Laurie, Michelle

This book looks at the rationale for addressing the links between conservation and poverty reduction, arguing that such a focus is both ethically essential and a source of opportunities. It emphasizes the importance of multiple scales and negotiating trade-offs between scales and tackles the complex issue of institutional landscapes and the way in which changes at various institutional levels can lead to different and more positive outcomes.

Recent innovations in Sustainable Forest Management and Ecosystem Approaches are resulting in forests increasingly being managed as part of the broader social-ecological systems in which they exist. Forests in Landscapes reviews changes that have occurred in forest management in recent decades. Case studies from Europe, Canada, the United States, Russia, Australia, the Congo and Central America provide a wealth of international examples of innovative practices.

Despite endorsements of the concept of sustainable development and the linking of sustainable development with the Millennium Development Goals, progress towards the eradication of poverty has been disappointing. The underlying principles of sustainable development need to be more critically and actively applied to both poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation.