planning

International Year of Mountains +5 and the Mountain Partnership
The Mountain Partnership—an evolving voluntary alliance of countries, intergovernmental organisations and major groups (civil society, NGOs, and the private sector) on f ive continents—was set up to provide a cohesive framework in which to enhance collaboration in the implementation of both Chapter 13 in Agenda 21 and the negotiated outcome of the World Summit on Sustainable...
Expert panel-based assessment of forest landscapes for land use planning

Forest landscapes are often not adequately taken into account by land use planning, leading to loss of biodiversity and reduction in ecosystem services and functions. One of the reasons relates to the data provided to planners, which tend to be limited to a description of the characteristics of forests — eg presence of a given vegetation type — rather than an...

Environment assessment of Nepal: Emerging issues and challenges
Who knows what to do with the environment in Nepal? This publication suggests what needs to be done: make information consistent, bring data sets from different environmental sectors into coherent dialogue, provide training and infrastructure where it is lacking and align standards of quality on environmental governamce with the benchmarks that are internationally applicable...
Valuing ecosystem services for sustainable landscape planning in Alpine regions
Alpine regions provide diverse ecosystem goods and services (ES) to human society. Yet as many of these ES are not bought or sold, their value must be estimated using a surrogate for observable behaviour witnessed in the marketplace. The present article reviews ES valuation studies conducted in the European Alps. In addition, the authors present the results of a case study...
Evaluation of landscape change by different social groups: Results of two empirical studies in Switzerland
Landscape is an important resource for mountain regions, particularly for tourism. Guiding future landscape development is necessary to meet the expectations of mountain inhabitants, tourists, and the general public outside mountain areas. The studies presented here show how different societal groups perceive past and future landscape changes in the Alps. The results reveal...
Virtual worlds - Real decisions: Model- and visualization-based tools for landscape planning in Switzerland
Prominent construction projects in Switzerland, such as the Sawiris luxury resort in Andermatt planned by Orascom Hotels & Development, Cairo (Egypt), or the idea of a hotel and apartment tower at Schatzalp, Davos, demonstrate how rapidly Alpine landscapes may undergo major changes. Decisions on whether or not such changes are supported by policymakers should be based on...
Policy priorities for sustainable mountain development
This book is a collection of papers given at a workshop organised by ICIMOD in Kathmandu in 2006 with the objective to facilitate a common understanding and vision about mountain policy issues, options and priorities. The ten chapters address a range of topics related to the overarching question of how to combine mountain livelihoods and poverty alleviation with environmentally sound policies.
Biodiversity offsets: Views, experience, and the business case

Biodiversity offsets are conservation activities intended to compensate for the residual, unavoidable harm to biodiversity caused by development projects. Recent experience with regulatory regimes, such as wetland and conservation banking in the USA, tradable forest conservation obligations in Brazil and habitat compensation requirements in Australia, Canada and the EU, has been supplemented...

Adapting to climate variability and change: A guidance manual for development planning

Climate change may pose risks and/or create opportunities for development efforts in many countries. The USAID Global Climate Change Team developed this Adaptation Guidance Manual to assist Missions and other partners to understand how climate change may affect their project outcomes and identify adaptation options to integrate into the design for more resilient projects. In developing the...

Engaging people in sustainability

The World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 provided an opportunity for thousands of people from all walks of life to gather, confirm commitments and continue to work towards sustainable development. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation points to the social actions required to achieve sustainable development and to the role of education, capacity building and communication. The UN...

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