The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
As a result of recent infrastructure failures the U.S. Senate passed the National Infrastructure Improvement Act (NIIA), which would create the National Commission on the Infrastructure and its ability to meet current and future demands. Such policy development coincides with ongoing efforts to manage and restore degraded ecosystems.
The forest biome of Amazonia is one of Earth's greatest biological treasures and a major component of the Earth system. This century, it faces the dual threats of deforestation and stress from climate change. In this article, the authors summarize some of the latest findings and thinking on these threats, …
This paper provides an overview of selected trends and conditions of ecosystem services, in particular, food production and impacts on the environment based on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. It then describes outcomes for future ecosystem services under alternative development pathways, with a focus on tradeoffs between food security and the …
This publication provides corporate managers with a proactive approach to making the connection between ecosystem change and their business goals. It introduces the Corporate Ecosystem Services Review
The financial mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), operated by the GEF, has assisted eligible countries to implement their commitments for achieving the objectives of this unique international legal instrument. Considering that most of the biological diversity is located in developing countries, the importance of the GEF to …
the impact of biomass extraction on the species diversity of a scrub forest has not been studied adequately in India. A study by the Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bangalore and the Council for Social Development in Delhi has done exactly this. The researchers say it's the first of its …
Markets for ecosystem services are being promoted across the developing world, amidst claims that the provision of economic incentives is vital to bring about resource conservation. This article argues that equity and legitimacy are also critical dimensions in the design and implementation of such markets, if social development goals beyond …
Joseph Wright and Helene Muller-Landau suggest that regeneration of tropical forests might lead to far less species loss than is feared by most tropical biologists (12 May, p 42). There is currently very little reason to think so.
The Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture is a critical evaluation of the benefits, costs, and impacts of the past 50 years of water development, the water management challenges communities face today, and the solutions people have developed around the world. It is a multi-institute process aimed at assessing …
This report identifies ecosystem services and stakeholders and determines spatio-temporal dimensions of the identified services. It documents past and present trends of resource utilization in various forest types. It also documents functional attributes of different forest types including biotic stresses.
Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystem services across temporal and spatial scales. Overall, rates of resource collapse increased and recovery potential, …
At a 31 October gathering of tsunami donors at the United Nations, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the U.N. Development Programme are planning to unveil a 6-year, $62 million initiative called Mangroves for the Future (MFF). It's goal is to rehabilitate ecosystems in 12 tsunami hit nations.
This study quantifies the tangible, economic benefits of a nongovernmental organization's social forestry project to local people and analyzes the potential return from this investment in natural capital. The analysis was conducted in the Kumaun hill region of Uttaranchal, India, using participatory rapid appraisal, household survey, avoided cost method, and …
Land degradation is as a result of broad range of scales and factors, which include biophysical, climatic, demographic and socio-economic. The aim of this paper was to provide an analysis of wetland utilisation, ecosystem degradation and their effect on the Lake Victoria (Kenya) ecosystem. This involved analysis of socioeconomic and …
function table() { var popurl="image/20050731/27-graph.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=400,height=350,scrollbars=yes") } Himachal Pradesh (hp) is a pioneer state. Thanks to an economic evaluation of its forest resources, by Madhu Verma of the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, it now knows that, every year, its forests provide benefits worth over Rs 100,000 crore. This …
• Kanchan Chopra has valued the biodiversity of Keoladeo national park using the travel cost method (TCM) to value tourism and recreation. TCM assumes people value a forest in terms of the cost of getting there as well as the opportunity cost of time spent travelling. A survey of people …
I n India, forest evaluation is an emergent practice. And those that have done so have realised its immense utility: the benefits from Himachal Pradesh's (hp's) forests, Verma's evaluation shows, are 2.61 times the value of the growing stock, 980 times the total expenditure incurred by the state's forestry sector …
function table() { var popurl="image/20050731/33-table.pdf" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=550,height=350,scrollbars=yes") } Currently, India's forestry sector is in quite a mess. But the fact that it is possible to quantify
