There is a clear linkage between community-based natural resource management, household resource-use decisions and wider environmental concerns, including their social, institutional and legal implications. Land rights and their negotiation are important themes in NRI's work on livelihoods and institutions, particularly concerning the rights of socially under-represented groups in relation to those who exercise power over natural resources. We have promoted stakeholder participatory approaches in local and regional planning, and we have undertaken - for DFID - a literature review of environmental negotiation and poor people's resource rights.

In addition to issues of access to land, we are concerned with other important sources of vulnerability threatening the livelihoods of the poor. For example, unpredictable weather conditions, and outbreaks of pest or disease, can have a severe, sometimes catastrophic, impact on livelihoods: NRI's work on early warning systems and on coping strategies, addresses these issues. In recent years we have worked to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa: for example, case studies were commissioned, which documented experiences of attempts to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS and identified best practice approaches (see White and Robinson (2000).