Alongside their contribution to biodiversity conservation, protected and conserved areas are increasingly recognised as important sources of a wide range of benefits, or ecosystem services, that humans gain from intact, natural ecosystems.

Forests and trees play a vital role in meeting the world's increasing demand for water and need to be managed for water-related ecosystem services, according to a new guide co-published by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), the Joint Research Centre of the European

Unlocking Nature-Smart Development: An Approach Paper on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is part of a series of papers by the World Bank Group that outlines the development challenges and opportunities associated with blue and green biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Agriculture is the largest single source of environmental degradation, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 70% of freshwater use and 80% of land conversion: it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss (Foley et al. 2011, 2005; IPBES 2019; Willett et al. 2019).

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can help cities address urgent and fundamental environmental challenges by bringing ecosystems services back into cities and rebalancing cities’ relationships with their surrounding areas.

Shifting cultivation is commonly perceived as a primitive agricultural practice, economically unviable and a cause of tropical deforestation and environmental degradation.

The Economic Case for Nature is part of a series of papers by the World Bank that lays out the economic rationale for investing in nature and recognizes how economies rely on nature for services that are largely underpriced.

This report provides an overview of financial transaction mechanisms and related enabling frameworks that aim to protect and restore nature. The true value of the benefits that humans gain from nature is usually not reflected in economic transactions.

Nature underpins all economic activities and human well-being. It is the world’s most important asset. Yet humanity is destroying biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, posing significant but often overlooked risks to the economy, the financial sector and the well-being of current and future generations.

Arctic wetlands play a number of crucial environmental roles, but they continue to be degraded and lost, with potentially dire global consequences. This report offers insights and identifies knowledge gaps, with the aim of supporting sustainable development and resilience in these areas.

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