Principle 4 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development states: "In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it." Simple words perhaps, but not so simple a task. One of the key challenges of sustainable development — and a reason why it is so difficult to achieve — is that so many interrelated, complex factors need to be taken into account. "Environmental protection" itself means preserving and defending. But it also implies supervision, conservation, and good management.

It's a daunting challenge, but one IDRC had accepted from its inception, and remains committed to. For instance, it is the sole focus of one of its three program areas — Environment and Natural Resource Management. It is also a thread linking many other IDRC activities, from research to improve the health of populations to combatting poverty.

The examples that follow show how, in keeping with the complexity of the challenge, IDRC applies a multidisciplinary approach and employs a variety of ways of doing and supporting research. The goal: to find the elusive win–win solutions where knowledge, technology, and policy can help to solve, or at least ameliorate environmental problems, while providing populations with equitable access to the resources they need.

Improving Life on the Edge

"The priority in combating desertification should be the implementation of preventive measures ... In combating desertification and drought, the participation of local communities, rural organizations, national Governments, non-governmental organizations and international and regional organizations is essential." Agenda 21: Chapter 12. Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Combatting Desertification and Drought (1992)

"IDRC will look at desertification. ... IDRC will provide support for research into community management of fragile ecosystems, efforts to regenerate degraded land resources, and water management." Meeting the Global Challenge: Themes and Programs of the International Development Research Centre (1993)

"IDRC will continue to support research on local water-demand management and on the fair and equitable use of shared resources. Other research interests include land degradation, soil productivity ... strategies for coping with the effects of climate change and for managing ecosystems to improve human health." Corporate Strategy and Program Framework, 2000–2005 (2000)

"Turning adversity into opportunity" is the slogan of the Desert Margins Program, a major collaborative initiative developed by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), headquartered in Andhra Pradesh, India, and funded by IDRC and a consortium of other donors. The adversity: desertification, acknowledged as a major problem at the Earth Summit. More than 120 countries are now signatories to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which came into force late in 1996. The opportunity? To develop sustainable land and natural resource management practices for the desert margins of sub-Saharan Africa, those lands with barely enough rainfall to support natural vegetation, let alone grow crops. The ultimate goal is to increase food security and reduce poverty by halting or reversing desert encroachment.

From the start, the program — through which multidisciplinary teams of scientists work on targeted issues in close association with national, regional, and international programs, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and local communities — has blended natural sciences and socioeconomic research. It has also tapped the deep pool of knowledge held by farmers and nomads who, over millennia, have fine-tuned their survival to the vagaries of these lands. IDRC supported national activities in three of the nine participating countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Kenya. One of the products from work with pastoralists in the deserts of northern Kenya is Indigenous Knowledge: A Resource Kit for Sustainable Development Researchers in Dryland Africa, which outlines participatory methods of documenting indigenous knowledge.

Harbingers of Overuse

"Hence, the proper management of mountain resources and socioeconomic development of the people deserve immediate attention." Agenda 21: Chapter 13. Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Sustainable Mountain Development (1992)

"IDRC will look at fragile highlands. ... IDRC will help identify policy options for increasing food security and reducing environmental degradation." Meeting the Global Challenge: Themes and Programs of the International Development Research Centre (1993)

"IDRC will support research to improve the lives of poor and marginalized groups living mainly in the uplands and coastal areas. Research will look at better ways to manage the fragile resource base ...." Corporate Strategy and Program Framework, 2000–2005 (2000)

Mountains are the planet's "canary in the coal mine," says Dr Hans Schreier of the Institute for Resources and Environment (IRE) at the University of British Columbia: what happens in the mountains is an early indication of what's in store for the entire planet. This is particularly true for water, which most often originates in the mountains. Land use activities and climate change in the highlands can also affect large populations in the lowlands. This is certainly the case for the Hindu Kush-Himalaya watershed: more than 10 years of research has shown that land use in the Jhikhu River valley in Nepal is among the most intensive in the world.

Led by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) , with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and IDRC support, the study showed that the pressure on natural resources can be reduced — and livelihoods improved — with the introduction of low cost irrigation, water-harvesting techniques, and improved soil fertility management. Native nitrogen-fixing fodder trees have proven successful in stabilizing and improving degraded lands and reducing soil erosion. Considerable success has also been achieved in improving drinking water supplies and creating awareness of the health hazards associated with the excessive use of pesticides. The research is continuing to test strategies for community and farm-based prevention and rehabilitation.

This project is one of eight IDRC-sponsored watershed studies — four in the Himalayas and four in the Andes — participating in a comparative project, which made extensive use of research collaboration via the Internet. In early 2002, IRE produced a hypermedia CD-ROM for each watershed, in addition to a comparative CD-ROM: a fitting contribution to the International Year of the Mountains. Developed in collaboration with national teams and with IDRC support, the CD-ROMs will improve links between the researchers and facilitate distance learning.

