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Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are a major threat to marine, freshwater and terrestrial biodiversity of the Pacific islands and to the people there that depend on biodiversity for their livelihoods. Invasive species are implicated in the decline of hundreds of species in the region. Participating Pacific states and the executing agency SPREP (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme) recognised the need to implement the regional IAS strategy, “Guidelines for Invasive Species Management in the Pacific. A Pacific strategy for managing pests, weeds and other invasive species” (hereafter, the Guidelines) and develop and implement national IAS plans and strategies. The Guidelines were originally identified as a product under this project, but were completed in 2009 prior to writing this proposal. As envisaged during the PIF process the proposed project contributes to the implementation of the Guidelines, each country’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and helps each to meet its responsibilities under Article 8 (h) of the CBD and several other international agreements addressing IAS. The three main components (not including components related to project management) of the proposed project are designed to capture outcomes and outputs described in the Project Identification Form but they have been reorganized to follow the structure of the Guidelines.

This publication draws on a wealth of existing and contemporary research that has been collated and analysed in the process of developing a conceptual framework for informing the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) research project on the relationship between trade and food security. In addition to setting out and explaining the framework, it introduces a range of related contemporary debates. These debates were reviewed in a set of commissioned papers presented at an Expert Consultation on “Trade and Food Security: conceptualizing the Linkages” held in Rome on 11 and 12 July 2002, upon which many of the chapters in this publication are based.

On 11 November 2014, a remarkable event occurred. President Barack Obama of the United States and President Xi Jinping of China announced a bilateral agreement to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause global warming by their respective nations. On 12 December 2015, a year and a month later, representatives of 195 countries attending the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Paris, France, announced the Paris Climate Agreement. The goal of the Paris Climate Agreement is to limit the future emission of GHGs such that the rise in global mean surface temperature will be no more than 1.5 °C (target) or 2.0 °C (upper limit) above the pre-industrial level. The Paris Climate Agreement utilizes an approach for reducing the emissions of GHGs that is distinctly different than earlier efforts. The approach for Paris consists of a series of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), submitted by the world’s nations, reflecting either a firm commitment (unconditional INDCs) or a plan contingent on financial and/or technological support (conditional INDCs). The Obama–Xi announcement was instrumental in the framing of the Paris Climate Agreement. The INDCs submitted by the USA and China were built closely upon the November 2014 bilateral announcement. China and the USA rank number one and two, respectively, in terms of national emission of GHGs. Practically speaking, unified global action to combat global warming required these two nations to get on the same page.

Large-scale environmental problems have become prominent byproducts of the interactions between human activities and the biophysical settings in which they occur. Some of these problems, such as the destruction of tropical forests, arise in areas within the jurisdiction of individual states but have consequences (e.g., biodiversity loss, climate change) that are regional to global in scope. Other problems, including the seasonal thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer, occur in areas that lie beyond the jurisdiction of nation states. Still others, like marine dead zones, originate in areas within the jurisdiction of individual states but can spread and have impacts on areas outside these jurisdictional boundaries. In all these cases, efforts to come to terms with the relevant problems require international (often global) responses that call for transboundary cooperation and, more often than not, eventuate in the development of regulatory arrangements designed to limit or even prohibit the human actions that give rise to the problems.

Protected natural areas deserve the combination of nature uniqueness and conservation willing. The foundation stone for National Parks is the awareness of that unique character—actual or presumed, most times based on non-tangible properties or singularities —grown in some social sectors, followed by the aim of preserving particular biota, singular ecosystems or entire landscapes. This was the case for the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park. Like other protected areas in alpine mountains, its apparent wilderness was a key factor in declaring it National Park, in 1955. The rough relief carved in the Maladeta granodiorite batholith, including rocky crests and summits, steep slopes and glacial valley bottoms, had for long grabbed attention. The abundance of alpine lakes and other water-related systems must have been particularly attractive, in comparison with other Iberian mountains, and even with other Pyrenean areas.

This edited volume is part of a project funded under the Asian Development Bank’s Research and Development Technical Assistances (TAs): TA 7907 on Drivers of Poverty Reduction in Asia and the Pacific and TA 8239 on Addressing Knowledge and Statistical Gaps in Relation to Poverty Reduction, Inequality, and Inclusive Growth.

This book presents the most recent results of a research started at the end of 2011 in Africa South of the Sahara and then extended to the whole tropics. The focus of our work is climate planning. With this term, we mean all those plans to limit climate change (mitigation and sustainable action plans), to protect human settlements against its impacts (emergency, risk reduction, adaptation plans, and resilience strategies) and to pursue both the medium-term (municipal development plans) and long-term (comprehensive, general, and master plans) aims.