864 www.thelancet.com Vol 380 September 8, 2012 The recent Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, took place 20 years after the fi rst global conference on the environment and development and 10 years after the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Although much of the discussion focused on the environment, poverty reduction, and sustaining ec...

The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development represents a crucial opportunity to place environmental health at the forefront of the sustainable development agenda. Billions of people living in low- and middle-income countries continue to be afflicted by preventable diseases due to modifiable environmental exposures, causing needless suffering and perpetuating a cycle of pover...

there is widespread recognition today that we are living in a period of profound technological, social, economic and political change, and that this process of change is accelerating. yet, there is less certainty about the nature and meaning of these changes—whether they should be regulated or liberalized, supported or resisted— and the kind of world they are leading to. despite these uncertai...

Since 2001, the international „Global Change Research Community“ has propagated sustainability science as an interand transdisciplinary approach to the assignment of tasks related to sustainable development (Kates et al., 2001). It has afforded a new perspective on man-environment research and demands the inclusion of various branches of psychology, including environmental, health, community an...

In an attempt to find new solutions to problems resulting from top-down approaches to resource conservation and sustainability, community-based co-management over an entire wetland ecosystem (comprising beels, seasonal wetlands, rivers and streams), not just a single water body, recognizes that local communities should have direct control over the management, utilization and benefits of local r...

This article suggests that sexual and reproductive health and rights activists seeking to influence the post-2015 international development paradigm must work with sustainable development advocates concerned with a range of issues, including climate change, environmental issues, and food and water security, and that a way of building bridges with these communities is to demonstrate how sexual a...

Universities can contribute to the solutions of major challenges of the 21st century such as increasing environmental and socio-economic crises, inequalities of income and wealth and political instabilities by integrating the concept of sustainable development (SD) in research, organization, and by educating future decision makers. For instance, by integrating sustainability into the organizati...

Surrounded by the ocean, Taiwan has been increasingly developing coastal tourism projects. Concerns that negative impacts might be brought about by prosperous tourism have resulted in a recent focus on sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism involves policies that acknowledge the interdependences among the environment, the community, and the economy. The goal of sustainable tourism is to enhan...