Seeding Solutions

"Urgent and decisive action is needed to conserve and maintain genes, species and ecosystems, with a view to the sustainable management and use of biological resources." Agenda 21: Chapter 15. Conservation of Biological Diversity (1992)

"IDRC will help provide a better understanding of the forces causing biodiversity loss ...; explore the incentives needed to encourage people to maintain biodiversity; increase the sustainable use of natural resources by local communities ...." Meeting the Global Challenge: Themes and Programs of the International Development Research Centre (1993)

"IDRC will support research to protect local access and rights to biodiversity, including medicinal plants." Corporate Strategy and Program Framework, 2000–2005 (2000)

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed at the Earth Summit in June 1992, recognized the rich value of living organisms. It also underscored that human survival and development depend upon maintaining and preserving biodiversity on the planet. It was thus fitting that, almost 10 years later, in November 2001, IDRC launched the second publication of the Crucible Group at the Seventh Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the CBD in Montreal. Seeding Solutions, Volume 2: Options for National Laws Governing Control Over Genetic Resources and Biological Innovations was the culmination of years of discussion and debate by a wide range of individuals from more than 20 countries who shared a common concern for the conservation and enhancement of plant genetic resources.

Crucible Group II — a large multidisciplinary, multinational forum of people convened in 1998 — undertook to identify and critically assess the range of practical legal policy options open to national policymakers in the areas of domestic access to genetic resources and intellectual property laws. The Crucible process itself was important: it established that valuable consensus is possible, even in a group representing radically diverse perspectives. A wide range of organizations, including IDRC, supported the Crucible Group.

Work is continuing to help countries in the South acquire the analytical and technical capacity to formulate national laws on genetic resources. This is particularly urgent as less developed countries are required by the World Trade Organization's Trade Related Intellectual Property Systems to formulate national laws by the end of 2005. IDRC and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) are supporting the establishment of the Genetic Resource Policy Initiative (GRPI), to be launched in mid-2002. A collaborative multidonor organization based at IPGRI in Rome, GRPI will institutionalize the work of the Crucible Group into a more independent, longer term initiative.

Meeting Water Demand

"The widespread scarcity, gradual destruction and aggravated pollution of freshwater resources in many world regions ... demand integrated water resources planning and management." Agenda 21: Chapter 18. Protection of the Quality and Supply of Freshwater Resources: Application of Integrated Approaches to the Development, Management, and Uses of Water Resources (1992)

"Water resources management will focus on developing strategies to enhance food production, nutrition, and employment for aquatic resources in ways that are environmentally sustainable and socially equitable." Meeting the Global Challenge: Themes and Programs of the International Development Research Centre (1993)

"IDRC will support research on water management in North Africa and the Middle East." Corporate Strategy and Program Framework, 2000–2005 (2000)

Eglal Rached, Director of IDRC's Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa, writes that "There is a sad irony to the paradox that while the Middle East and North Africa is the most water-scarce area in the work, most of its people work in agriculture — the single heaviest consumer of fresh water on the globe."

Balancing demand and supply in the region will only become more difficult and costly – economically and environmentally — unless conventional supply-oriented approaches are replaced with demand management. This means reducing waste and making every drop serve more purposes, more efficiently. That's the conclusion reached by three decades of IDRC-supported water research around the globe.

This approach is also the thrust of the Centre-supported Water Demand Management Forum (WDMF), based in Cairo, Egypt. The forum's goals are to increase awareness of decision-makers to water demand management options and promote feasible alternatives to expensive supply options. It also facilitates networking among decision-makers, researchers, donors, and other development practitioners. The WDMF is currently documenting successful examples of activities in four main areas: wastewater reuse and management; water valuation; public–private partnerships; and decentralized water management. The goal is to help decision-makers formulate appropriate water demand management policies and programs.

Networking and communication through the forum are extensive. For example, in March 2002, 128 participants from eight countries of the Middle East and North Africa attended a Forum on Wastewater Reuse in Rabat, Morocco, co-sponsored by IDRC, CIDA, the United Nations Development Programme's Special Unit for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, and the United States Agency for International Development. A second forum, on water valuation, will be held in Lebanon at the end of June 2002.

Working Models of Sustainable Development

Building on Canada's pioneering Model Forest Network, Canada launched the International Model Forest Program at the Earth Summit. Following a 3-year start-up phase at the Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada, the International Model Forest Network Secretariat (IMFNS) moved to IDRC. It has since grown from an initial 3 sites in 2 countries outside Canada to 19 sites either established or under development in 11 countries.

At the heart of model forests are people's relationships with the forest ecosystem. The model forests' trademarks include working on a large scale, with local partners, to define sustainability in locally relevant terms. Specific actions are then taken collaboratively to improve forest resource planning and management. In Chile, for example, various groups disputed and overexploited the resources of the Chiloé archipelago, one of the most biodiverse areas in Latin America and home to many endangered species. When a model forest was established in 1998, a number of traditionally antagonistic groups collaborated, leading to an atmosphere of trust and better understanding of individual interests. Model forest partners also gained a better appreciation of the issues at stake when forest resources are being managed for multiple purposes — and for the benefit of current and future generations. The partnership has now supported some 50 community projects.

Model forests have also been successful at engaging other institutions to support their work. For instance, the Global Environment Facility unit of the United Nations Development Programme is funding a large 4-year project on Chiloé island that promotes local participation in biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management. And the Government of Japan has supported the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to lead in developing model forests in four Southeast Asian countries.

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