environment
Islands are special places with a natural attraction for tourists and a special challenge to sustainability. The thousands of islands on the face of the earth include some of the finest and most sought after destinations, such as the Balearic Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, the Galapagos Islands, the Canary Islands, the French Polynesian Islands, and the Caribbean islands. The mystique...
This paper deals with the strategies adopted by the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HK-H) mountain communities in response to adverse natural and human induced circumstances. The quality of life and growth options in mountains (including hills) are deeply rooted in mountain specificities (e.g., fragility, marginality, diversity). Hence, the disregard of these mountain specificities while using mountain...
Tough laws won’t save poor nation’s ecosystems until the impacts of developments are taken seriously.
Dozens of Indonesians killed by landslides this spring have paid the price of unchecked development. Many other innocents in developing nations die each year as rampant illegal logging and deforestation denude steep hillsides, loosening soil and allowing heavy rains to...
Wetlands are among the most productive but threatened ecosystems on earth. Wetlands provide many benefits – environmental, economic and social – yet there is a limited assessment of these multiple values and therefore, have little attention in national accounts. Nepal has been transforming its resource management policies in favour of local people. This paper reviews existing...
On 16 December 2002, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 the International Year of Rice, recognizing that rice feeds more than half of the world’s population. Observance of the International Year of Rice is important to raise awareness of the role of rice in alleviating poverty and in providing food security and environmental conservation.
This article describes how...
The early establishment of a considerable number of nature reserves is proably one of the most valuable heritages of the former Soviet Union. These reserves represent most of the natural zones and endemic ecosystems on the Eurasian continent and are of paramount importance to the whole world. However after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, environmental policies and nature...
This article explores the applicability of the conventional wisdom that economic growth is paramount to environmental sustainability by examining ecotourism and nature-reserve sustainability in environmentally fragile poor regions. The discussion focuses on the Ordos Relict Gull Reserve in the Inner Mongolia region of China. The study evaluated reserve records of water and soil conditions and...
A generic system dynamics model was developed as an explicit thinking tool to investigate systems of payments for environmental services (PES) and possible feedback effects regarding environmental ethics. Healthy ecosystems may justify charges for environmental services, but damaged ecosystems will require payouts funded by other mechanisms, perhaps by penalties on ecodamage. Any payouts made...
This article critically examines the approach of technical experts, including engineers, natural scientists, architects, planners, and other practitioners, who are attempting to create more sustainable forms of economic development, environmental protection, and social equity. The authors identify four principal characteristics of expertise–ontological assumptions, epistemological...
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