A substantial proportion of the population in the area concerned depends on fuel-wood as its major source of fuel. As a result, forests around towns — as in the case of Upper Pokhara Valley — are undergoing degradation. Private forestry could be an attractive option to control or even to reverse this process. Besides providing employment and income opportunities to fanners, this would help to alleviate pressure on commonland forests and control erosion.

This paper presents a review of the basic concepts underlying the economic evaluation of forest conservation benefits, summarizes major documented case-studies in which attempts have been made to apply valuation methods to forest-conserving land-uses, and discusses the applicability of the methods used according to the different types of benefit.

NGOs have started to feature prominently in the political landscape of many industrialized as well as developing nations, and their roles in global environmental governance are being increasingly recognized by governmental policymakers. The 1993 gathering at the Earth Summit in Rio, where NGOs were accorded a seat at the negotiating tables alongside of government representatives, bears testimony to this fact. Besides involving themselves in environmental policy negotiations, however, NGOs have used other strategies and tactics to influence global environmental policy decision-making.

The case of Western Samoa is used to challenge the tendency in the recent literature to polarize the issue of tropical deforestation as caused by either political economic forces or increasing human demands. While it is recognized that political economic forces must be changed in many cases to make just and sustainable use of the forest possible, the case of Western Samoa is used to highlight the difficult challenge of conserving tropical forests and their biodiversity even under customary land-tenure and local control of forest resources.

A buffer zone for RCNP is considered an effective means to mitigate and contain the Park–local people conflict. Its creation adjacent to the National Park will enable local people to engage in multiple-use activities that will provide benefits not only to themselves but protect the Park's integrity as well. Except for the much-degraded Barandabar Forest, the other small parcels of forest that exist around the Royal Chitwan National Park are highly inadequate to provide additional wildlife protection and environmental conservation. RCNP does not have any area that, to date, is exclusively designated as a buffer zone. The Barandabar Forest is still envisaged as an additional protection to the Park, although continual grazing, lopping of branches and twigs from trees, and timber extraction, by the local people, have extensively diminished its biological values.

Airbone particulate samples were collected during 1989 in the northern Negev desert, Israel, using two Sierra ultra-high-volume dust samplers with cascade impactors on glass-fibre filters. A total of 12 elements were detected, of which only eight were present in relatively high concentrations, as was indicated by using an x-ray spectra XL-LINK system. During the study period, the mean annual airborne concentration was 102 μg·m−3, with a minimum and maximum concentration of 0.17 and 1.376 μg·m−3 per 12 hours, respectively. Eight elements (A1, Si, Ca, S, K, Cl, Fe, and Ti) were found in relatively high concentrations.

Hunter ‘crippling losses’, or unretrieved kill, probably range from 20% to 40% of all ducks hit by gunfire. However, this major mortality factor in duck populations has been largely ignored by waterfowl policymakers and managers. An economic analysis of ‘crippling losses’ for prairie Canada and the USA was conducted, based on 1992 harvest statistics. The analysis is based on current levels of spending on habitat programmes designed to bolster declining North American duck populations, with reference to the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.