may influence the SMEs population distribution within different categories.

Forestry SMEs should no longer be considered as mere subcontractors on the payroll of large firms, as the presence of genuine forestry entrepreneurs has been confirmed. These exhibit a strong entrepreneurial orientation and overcome the scarcity of opportunities in the industrial sector to sustain their growth willingness. With a shortage of entrepreneurs expected in the coming years, these “true” entrepreneurs may be called on to perform a more important role within the forest value chain.

Even when environment is not munificent, entrepreneurially‐oriented businesses find strategies to pursue growth opportunities. In the forest sector, diversification within the sector by offering turnkey projects to large contractors seems to be the first step to fuel further diversification outside the forest. A transition towards increasing the scope of forestry businesses as well as supporting diversification could be important avenues to pursue.

This may be the first time that empirical investigation of the entrepreneurial orientation has been done in a constrained environment and from a population ecology perspective. The study confirms the role of this concept in the development of entrepreneurship.

Since Ghana gained political independence from British colonial rule in 1957, the country has had a number of administrative reforms that covered varied subjects, including ministerial restructuring, decentralisation, revision of schemes of service and pay and grading systems, motivation and civil service legislation. The past decade (1990‐2000), especially, has witnessed sustained efforts at reforms to improve the public sector's policy‐making, service delivery, and oversight and accountability roles. For Ghana to achieve the objectives of these reform initiatives, the country needs to effectively manage all the constitutive elements that contribute to the goals of sustainable development. This study set out to examine the efforts being made to reform the system of environmental management in Ghana, since the costs imposed on Ghanaians and the economy from environmental degradation are enormous and can greatly impede the growth towards sustainable development.