Reprinted from Australian Family Physician Vol. 39, No. 10, october 2010
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010) 365, 2959–2971; doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0143.
Agricultural ecosystems provide humans with food, forage, bioenergy and pharmaceuticals and are essential to human wellbeing. These systems rely on ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems, including pollination, b...iological pest control, maintenance of soil structure and fertility, nutrient cycling and hydrological services. Preliminary assessments indicate that the value of these ecosystem services to agriculture is enormous and often underappreciated. Agroecosystems also produce a variety of ecosystem services, such as regulation of soil and water quality, carbon sequestration, support for biodiversity and cultural services. Depending on management practices, agriculture can also be the source of numerous disservices, including loss of wildlife habitat, nutrient runoff, sedimentation of waterways, greenhouse gas emissions, and pesticide poisoning of humans and non-target species. The tradeoffs that may occur between provisioning services and other ecosystem services and disservices should be evaluated in terms of spatial scale, temporal scale and reversibility. As more effective methods for valuing ecosystem services become available, the potential for ‘win–win’ scenarios increases. Under all scenarios, appropriate agricultural management practices are critical to realizing the benefits of ecosystem services and reducing disservices from agricultural activities.
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Gender-based Violence Area of Responsibility Working Group July 2010
Во Всемирном докладе о наркотиках содержится комплексная информация по положению в области незаконных наркотиков. В нем представлены подробные оценки и тенденци..., относящиеся к производству, незаконному обороту и потреблению на рынках опиума/героина, коки/кокаина, каннабиса и стимуляторов амфетаминового ряда. Масштабы проблемы наркотиков удается ограничивать, но существуют признаки того, что стабилизация, достигнутая за последние несколько лет, может подвергаться риску. Среди этих признаков – расширение культивирования в 2007 году опийного мака и коки, некоторый прирост потребления в развивающихся странах и в определенной степени развитие новых схем незаконного оборота. Также отмечалось обнадеживающее сокращение некоторых из основных потребительских рынков.
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The message contained in this publication is clear: countries need a
public health system that can respond to the deliberate release of
chemical and biological agents. Regrettable though this message may
be, the use of poison gas in the war between Iraq and the Islamic
Republic of Iran in the 19...80s, the recent anthrax incidents in the United
States, and the attack with sarin nerve agent, six years earlier, on the
Tokyo underground, illustrate why it is necessary to prepare.
Russian and Japanese version available:
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The aim of these Guidelines is to provide a framework for the conservation and sustainable use of plants in medicine. To do this, the Guidelines describe the various tasks that should be carried out to ensure that where medicinal plants are taken from the wild, they are taken on a basis that is sust...ainable.
The Guidelines conform to the principles of Caring for the Earth, prepared in partnership by IUCN, UNEP and WWF. Caring for the Earth extends the message and scope of the World Conservation Strategy to an ethic of sustainable living, and explains how to integrate conservation with development. Its message is particularly relevant to the issue of medicinal plants, which in many parts of the world are being seriously depleted due to over-exploitation and loss of habitats, resulting in a lack of essential medicines and so reducing options for the future.
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