Economic liberalisation, improved transport and communication systems, and the global demand for energy, minerals and agricultural commodities have fostered natural resource investment in many lower- and middle-income countries.

The Challenges of Environmental Mainstreaming’ is an initial synthesis of IIED’s work with partners in 13 developing countries. It reviews the rapidly changing context and challenges to environmental mainstreaming, discusses what it takes to achieve effective mainstreaming, and provides a roadmap for selecting operational methods and tools. It explores the current emphasis on getting environmental issues reflected in key government processes – notably development plans, poverty reduction strategies and national budgets.

Designed for both experienced and new trainers who have an interest in training others in the use of participatory methods, whether they are researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, villagers or trainers.

Despite widely voiced concerns about some of the negative implications of protected areas, and growing pressures to ensure that they fulfil social as well as ecological objectives, no standard methods exist to assess social impacts.

Today’s food is well travelled. A pack of green beans in a Northern supermarket may have journeyed 6000 miles, or 60. But while food miles loom large in our carbon-aware times, transporting it counts for less than you might think. This pocketbook delves into the realities of the produce trade between Africa and the UK, examining both sides of the equation in search of a diet that is ethically, as well as nutritionally, balanced.

 This special issue focuses on recent approaches to climate change adaptation which
are community-based and participatory. It highlights innovative participatory methods to help communities analyse the causes and effects of climate change, integrate scientific and community knowledge, and plan appropriate adaptation measures. Although CBA is a relatively new field, lessons and challenges are beginning to emerge, including the need to bring together disaster risk reduction, livelihoods, and climate change adaptation work, issues around the type and quality of participation in CBA, and the need for policies and institutions that support it.

Bwindi Impenetrable and Mgahinga Gorilla National Parks are extremely important biodiversity areas due to their populations of the highly endangered mountain gorilla. Gazettement of the parks in 1991 caused high levels of conflict and resistance from the surrounding communities, seriously threatening the ability of the protected area authority to manage the parks.

This report explores how international oil and gas companies can contribute to tackling energy poverty in the regions where they operate. Successful initiatives need to be developed in partnership with other actors (government, donors, international NGO’s, researchers and civil society). Energy poverty cannot be addressed in isolation from other development challenges, including general poverty alleviation; provision of clean water; agricultural development; and the provision of education and health services. A case study on Nigeria highlights the dilemmas facing some countries

Approximately 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by land-use change and, in particular, the destruction of tropical forests. Reducing land-use change and forest degradation has been shown as a cost-effective way of slowing carbon emissions compared to other mitigation strategies such as curbing emissions from power stations.

This book takes another look at the costs of adapting to climate change. The estimates for 2030 used by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are likely to be substantial under-estimates.

This report reviews the potential of developing payments for catchment protection services in the upper Ga-Selati sub-catchment and the Sabie Sand catchment.

This multimedia publication is aimed at policy makers, students, civil society groups, and development communication specialists. The book describes the way co-inquirers worked together in the drylands of Southern India to produce social and ecological knowledge for sustainability, autonomy and equity. Their collective and empowering experience is vividly captured by marginalised women farmers who are also village level film makers - The Community Media Trust of the Deccan Development Society (DDS). Twelve videos make up the four DVD set accompanying the publication.

This book brings together a series of papers identifying opportunities for Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) to attract Foreign direct investment (FDI) that is associated with positive contributions to sustainable development and good corporate social responsibility practices. It points to a number of opportunities for IPAs in attracting FDI with good CSR practices and highlights key leverage points and practical tools to achieve this. It is intended to provide a primer for investment promotion agencies and pointers for approaches that could be deployed in the future.

The human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia, where over 60 per cent of the world's population, around four billion people, live. This, the fifth report from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, asks will global warming send Asia and the Pacific 'Up in Smoke'?

Ecosystem services have been disturbed to such an extent that, unless remedial action is taken urgently, reaching both the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) target of slowing biodiversity loss by 2010 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 could prove impossible (MA, 2005a). This report looks at the reasons behind this crisis, pinpointing governance as the crucial factor to get right.