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Although it is widely acknowledged that forests provide critical ecosystem services for human survival and well-being, in the Asia-Pacific region forests are being converted to other land uses and degraded at alarming rates. One underlying factor for this destruction of forests is market failure. Forests are cleared for other land uses or degraded...

Today, 54% of the world’s population live in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 66% by 2050. Major cities and municipalities in the region rely either fully or partially on groundwater. Four highly relevant Asian cities (Bangkok, Bandung, Ho Chi Minh and Lahore) were selected which bear groundwater dependency in the range of...

This paper provides an overview of Thailand's national policy on municipal solid waste (MSW) management and recycling, which is aligned to the country's sufficiency economic policy and the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle). It summarizes the current actual waste management and recycling scenario in the country, provides examples of local initiatives to...

Burning is the most simple and cheap method for small-scale farmers to manage plant residue. This practice does prvide immediate benefits to farmers, but the wider immediate and long-term negative impacts are much larger. The objective of this study is to elaborate an alternative model for environmental and economically sound plant residue...

The purpose of this review paper is to demonstrate the best practice worldwide in attempting to link sustainable development planning at all levels with environmental performance. It also reviews the progress to date in the GMS with both sustainable development planning and environmental performance assessment and the need for increased linkage.

The focus of the Urban Environmental Management Project of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in 2005-2007 was on the opportunities and barriers for integration of global environmental concerns into local planning and management, taking greenhouse gas emission reduction as a distant but ultimate goal. Accordingly, the project builds...