This book is about conflicts between different stakeholder groups triggered by protected species that compete with humans for natural resources. It presents key ecological features of typical conflict species and mitigation strategies including technical mitigation and the design of participatory decision strategies involving relevant stakeholders. The book provides a European perspective, but also develops a global framework for the development of action plans.

This book is about conflicts between different stakeholder groups triggered by protected species that compete with humans for natural resources. It presents key ecological features of typical conflict species and mitigation strategies including technical mitigation and the design of participatory decision strategies involving relevant stakeholders. The book provides a European perspective, but also develops a global framework for the development of action plans.

Founded in 1991, the UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig- Halle was the first and only research institute in the Hermann von Helm- holtz Association of German Research Centres (HGF) to be exclusively dedicated to environmental research. Nowadays environmental research calls for interdisciplinary and applied approaches. At the UFZ, landscape- based research and environmental medicine are combined within interdisci- plinary research topics with social sciences and ecological economics. Economic and sociological environmental research at the UFZ is geared towards the model of sustainable development. Research is currently fo- cused at a local and a regional level. In order to ensure the transferability of regional solutions, work is pursued against the background and in awareness of global ecological interrelations as well as national and international con- ditions. In July 1998, the UFZ's Department of Ecological Economics and Envi- ronmental Sociology organised an international UFZ Summer School in Leipzig, Germany, dedicated to "Ecological Economics and Regional Sustainability - New Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Research?" Its focus was on the scientific exchange of ideas and experience related to regional sus- tainable development. The papers concentrated on innovative approaches towards bridging the gap between the natural and the social sciences in ap- plied research projects.

The papers in this volume illustrate the power of a scientific approach to ecological economics. Good science is a careful blend of theory and empirical testing. Theory without empirical grounding is of no practical value and random case studies without a theoretical context are not generalizable. The back and forth interplay between theory and evidence is apparent in the modeling exercises, evaluation studies, and policy design described in this book.
Watershed management has been chosen as a concrete focus to illuminate the facets of sustainability. It requires both a deep understanding of the natural processes in watersheds and of the societal processes which strongly depend on the natural watershed services. Furthermore, country-specific governance structures need to be considered to fine-tune the design of sustainable watershed policies in order to approach an interaction of society and nature, which ensures a long term use of water resources without adverse effects on society and the environment. This book has accepted the challenge to tackle the complex scientific underpinning of sustainable watershed analysis and management and will reveal basic ecological economic knowledge and methodological approaches in this prominent field of research.
Advances in the Economics of Environmental Resources is now available online at ScienceDirect full-text online of volumes 3 onwards.