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Urban environmental management is now one of the most crucial issues in Asia. This special edition of IRES on “Environmentally Sustainable City” gives broad perspectives of the urban issues including air, solid waste, water and ways to manage and foster cooperation among different stakeholders to suggest solutions to tackle these problems. EDITOR'S...

Asia is becoming the focus of global environmental concern. Of the world's 15 most polluted cities, 13 are in Asia; a third of Asians have no access to safe drinking water; and half of Asians have no access to adequate sanitation facilities.1 The rapid growth of two Asian giants, India and China, hints at a new world order coming, including a great...

Our study covered 25 villages in India, comparing the functioning of forest protection groups founded under state initiatives, including institutions under the Joint Forest Management program and community forest management systems formed by communities on a voluntary basis. The study revealed that the length of time for which the forest has been...

This paper addresses two prime concerns in ecotourism: defining ecotourism, and identifying indicators of ecotourism to facilitate operationalizing and evaluating the concept at a particular location. Based on a literature review, the following indicators are identified: impacts of ecotourism on the natural environment, its contribution to the...

The Kyoto Protocol, in its present form, is quantitatively and structurally totally inadequate to combat dangerous climate change. That is - to the authors of this paper - the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from three careful scientific studies on behalf of the Ministry of Environment of the German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, two...

International climate-control or environmental agreements have substantial impacts on international terms of trade. This would seem to suggest that international environmental coalitions cooperating on climate control could penalize non-cooperating countries through trade sanctions. However, alternative approaches exist in which cooperating nations...

Japan and Russia share interests in energy and climate, but currently cooperation between these neighboring countries is small. The Russian Far East seems like a logical ground for cooperation due to its proximity to Japan; however, it is difficult to establish whether this part of Russia could have a special role in Japanese plans. The lack of...

Despite major investments in rural development, urbanization is an irreversible trend. In the wake of rapid urbanization, international cooperation has become increasingly important to support the building of local capacity to address environmental concerns. Inter-city cooperation is a recent trend in this regard. This paper discusses the major...

Asia-Pacific Forum for Environment and Development (APFED) was established in 2001 by the Environment Congress for Asia and the Pacific (ECO ASIA), as a forum to address critical issues facing the Asia-Pacific region and to propose a model of equitable and sustainable development for the region. The 26 members of APFED were nominated by countries...

This study estimates the relative vulnerability of coastal districts of India using an integrated vulnerability index, which is defined as a function of the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of the districts to present and future climate risks. The study also ranks districts in terms of the likely number of human casualties due to...