 The commons in terms of its historical origins is largely related to the question of resources to which a large number of people have rights of access and rights of use. And these can be forests, they can be the world's oceans, these can be grazing areas. In a more contemporary context, to give you an example of another commons, if you like, you could suggest something like Wikipedia, which is in terms of the information commons a good example of something that most people who have access to the internet and can afford to do so will have access to this resource. The key element of the commons is to distinguish it from the whole question of privately owned property, which has where individual rights are associated with this, and the attempts that are being made to try and protect the rights of commoners, those who have the rights of access, to actually continue to use this. Historically, it's very much associated with the Enclosures Act in England when during a period between 1750 and 1860, over 5,000 Enclosures Acts were passed, largely restricting access of the former commoners to the resources owned by the Lord of the Manor. Well I think this is a particularly important issue because the issue of the commons is like many of the issues surrounding rights of access, tenure, are what many scholars refer to as wicked problem. These are problems which don't disappear, partly because they represent a contested arena where different rights, different claims are being made at different times, which means it's part of a continuum. The challenge I think in terms of the global context at the moment is trying to protect the rights of many of the commoners, people who have the rights to the commons, given the growing influence of external actors and external investments associated with the increasing globalization of trade and investment. These represent very often threats to some of those commons' rights and obviously the resources that many very often rural impoverished communities depend on. The growing commodification of nature and the growing land grabbing associated with this is where the potential threats exist, particularly in terms of securing the longer term rights of commoners to commons' resources. So the challenges are many, but I think we're seeing growing recognition of the importance of commons and commoners in terms of their rights and their bundle of rights, whilst we're seeing this growing influence of increased access and acquisition of land. Well I think C4's research has thrown up a number of interesting findings regarding the processes through which land is acquired, both in terms of securing the rights of commoners to common property resources, but also as we've discussed earlier this growing trend of increasing numbers of external investors. We are continuing this work. We have initiated this year a new project with the International Development Law Organization, headquartered in Rome, another international organization like C4 in three countries in southern Africa, namely Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania. And the key objectives of this research is to try and untangle and disaggregate some of the differences between the legal frameworks which exist in these countries to promote investments in the forestry, agriculture, fisheries and mining sectors to see if there are any differences in the extent to which these are either protecting the interests of local communities and or more promoting the interests of external investors. So we'll be looking at the extent to which this national legislation in these three countries is using or harnessing the opportunities through several international voluntary standards to protect the social and environmental issues and whether this is being translated into national legislation by their own parliaments. In addition it builds on some of the anecdotal evidence that's come out of some of C4's earlier research under the former bioenergy project and the shortly to be completed China and Africa project which has thrown up a number of concerns about the extent to which foreign investors are acquiring large areas of land very often by circumventing much of the national legislation. An example is from Ghana where we found that both some Scandinavian investors had acquired more than half a million hectares of land simply by dealing with paramount chiefs but completely outside of any statutory framework. So this is one example of how C4's research I think is providing new knowledge on this growing phenomenon of green grabbing as some scholars have referred to it but the broader issue of commodification of nature. Yes we are very much supporting this move to a broader landscape approach and taking forestry out of its own little quote unquote ghetto to ensure that we are also looking at many of the real drivers that are leading to deforestation and forest degradation most of which are extra-sectoral. I suspect that 20 years from now we will still be dealing with very similar issues this is why I referred to it as a part of a complex, a wicked problem given the fact that very often new values are attached to forests such as the recent fascination around the red and the forest carbon potentials this in itself has simply just added to the complexity given new claims and hence new contests surrounding this new value of forests so I think it's part of a never-ending frontier to quote an eminent American historian in terms of how these contested claims are actually fought out in local political space. So in 20 years I think we'll still face many of the same challenges hopefully some of our research will have contributed to resolving some of them in specific contexts where the rights of local communities can be better safeguarded but I don't think the issue will have disappeared. I think red has simply just opened another layer of contestation whilst many of the old contests have not disappeared and we have some very good examples in Indonesia where in some cases I know of in both Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan we now have sometimes between three and four different claims to the same piece of land of which red is the most recent one. The contests have just become more complex because of this new value attached to forests.