Natural Resource Issues

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment emphasises the inter-relationship between ecosystem health and human well-being. Most ecosystems are severely degraded and the services that they provide to society are diminishing. As a result, important targets for biodiversity and development are unlikely to be met. Community conservation processes are often isolated and marginalised from mainstream conservation efforts. This review documents how community conservation can contribute to human well-being and the preservation of natural resources in southern Africa.

More than twenty years have passed since community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) rose to prominence in different parts of Africa as a strategy for rural development, local empowerment, and conservation. Led by new ideas about the merits of decentralized, collective resource governance regimes, and creative field experiments such as Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE, these community-based approaches evolved in a wide range of ecological, political, and social contexts across Africa.

To help shape a research programme proposed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), this report seeks to highlight some of the critical issues facing water ecosystem services in Africa, South Asia and Latin America and makes recommendations on the research that is needed to fill the current gaps in knowledge and practice.

Ce rapport passe en revue l'expérience acquise en matière de déplacement des populations touchées par les barrages en Afrique de l'Ouest au cours des 40 dernières années et examine les mécanismes qui permettent un partage plus équitable des bénéfices issus des barrages en veillant à ce que les conditions de vie des populations affectées soient améliorées.

This report summarises the findings of a study, conducted between 2001 and 2002, which aimed to test the effectiveness of these strategies in reconciling biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development interests, in particular through interventions that both improved livelihoods and resulted in increased support for biodiversity conservation, in terms of the attitudes and behaviours of local communities.

This guide discusses options to structure investment contractsin ways that maximise the investment's contribution to sustainable development. The focus is on foreign investment in the natural resource sector and on lower- and middle-income countries. The guide draws on test trainings in Ghana and Central Asia and aims to provide up-to-date and comprehensive learning material for both host governments and civil society. It can be used as a background document for training sessions, but it may also be used by readers accessing the material on their own.