More than three-quarters of Mexico's coffee is grown on small plots shaded by the existing forest. Because they preserve forest cover, shade coffee farms provide vital ecological services including harboring biodiversity and preventing soil erosion. Unfortunately, tree cover in Mexico's shade coffee areas is increasingly being cleared to make way for subsistence agriculture, a direct result of the unprecedented decline of international coffee prices over the past decade.

The Little Green Data Book 2005 is based on the World Development Indicators 2005, and represents an abbreviated collection of information. Its production is a collaboration between the Development Economics Data Development Group, and the Environment Department of the World Bank. Development and poverty alleviation-the World Bank's mission-call for a long-term vision. Enhancing environmental quality, improving natural resource management, and maintaining global ecosystems are all important steps toward this goal.

This issue of Water Policy Briefing is based on research presented in When ?Conservation? Leads to Land Degradation: Lessons from Ban Lak Sip, Laos (IWMI Research Report 91) by Guillaume Lestrelin, Mark Giordano and Bounmy Keohavong. The research was carried out by the Managing Soil Erosion Consortium (MSEC)?a multi-country collaborative effort to better understand land degradation, and potential solutions, in upland areas of Southeast Asia. MSEC is coordinated by IWMI with substantial contributions from France?s Institute of Research for Development (IRD).

This issue of Water Policy Briefing is based on research presented in When ?Conservation? Leads to Land Degradation: Lessons from Ban Lak Sip, Laos (IWMI Research Report 91) by Guillaume Lestrelin, Mark Giordano and Bounmy Keohavong. The research was carried out by the Managing Soil Erosion Consortium (MSEC)?a multi-country collaborative effort to better understand land degradation, and potential solutions, in upland areas of Southeast Asia. MSEC is coordinated by IWMI with substantial contributions from France?s Institute of Research for Development (IRD).

Geosoil permite almacenar, consultar e interpretar información tanto del suelo como de su entorno biofísico a diferentes escalas: parcela, finca, comunidad, municipio, departamento, región, país. Opera a partir de una base de datos relacional elaborada en ACCES 2000, compuesta por una serie de tablas principales estructuradas con información a diferentes niveles jerárquicos que permiten la caracterización de las propiedades del suelo.

In this report, we test the hypothesis that the primary factors behind the farming system changes in Ban Lak Sip lay not in the village itself but rather in the broader Laotian social, economic and political setting. The study uses an integrated approach that examines both the physical and social dimensions of land use and soil erosion in Ban Lak Sip within this broader system environment.

This paper analyses various aspects of environmental impact of the mineral resources’ exploitation in the mining basins, which can be listed as agricultural (and forest) land intake, relocation of the settlements, water course rearrangement, repositioning of roads and other infrastructure systems, decrease in level of ground water, etc. The paper points to the possible application of new technologies in mineral resources exploitation as well as to certain economic (external) effects.

Policy Analysis for Sustainable Land Management and Food Security in Ethiopia presents a bioeconomic model of this less- favored area in the Ethiopian highlands. The main reason for selecting this case study area is the unique availability of both biophysical and socioeconomic data covering a period of 15 to 20 years.The data provides a valuable opportunity to analyze the relationships between population pressure, poverty, and land degradation and to test policies for reducing vulnerability and improving sustainable management of the resource base....

Abstract