This work is intended to catalyze actions necessary to plan and implement the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. It introduces the MBC Initiative, examines its implications for stakeholder groups, and identifies the challenges that must be addressed if the MBC is to be effectively implemented.

A study of biodiversity governance analyzes the factors that determine the effectiveness of transnational advocacy networks and the importance of justice claims to conservation. In the late 2000s, ordinary citizens in Jamaica and Mexico demanded that government put a stop to lucrative but environmentally harmful economic development activities—bauxite mining in Jamaica and large-scale tourism and overfishing on the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. In each case, the catalyst for the campaign was information gathered and disseminated by transnational advocacy networks (TANs) of researchers, academics, and activists. Both campaigns were successful despite opposition from industry supporters. Meanwhile, simultaneous campaigns to manage land in another part of the Yucatán and to conserve migratory birds in Egypt had far less success. In this book, Kemi Fuentes-George uses these four cases to analyze factors that determine the success or failure of efforts by TANs to persuade policymakers and private sector actors in developing countries to change environmental behavior. Fuentes-George argues that in order to influence the design and implementation of policy, TANs must generate a scientific consensus, create social relationships with local actors, and advocate for biodiversity in a way that promotes local environmental justice. Environmentally just policies would allow local populations access to their lands provided they use natural resources sustainably. Justice claims are also more likely to generate needed support among local groups for conservation projects. In their conservation efforts, Jamaica, Mexico, and Egypt were attempting to meet their obligations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and other regional agreements. Fuentes-George's innovative analysis shows the importance of local environmental justice for the implementation of international environmental treaties.

Human actions are fragmenting habitats throughout the world. To address this problem, conservationists have set up biological corridors, areas of land set aside to facilitate the movement of species and ecological processes. This book offers an overview of the design and effectiveness of these corridors.

Although food-production systems for the world's rural poor typically have had devastating effects on the planet's wealth of genes, species, and ecosystems, that need not be the case in the future. In Ecoagriculture, two of the world's leading experts on conservation and development examine the idea that agricultural landscapes can be designed more creatively to take the needs of human populations into account while also protecting, or even enhancing, biodiversity. They present a thorough overview of the innovative concept of "ecoagriculture" - the management of landscapes for both the production of food and the conservation of wild biodiversity. The book: examines the global impact of agriculture on wild biodiversity describes the challenge of reconciling biodiversity conservation and agricultural goals outlines and discusses the ecoagriculture approach presents diverse case studies that illustrate key strategies explores how policies, markets, and institutions can be re-shaped to support ecoagriculture While focusing on tropical regions of the developing world -- where increased agricultural productivity is most vital for food security, poverty reduction, and sustainable development, and where so much of the world's wild biodiversity is threatened -- it also draws on lessons learned in developed countries. Dozens of examples from around the world present proven strategies for small-scale, low-income farmers involved in commercial production. Ecoagriculture explores new approaches to agricultural production that complement natural environments, enhance ecosystem function, and improve rural livelihoods. It features a wealth of real-world case studies that demonstrate the applicability of the ideas discussed and how the principles can be applied, and is an important new work for policymakers, students, researchers, and anyone concerned with conserving biodiversity while sustaining human populations.

This volume is a synthesis of the NASA funded work under the Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program. Hundreds of scientists have worked for the past eight years to understand one of the most important forces that is changing our planet-human impacts on land cover, that is land use. Its contributions span the natural and the social sciences, and apply state-of-the-art techniques for understanding the earth: satellite remote sensing, geographic information systems, modeling, and advanced computing. It brings together detailed case studies, regional analyses, and globally scaled mapping efforts. This is the most organized effort made to understand the dominant force that has been responsible for changing the Earth’s biosphere. Audience: This publication will be of interest to students, scientists, and policy makers. This volume includes a CD-ROM containing full color images of a selection of illustrations which are printed in black-and-white in the book.

In an era of climate change, deforestation and massive habitat loss, we can no longer rely on parks and protected areas as isolated 'islands of wilderness' to conserve and protect vital biodiversity. Increasing connections are being considered and made between protected areas and 'connectivity' thinking has started to expand to the regional and even the continental scale to match the challenges of conserving biodiversity in the face of global environmental change. This groundbreaking book is the first guide to connectivity conservation management at local, regional and continental scales. Written by leading conservation and protected area management specialists under the auspices of the World Commission on Protected Areas of IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, this guide brings together a decade and a half of practice and covers all aspects of connectivity planning and management The book establishes a context for managing connectivity conservation and identifies large scale naturally interconnected areas as critical strategic and adaptive responses to climate change. The second section presents 25 rich and varied case studies from six of the eight biogeographic realms of Earth, including the Cape Floristic Region of Africa, the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains, the Australian Alps to Atherton Corridor, and the Sacred Himalayan Landscape connectivity area (featuring Mount Everest.) The remarkable 3200 kilometre long Yellowstone to Yukon corridor of Canada and the United States of America is described in detail. The third section introduces a model for managing connectivity areas, shaped by input from IUCN workshops held in 2006 and 2008 and additional research. The final chapter identifies broad guidelines that need to be considered in undertaking connectivity conservation management prior to reinforcing the importance and urgency of this work. This handbook is a must have for all professionals in protected area management, conservation, land management and resource management from the field through senior management and policy. It is also an ideal reference for students and academics in geography, protected area management and from across the environmental and natural sciences, social sciences and landuse planning. Published with Wilburforce Foundation, WWF, ICIMOD, IUCN, WCPA, Australian Alps and The Nature Conservancy.

People and the Environment: Approaches for Linking Household and Community Surveys to Remote Sensing and GIS appeals to a wide range of natural, social, and spatial scientists with interests in conducting population and environment research and thereby characterizing (a) land use and land cover dynamics through remote sensing, (b) demographic and socio-economic variables through household and community surveys, and (c) local site and situation through resource endowments, geographical accessibility, and connections of people to place through GIS. Case studies are used to examine theories and practices useful in linking people and the environment. We also describe land use and land cover dynamics and the associated social, biophysical, and geographical drivers of change articulated through human-environment interactions. People and the Environment: Approaches for Linking Household and Community Surveys to Remote Sensing and GIS addresses a need for a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of linking across thematic domains (e.g., social, biophysical, and geographical) and across space and time scales for research and study within the context of human-environment interactions. The human dimensions research community, LULCC program, and human and landscape ecology communities are collectively viewing the landscape within a spatially-explicit perspective, where people are viewed as agents of landscape change that shape and are shaped by the landscape, and where landscape form and function are assessed within a space-time context. Current researchers and those following this early group of integrative scientists face challenges in conducting this type of research, but the potential rewards for insight are substantial.