Benoît Thierry – författare

Regenerating Forests and Livelihoods in Nepal: A New Lease on Life documents the success story of an innovative rural development programme in the Himalayan foothills, Nepal. The project has made a real difference by transforming increasingly degraded land, where farmers carved out a meagre existence, into a fertile and prosperous zone where they could thrive. Project activities included bringing in effective cultivation techniques to protect the environment and introducing new local crops and goats, as well as promoting entrepreneurial spirit. Every intervention was carefully selected and conducted to mitigate climate change as well as to help farmers become more resilient to its effects. The ingredients of the project's success, from both the technical and human perspectives, are presented in this book, demonstrating people's commitment in a country prone to natural disasters and earthquakes.

As accelerated urbanization widens the gap between rich and poor and population growth becomes a global phenomenon, key strategies promoting rural economic development need to be implemented. This book covers the progress of a development initiative in Madagascar that enabled a region suffering from chronic drought and famine to provide food and become the area's breadbasket. Working with local people, the project delivered increased new cultivations, abundant harvests and improvements in infrastructure, media access, education and health. This is an indispensable book for development practitioners, NGOs, farmer associations and students in rural economics and related subjects.