Policy development can fail when organisations tasked with managing contentious species for different outcomes are at odds. Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris L. syn. Pennisetum ciliare L. Link) has been planted worldwide and is a valuable pasture grass but it is contentious because of its environmental impacts. Due to this contention, government agencies in Australia have been reticent about developing policy for sustainable management of buffel grass.

Energy and other anthropogenic development are increasing throughout the range of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in western North America, and both private and government agencies have expressed concern about indirect and direct effects on Golden Eagles. To facilitate sustainable development and reduce risk to Golden Eagles, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has established guidelines to assist developers in project planning and siting. A major component of environmental impact assessment is documenting Golden Eagle spatial use near a project site before development.

The geological environment has been heavily polluted by chemical substances over the past few decades. Pollution sources located on the earth’s surface or underground have affected the quality of the environment. A significant amount of impact could be reduced if the allocation of potential pollution sources was based on an evaluation of environmental conditions. The main objective of this study was to develop a methodology for the allocation of potential pollution sources by employing GIS and multi-criteria evaluation techniques.

Although Indonesia has no shortage of land area that lost its forest cover before 1990 and has become the global leader in land-use based greenhouse gas emissions, the widespread expectation that the afforestation/reforestation approach to Clean Development Mechanisms (A/R CDM) could lead to sustainable development benefits has not so far materialized.

Smallholders in many tropical highlands cause serious environmental damage. The Cameron Highlands of Malaysia offer an excellent opportunity for studying how farmers interact with environment, changing markets, infrastructure development, indigenous peoples, and tourism, and how these shape innovation. Our surveys in 2002-2004, 2006 and 2007 show that farmers have intensified production and in doing so some have adopted less damaging practices. We assess trends and causation of changes; this offers opportunities for more proactive management.

Minimizing the ecological impact of land development is a fundamental principle of sustainable development. Ecological suitability assessment is the key to realizing sustainability and is also significant for optimizing spatial patterns of territorial development. Especially in mountainous areas where the ecosystem is both vulnerable and important, quantitative evaluation of ecological suitability for land development is particularly important and urgent given current development strategy of urban construction in mountainous areas in China.

Cities are facing considerable challenges resulting from imminent climate change impacts. Urban planning to minimise adverse impacts of climate change at the city level can establish a climate-resilient city. Mitigation strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions would lead to a climate-friendly city. Integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation into sustainable city planning should not be merely added as a single level of sustainable city planning, but requires a wide range of multi-level cooperation.

The Coteaux de Gascogne region, an upland area in south-western France, is a site where studies related to the future of landscapes and the sustainability of natural resource management are well documented. The local agricultural system is induced by a “house centred” society with the particularity of passing on the inheritance and farm estate identically from one generation to the next. This system generates a mosaic landscape made up of field crops, grasslands and woodlots.

An evaluation is needed to monitor the progress of sustainable development (SD) in rice production systems. The purpose of this study is to provide policy inputs, examine the sustainability of rice production, and determine major policy areas. A requisite set of 12 indicators of three dimensions of SD, namely economic, was generated by employing an assemblage of top–down and bottom–up approaches.

The article discusses the relationship between conceptions of forest values among local people in Madagascar and human capabilities. According to Amartya Sen's capability approach, capabilities include both the means of maintaining a livelihood and intangible elements that are necessary to achieve overall well-being. In a qualitative case study in Madagascar's Mananara-Nord and Sahamalaza Biosphere Reserves, we investigated local peoples’ conceptions of forest values.

Land-use planning is one aspect of sustainable development that determines the integrity of socioeconomic and ecological nuance. Land evaluation is an approach to sustainable land-use planning, which predicts the capability of the land-use system. This means that a specific land area should be under specific use, considering certain factors and characteristics of the land and its location. In other words, lack of proper information on land capability and rational and irrational use of land leads to destruction of land resources.

A Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to estimate the technically available woody biomass from forests and willow biomass crops within a 40 km radius of Syracuse and Tupper Lake, NY. Land cover and land use data were used to identify the available land base and restrictions were applied for slope, parcel size and designated wetlands. Approximately 222,984 oven-dry tonnes (odt) of forest biomass are technically available annually around Syracuse, from 165,848 hectares (ha) of timberland.