Legal aspects

By far the largest habitat for life on earth and the cradle of new species, habitats and undiscovered ecosystems, our oceans are being intensively exploited and heavily degraded. Marine Protected Areas can be used to restore, safeguard and halt the negative impacts on the biodiversity of these oceans.

An environmental flow is the water regime provided within a river, wetland or coastal zone to maintain ecosystems and their benefits where there are competing water uses and where flows are regulated. Pioneering efforts in South Africa, Australia and the United States have shown that the process to establish them poses great challenges.

The Loita/Purko Naimina Enkiyio forest is estimated to cover an area of 330 km2 in Kenya and serves several functions within the Loita Maasai community. When a change of the forest tenure to a reserve threatened this community, they challenged the decision and were successful in having the decision rescinded. Security of tenure can be considered the single most important factor in the sustainable management of natural resources.

Los países centroamericanos están en un verdadero proceso de cambio y modernización de sus Sistemas de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental (EIA). En esta publicación se presenta un resumen de los diagnósticos de estos sistemas y los Planes de Acción elaborados por Costa Rica, Guatemala y Nicaragua.