Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) is a policy instrument meant to mitigate climate change while also achieving poverty reduction in tropical countries. It has garnered critics for homogenising environmental and development governance and for ignoring how similar efforts have tended to exacerbate gender inequalities. Nonetheless, regarding such schemes as inevitable, some feminists argue for requirements that include women's empowerment and participation.

Protected area governance has witnessed a shift from a strict-nature conservation model towards a seemingly more participatory approach in Nepal. Despite some progress, top-down and non-deliberative processes characterise policy making in protected area. However, many civil society actors have increasingly challenged the government to provide space for local people in decision making so that their rights to natural resources are considered.

Tourism was identified in the late 1980s as a sector with major potential for driving economic development in Zanzibar and has since grown enormously from roughly 19,000 annual visitors in 1985 to well over 200,000 by 2007. Although tourism is now one of the most important sectors of the economy, contributing roughly 25% to GDP, the impact of tourism on poverty reduction and the environment has been decidedly mixed. The rapid expansion of tourist infrastructure on the coast, combined with a population growth rate of over 3%, has put great pressure on coastal areas.

India is the first country to provide substantial rights to farmers and registration of their varieties for IPR under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Act. Obviously, in the initial years the filing of applications was slow and inconsistent, and it was restricted to few crop species.

Two categories of evolutionary challenges result from escalating human impacts on the planet. The first arises from cancers, pathogens and pests that evolve too quickly, and the second from the inability of many valued species to adapt quickly enough. Applied evolutionary biology provides a suite of strategies to address these global challenges that threaten human health, food security, and biodiversity.