The World Bank Group (WBG) has a long
experience in engaging in biodiversity with world-class
expertise in the field. It has been the single largest
funder of biodiversity investments since the late 1980s. The
WBG investments have largely been of two kinds: (1)
investments in biodiversity, aimed at the conservation and
sustainable use of species, habitats, and ecosystems that
sustain healthy ecosystems, while enhancing people's

Across the developing world, public
goods exert significant impacts on the local rural economy
in general and agricultural productivity and welfare
outcomes in particular. Economic and social-cultural
heterogeneity have, however, long been documented as
detrimental to collective capacity to provide public goods.
In particular, women are often under-represented in local
leadership and decision-making processes, as are young

This roadmap for environmental and
natural resources law enforcement (ENRLE) sets forth a
course of action for the World Bank's ENRLE community
of practice for FY2013-15. It outlines for senior management
a strategy to mobilize and strengthen the Bank's
engagement in the fight against environmental and natural
resource crime. The roadmap also serves as a mobilizing tool
for staff and management in regional departments to

The Government of Indonesia (GOI) is in
the process of designing a national REDD+ mechanism to allow
it to access donor funding in the medium term, and funding
from a potential performance based mechanism in the long
term. This policy brief is focused on the broad question of
how REDD+ can address underlying community issues such as
lack of access to forest land, and does not deal with the
more specific questions of legal and institutional

Agriculture remains fundamental for
Nicaragua from both a macroeconomic and social view. It is
the largest sector of the Nicaraguan economy, and it remains
the single biggest employer with around 30 percent of the
labor force and including processed foods, like meat and
sugar, agriculture accounts for around 40 percent of total
exports value. Nicaragua appears to be gradually losing
competitive edge of some of its key agricultural exports

The forestry sector in Moldova faces
significant governance and sustainability challenges. The
insufficient level of forest coverage in Moldova has a
serious impact on environment and overall economic growth in
the country. The situation is exacerbated by the reportedly
intense pressure on forest resources exerted by the human
factor. Illegal logging and grazing are considered as
significant factors that contribute to forest loss. There is

The Congo Basin has the largest forest
cover on the African continent. Of the 400 million hectares
that the Basin comprises, about 200 million of them are
covered by forest, with 90 percent being tropical dense
forests. The Congo Basin's logging sector has a
dualistic configuration. It boasts a highly visible formal
sector that is export oriented and dominated by large
industrial groups with foreign capital and an informal

The Congo Basin is among the most poorly
served areas in terms of transport infrastructure in the
world, and it faces a challenging environment with dense
tropical forests crisscrossed by numerous rivers that
require construction of numerous bridges. Given such
complexities, constructing transport infrastructure as well
as properly maintaining it is certainly a key challenge for
the Congo Basin countries. Recent studies indicate that

Reducing emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation and enhancing carbon stocks (REDD+)
has raised the profile of benefit sharing in the forest
sector. Sharing benefits, however, is not a new concept.
Previous work on benefit sharing (associated with
intellectual property, forest and agriculture concessions,
mining, and so forth) has focused on clarifying the concept
and examining how benefit sharing could feed into broader

Sustainable forest management (SFM)
certification emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as a mechanism
to promote responsible forest use and as an alternative to
boycotts of forest products amid growing concerns about
forest degradation and destruction. Since then, forest
certification has evolved into a multifaceted market-based
mechanism to promote compliance with sets of ecological,
social, and economic criteria to enhance sustainability.

One objective of this paper is to
provide information and tools for policy makers and
development partners engaged in developing arrangements for
transferring REDD plus benefits. This paper is also intended
to help key stakeholders design a mechanism that is
appropriate for a country's context. Another objective
is to provide information and tools for assessing and
structuring benefit sharing mechanisms at national and sub

Over the past few years there has been a
growing interest in the role that forests play in supporting
the poor, in reducing their vulnerability to economic and
environmental shocks, and in reducing poverty itself.
International workshops in Italy, Scotland, Finland and
Germany have focused on the contribution of forests to
livelihoods and the policies needed to strengthen that
contribution. At the same time, Forestry Ministries, though