Livelihoods

This book, written by the world's foremost experts, examines key issues, including law and enforcement, supply and demand, corruption, forest certification, poverty, local livelihoods, international trade and biodiversity conservation. It includes key case studies from forest-rich hotspots in North, South and Central America, equatorial Africa and Indonesia.

This handbook constitutes one of the battles being fought by civil society organisations to promote and protect the rights of communities living adjacent to mining areas against the operations of extractive industries, the state and other individuals who violate their Environmental, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (EESCR).

As a policy research organisation, the International Institute for Environment and Development has evolved key concepts, theories and ways of working in sustainable development since 1973. The big idea we explore here is banking on biodiversity. This approach rests on the fact that much rural poverty is concentrated in the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

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.

During the past several years, biofuels in rich countries have come to be regarded as an important option for reducing consumption of petroleum, which is a main policy goal as a result of recent high oil prices, energy security concerns, and global climate change. The use and development of alternative sources of energy are increasingly encouraged in western countries, and private and public sources of financial support for biofuels development have increased greatly.

The reduction of world poverty is a major challenge for the international community over the next decade. It is increasingly clear that the our capacity to successfully achieve this objective will be undermined if the natural resource base for development is threatened.

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