Argentina has expanded the use of its
portion of the Parana-Paraguay waterways system for the
transportation of soy and other bulk commodities through an
innovative tolling system that self-finances the dredging
and maintenance of the rivers. Brazil, in turn, is pursuing
a 'green trucking' strategy to improve efficiency
of its cargo haulage industry, reduce petroleum usage, and
curb pollution from trucking. For the entire hemisphere, the
expansion of the Panama Canal will bring post-Panama vessels

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC)
region has a unique mix of qualities and challenges when it
comes to the environment. It is exceptionally endowed with
natural assets, with globally significant biodiversity and
valuable crops, and also harbors the world s greatest carbon
sink in the Amazon. The purpose of the series is to
contribute to the global knowledge exchange on innovation in
environmental and water resources management and the pursuit

Water is a fundamental platform for
economic and social development, and contributes to reducing
multiple dimensions of poverty. It is essential to food and
energy security, industrial growth, and the protection of
ecosystems. Water has been going through unprecedented
pressures as growing populations and economies have
increased demand and at the same degraded supplies. As a
result, water insecurity has become one of the greatest

Promoting the transfer of
environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) and best practices
to developing and transition countries is a key priority for
all countries that seek to mitigate climate change impacts
and build resilience. The Global Environment Facility (GEF)
is one of the entities entrusted to provide financial
resources to assist developing and transition countries in
implementing the United Nations Framework Convention on

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

One of the major constraints for the
improvement of agricultural risk management in Central
America, and in particular to the development of weather
index-based insurance, is the availability of complete
meteorological data. Limitations with the data are related
to restrictions in weather station coverage (density), and
problems with the quality (errors and gaps in the
information) and availability of historical records. This

To ensure sustainable and optimal use of
its common property natural resources, Mexico will need to
strengthen its focus on enhancing stewardship in three key
sectors-forests, water, and energy resources. The key
objectives include the following: 1) identifying options
that would contribute to Mexico's climate agenda and
build social resilience through forest management; 2)
ensuring economically efficient and environmentally and

The European neighborhood and
partnership instrument east countries forest law enforcement
and second governance program will support the participating
countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova,
Russian Federation and Ukraine) in strengthening forest
governance through improving implementation of relevant
international processes, enhancing their forest policy,
legislation and institutional capacity, and developing,

Biomass is the most important source of
energy in Rwanda, especially for domestic cooking. Today
approximately 86 percent of primary energy comes from
biomass, mainly in the form of wood that is either used
directly as a fuel (57 percent), or converted into charcoal
(23 percent) together with smaller amounts of crop residues,
and peat (6 percent). In the past, the production of
charcoal in Rwanda was one of the factors that contributed

The World Bank had commissioned an
independent team to evaluate and assess the future role of
PROFISH, the Global Program on Fisheries. The evaluation
team found that PROFISH, since its inception in 2005, had
made excellent progress in raising World Bank, bilateral
donor and client country awareness of fisheries development
needs, contributed fisheries and aquaculture content to
global development products and assisted World Bank country

This annotated bibliography provides evidence that community tenure over forests can result in more forest cover and more species-rich forests, less deforestation and degradation, and fewer fires than some other approaches to protecting forests. The authors initiated the review by identifying relevant scholarly articles published since 2002 based on interviews with experts and keyword searches of databases.

This working paper, published by the World Resources Institute, looks at efforts in Cameroon, Indonesia, and Peru to invest in the infrastructure and capacity to track the impacts of changes from from forest and land-use-based climate change mitigation actions. The paper focuses on the development of forest and land-use information systems (FLUIS), specifically the institutional, human resources and financial capacities of the three countries. After introducing the topic, the paper focuses on each of the three country contexts, illustrating examples of FLUIS.