International agreements

This publication sets wetlands in their scientific, economic and legal context, before describing the main legal issues involved in implementing the Ramsar Convention. Parts 3-6 take an increasingly broad focus, dealing respectively with site-specific and bioregional approaches to wetland management, generally-applicable techniques for managing damaging processes and activities and, lastly, regional and international frameworks for cooperation.

Provides an assessment of the international forest regime, in reponse to calls from many quarters, including the UN Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) and the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, as well as several NGOs. The focus is mainly on action taken by countries at the global level, in the framework of legally binding instruments and institutions.

An overview of issues for consideration when formulating national policy to implement the FAO International Programme of Action on the Management of Fishing Capacity

Over past decades, two global environmental issues "biodiversity loss and climate change" have often moved in wholly unconnected domains, with no link being made between the fate of unknown species in the Amazon rainforest and emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants in industrialized countries. However, results now show that climate change is a major threat to efforts to conserve biodiversity.

Biodiversity-related laws and institutions will be key mechanisms for attaining the objectives of the Convention on biological diversity. As part of the national biodiversty planning process, legal and institutional profiles should be undertaken to ascertain which laws apply to and affect biodiversity and which institutions oversee legislation and portfolios which intersect with biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and benefit-sharing of genetic resources.