Biodiversity, a property of natural
areas, provides a range of benefits to the economy including
bioprospecting rents, knowledge and insurance, ecotourism
fees, and ecosystem services. Many of these values can be
broken out in the System of National Accounts, leading to
better estimates of the economic losses when natural areas
are degraded or destroyed. Developing countries harbor the
great majority of biodiversity, and this diversity provides

This report discusses the affects of
rapid economic growth and increased urbanization on the
environmental quality of the Dominican Republic's
natural resource base (e.g., water resources
management--water quality, quantity and watershed management
and solid waste collection and disposal have become major
environmental concerns). It notes that the lack of
systematic data limits an accurate and detailed assessment

The Vanuatu Land Use Planning Policy is a national sectoral policy of Vanuatu for the period 2012-2017. Its main objective is to guide land use planning by setting priorities and outlining legislative and institutional settings to enable land use planning that encourages the best current use of Vanuatu’s land resources.The Policy aims to support food security.

This report focuses on one specific
interaction: the role of forests, and particularly protected
forests, in maintaining quality of drinking water for large
cities. There are many reasons for this focus: many city
dwellers already face a crisis of water quality, and
contaminated water spreads a vast and largely unnecessary
burden in terms of short and long-term health impacts
including infant mortality, with knock-on effects on ability

The report highlights the GEF's
work with small island developing states (SIDS) on key
natural resource issues -climate change, biodiversity,
international waters, and land degradation. It also
describes the GEF's strategic priorities for SIDS over
the next five years, recognizing the interrelatedness of
SIDS' global environmental problems and their links to
economic and social development. The Global Environment

Like the 2003 Fifth World Parks Congress
in Durban, South Africa, this publication is structured
around themes and issues on the cutting edge of research,
policy, and practice in the field of protected areas. It
highlights contributions by the Global Environment Facility
(GEF) and presents its perspectives for the future. This
publication comprises of the following topics : Tribute to
Africa; A Historic Role for Protected Areas; Protected Areas

The book provides an evaluation of, and
policy advice on key environmental, social, and economic
issues concerning the development of nature tourism. Using
KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa as a case study, it highlights
both the benefits, and trade-offs I promoting, an managing
sustainable nature-tourism development, and it assesses how
policy can enhance nature tourism's contribution to
economic growth, poverty reduction, and conservation. The

The Gulf of Aqaba Environmental Action
Plan (GAEAP) represents for the Government of Israel a step
towards achieving the national environmental objectives
outlined in its legislation. The proposed actions, both
curative and preventive, will protect the Gulf's land
and water interface and ensure conservation of natural
resources within a framework in which economic development
can take place. The Israeli GAEAP is a component of the

The report identifies the challenges,
and opportunities the forestry sector faces in Turkey, where
twenty five percent of the country's land area is
covered by forests, with significant economic,
environmental, and cultural functions. The challenges
identified in the review include poverty, land tenure, the
need to establish multi-purpose, participatory forest
management planning, and, to control soil erosion in

This staff sector assessment note
accompanies the recently completed national environmental
action plan for sustainable development (NEAP-SD), which, as
an output of the Industrial Pollution Control Project in
Algeria, focused on charting a new course for environmental
management in the country, based on an objective assessment
of past policy, and institutional failures, on a new
consensus on the need for mainstreaming the environment into

This issue, which serves as the annual
review on the environment, looks at the Bank's work
from July 2002 through June 2003, dedicated this year to
Water and the Environment, on the occasion of the Fifth
World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa. Following the
overview, which reviews progress in the implementation of
the Environment strategy, the report presents viewpoints on
ways to move forward in delivering water as committed in

The review focuses on development and
the environment in Yemen, particularly analyzing the
environment resource base, where renewable fresh water is
scarce, mainly ground water, and its over exploitation is
one of the country's major environmental problems.
Fisheries resources are also important, while oil and gas
are significant resources contributing to some eighty five
percent of Yemen's export revenues. Environmental