The ever-increasing human population and high demand for natural resources have resulted in declining species and ecosystems that justify the exploration of opportunities for sustainable management options. This is particularly validated in areas of the planet that are prone to extreme climatic conditions where unsustainable utilization and management is common practice. Written by young and energetic scientists, this book offers a multidisciplinary perspective that integrates environmental, sanitation and social sciences. It demonstrates the crucial importance of shaping outcomes and development. It demonstrates that the struggle to achieve sustainable natural resources management and its subsequent utilization can be done; it is possible through the combined efforts and commitment of individuals, communities and institutions with complimentary roles. In our view, this book provides a significant contribution towards systematically evaluating and improving measures of policy and management intended to regulate the exploitation of natural resources. The ideas presented in this book provide resource managers and researchers (whether government, community or the private individual) with a systematic means of resource utilization and management.

The origin of rural poverty is complex and multidimensional. Some aspects of this origin include culture, climate, gender, markets, and public policy. Similarly, the rural poor population is quite diverse both in the problems they face and the possible solutions to those problems. This book examines nature and characteristics of rural poverty and how it develops, its persistence, and how it has caused destruction to environmental resources. The quest for global stability and peace has placed poverty issues at the centre of deliberation. In the year 2000, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) directly addressed the problem of poverty and its alleviation. Natural resources degradation is usually understood in terms of over use of scarce non-renewable and potentially renewable resources. It entails damage or destruction of key natural resourcessuch as soils and forestsand the subsequent production of wastes. Low-income rural dwellers have much lower levels of consumption than middle and upper income groups, but occupy much more land per person than middle and upper income groups. Yet, low income groups consume less food and generally have diets that are less energy and land intensive than higher income groups. However, low income populations deplete natural resources for settlements, farming and extraction of resources for many urban dwellers. This book has created the linkages between poverty in rural areas and environmental resources degradation. It draws conclusions from examples from all over the world and emphasises on a case study in rural Ghana. This book is recommended for academicians, rural development professionals, environmentalists and the general public.

The goal of an adaptive management approach is to reduce uncertainty over time by systematically incorporating learning into management. Managers of natural resources are required to design their actions as scientific experiments, monitor the outcomes, and adjust management direction in light of what the experiments revealed. This is a modern management concept that facilitates the achievement of resource management objectives. This book has enumerated cases of adaptive management elements, applications and experiments to test the efficacy of the concept in addressing resource management problems. The complexity of the conditions in which the natural resources occur (ie: biophysical coupled with social, political and economic) -- warrant the application of natural resources. In the era of change in the economy, climate, population and lifestyles, the utilisers of the renewable natural resources are taken more than the supply. It is therefore necessary to apply the concept in order to ensure sustainability and efficient utilisation. This book serves as a source of knowledge and experiences from renowned practitioners in the sector of entomology, zoology, fisheries, forestry and so on. This book is recommended for natural resource managers, wildlife managers, forest managers, fishery managers, graduates and under-graduate students. For the effective management of the forest, wildlife and fishery resources, the application of adaptive management is necessary.