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

This report evaluates the requirements
for an assessment of climate change impacts on agriculture
to guide policy makers on investment priorities and phasing.
Because agriculture is vital for national food security and
is a strong contributor to Brazil's GDP growth, there
is growing concern that Brazilian agriculture is
increasingly vulnerable to climate variability and change.
To meet national development, food security, climate

Reduction of carbon emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation has been identified as
a cost effective element of the post-Kyoto strategy to
achieve long-term climate objectives. Its success depends
primarily on the design and implementation of a financial
mechanism that provides land-holders sufficient incentives
to participate in such scheme. This paper proposes
self-enforcing contracts (relational contracts) as a

This documented case of climate change
adaptation in Campeche Mexico grapples with a problem that
is fundamental to addressing climate change risks in areas
of high vulnerability, which is how to reach consensus and
take decisions under an uncertain future. The state of
Campeche in Mexico, is used as an example. With its long
coastline, Campeche is highly vulnerable to current and
projected future climate threats. Two different approaches

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

Zambia is endowed with an abundance of
natural resources that include, water, forests and wildlife.
The country's wildlife resources are managed through
government-supported National Parks and Game Management
Areas (GMAs) and private sector game ranches. The main
objective of this wildlife sector policy review is to
consolidate the findings collected from an extensive
bibliography published during the life of the current

The Latin America and Caribbean Region
has been at the forefront of global biodiversity
conservation, dedicating 20 percent of its land to protected
areas compared to 13 percent in the rest of the developing
world. This progress has stretched available budgets for
conservation with estimates indicating that a twofold
increase would be necessary to achieve optimal management of
existing protected areas based on 2008 data. Recognizing the

Greenhouse gas emissions are largely determined by how energy is created and used, and policies designed to encourage mitigation efforts reflect this reality. However, an unintended consequence of an energy-focused strategy is that the set of policy instruments needed to tap mitigation opportunities in agriculture is incomplete. In particular, market-linked incentives to achieve mitigation targets are disconnected from efforts to better manage carbon sequestered in agricultural land.

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

This country note for Georgia is part of
a series of country briefs that summarize information
relevant to climate change and agriculture for three
countries in the Southern Caucasus Region, with a particular
focus on climate and crop projections, adaptation options,
policy development and institutional involvement. The note
series has been developed to provide a baseline of knowledge
on climate change and agriculture for the countries

International migration has increased
rapidly in recent decades and this has been accompanied by a
remarkable increase in transfers made by migrants to their
home countries. This paper investigates the effect of the
rural economic growth brought about by migration and
remittances on Nepal's Himalayan forests. The authors
assemble a unique village-panel dataset combining remote
sensing data on land use and forest cover change with data