The proceedings of an International Conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, January 1993, providing a comprehensive overview of environmental issues in Central European countries, and a look at possible problem-solving approaches with comparative studies based on some current Western practices. The volume is organized in three parts: environmental management--principles and experiences; challenges to Central European countries (Poland/Czechy and Slovaky//Hungary/Romania/ex-USSR/ex-East Germany); and systems analysis and techno-economic modeling. No index. Note: the $120 price is estimated; the publisher's price is 590 francs. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"The papers in this volume ... were presented at an international conference on Agriculture and the Environment in the Transition to a Market Economy, held on 14-16 September 1993 in Vilnius, Lithuania."--Foreword.

Publisher description

Farming for Our Future examines the policies and legal reforms necessary to accelerate the adoption of practices that can make agriculture in the United States climate-neutral or better. These proven practices will also make our food system more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture's contribution to climate change is substantial--much more so than official figures suggest--and we will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Fortunately, farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. The importance of agricultural climate solutions can not be underestimated; it is a critical element both in ensuring our food security and limiting climate change. This book provides essential solutions to address the greatest crises of our time.

The book brings together original, state-of-the-art historical research from several continents and examines how mainly local peasant societies responded to colonial pressures to produce a range of different commodities. It offers new directions in the study of African, Asian, Caribbean, and Latin American societies.

Environmental Transitions is a detailed and comprehensive account of the environmental changes in Central and Eastern Europe, both under state socialism and during the period of transition to capitalism. The change in politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed an opportunity for a rapid environmental clean up, in an area once considered one of the most environmentally devastated regions on earth. The book illustrates how transformations after 1989 have brought major environmental improvements, as well as new environmental problems. It shows how environmental policy, economic change and popular support for environmental movements, have specific and changing geographies associated with them. Environmental Transitions addresses a large number of topics, including the historical geographical analysis of the environmental change, health impacts of environmental degradation, the role of environmental issues during the anti-communist revolutions, legislative reform and the effects of transition on environmental quality after 1989. Environmental Transitions contains detailed case studies from the region, which illustrate the complexity of environmental issues and their intimate relationship with political and economic realities. It gives theoretically informed ideas for understanding environmental change in the context of the political economy of state socialism and post-communist transformations, drawing on a wide body of literature from West, Central and Eastern Europe.

Through examining concrete policy experiences from OECD countries, this study concludes that agricultural policy reforms can improve the environment, provided they are accompanied by appropriate environmental measures.