Agricultural systems are no longer evaluated solely on the basis of the food they provide, but also on their capacity to limit impacts on the environment, such as soil conservation, water quality and biodiversity conservation, as well as their contribution to mitigating and adapting to climate change. In order to cope with these multiple service functions, they must internalize the costs and benefits of their environmental impact. Payments for ecosystem services are hoped to encourage and ...

Solving the problem of hunger and malnutrition, producing and guaranteeing access to healthy food, preserving the environment, valuing local cultures and ensuring citizen participation are some of the challenges that permeate the dynamics of food systems. From different scales and perspectives of analysis, the book addresses the role of Latin American public policies and actions in the configuration of healthy and sustainable food systems.

Public and media interest in the climate change issue has increased exponentially in recent years. Climate change, or "global warming," is a complex problem with far-reaching social and economic impacts. Climate Change in the 21st Century brings together all the major aspects of global warming to give a state of the art description of our collective understanding of this phenomenon and what can be done to counteract it on both the local and global scale. Stewart Cohen and Melissa Waddell e...

Ecological Economics from the Ground Up takes a unique and much-needed bottom-up approach to teaching ecological economics and political ecology, using case studies that focus on a wide range of internationally relevant topics, to teach the principles, concepts, methods and tools of these fields, which are seen as increasingly important in the context of the current triple social, economic and environmental crisis.This book provides learning materials which are grounded in...

Human well-being relies critically on ecosystem services provided by nature. Examples include water and air quality regulation, nutrient cycling and decomposition, plant pollination and flood control, all of which are dependent on biodiversity. They are predominantly public goods with limited or no markets and do not command any price in the conventional economic system, so their loss is often not detected and continues unaddressed and unabated. This in turn not only impacts human well-bei...

This book evaluates the history, the present and the future of water markets on 5 continents, beginning with the institutional underpinnings of water markets and factors influencing transaction costs. The book examines markets in seven countries and three different U.S. states, ranging from village-level water markets in Oman to basin wide formal water markets in Australia's Murray-Darling River basin.Introductory chapters on the background of water markets and on transaction costs...

Ecosystem Services: Global Issues, Local Practices covers scientific input, socioeconomic considerations, and governance issues on ecosystem services. This book provides hands-on transdisciplinary reflections by administrators and sector representatives involved in the ecosystem service community. Ecosystem Services develops shared approaches and scientific methods to achieve knowledge-based sustainable planning and management of ecosystem services. Professionals engaged in ecosystem servi...

The ecosystem services (ES) framework opens the door to common ground between ecology science and economics in facing the challenge of planetary sustainability. Application of the available methodologies and instruments reveals both the high potential and the controversies related to this new socio-ecological management approach. Feeding on the research, reviews and testimonies presented at the XV International Summer School on Environment (ISSE) of the University of Girona (2015), this pr...

This book provides a timely analysis and assessment of the potential of organic agriculture (OA) for rural development and the improvement of livelihoods. It focuses on smallholders in developing countries and in countries of economic transition, but there is also coverage of and comparisons with developed countries. It covers market-oriented approaches and challenges for OA as part of high value chains and as an agro-ecologically based development for improving food security. It demonstra...

As the impacts of anthropogenic activities increase in both magnitude and extent, biodiversity is coming under increasing pressure. Scientists and policy makers are frequently hampered by a lack of information on biological systems, particularly information relating to long-term trends. Such information is crucial to developing an understanding as to how biodiversity may respond to global environmental change. Knowledge gaps make it very difficult to develop effective policies and legislat...

Climate change and variability has become the primary environmental concern of the 21st Century. The potential impacts and mitigation of climate change need to be analyzed within the context of sustainable development. Primer on Climate Change and Sustainable Development presents a condensed and accessible review of the latest state-of-the-art assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The book begins with a foreword from the chair of the IPCC. Our current knowledge of t...

Its wise and sensitive approach to working with local people will be relevant in situations throughout the world.'ECOS'The numerous diagrams, tables of data, information flow charts, fieldwork sketches etc. give a great vibrancy to the work... It deserves a wide readership.'TEG NewsWild or non-cultivated plants are crucial to the lives of a large portion of the world's population, providing low-cost building materials, fuel, food supplements, medicines, tools ...