The Albertine Rift is one of the most biodiverse and ecologically unique regions of Africa.

Sadly it has also been the site of some of the world's most violent conflicts in recent history. This turbulent context can pose a range of risks and opportunities to conservationists who are managing resources that can be both a seed of conflict and foundation for peace-building.

With the financial support of the MacArthur Foundation and the technical support of the Conservation Development Centre, IISD has been working with the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere) International in Uganda to better understand the context in which they operate and apply a conflict lens to their work. This work led to the development of the "Conflict-Sensitive Conservation Practitioners' Manual," which provides an analytical and decision-making framework to help conservationists understand and address natural resource-based conflict, and integrate this understanding into conservation programming and implementation. In so doing, conservationists can avoid exacerbating conflict and maximize opportunities for peace-building.

The Trade Knowledge Network (TKN) is a global collaboration of research institutions across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas that share the goal of promoting sustainable development through supportive trade and investment policies.

Coordinated since 1998 by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the TKN can draw on a decade of experience in strengthening research capacities in developing countries and generating cutting-edge policy analysis that addresses the impacts of trade and investment on sustainable development.

This short document is a summary of a November 2008 report.

Pimachiowin Aki ("the land that gives life," in Ojibwe) is a non-profit corporation striving to achieve international recognition for an Anishinabe cultural landscape as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site (Province of Manitoba, 2007). This landscape consists of 40,000 km2 of intact natural environments located across Eastern Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario. A detailed document outlining the site's cultural and natural attributes, potential development paths and strategies for its preservation must be devised and presented as part of the nomination process for World Heritage inscription.

This report estimates the economic value of the ecosystem services provided by natural environments to people, which will be useful background for the nomination document. In general, ecosystem services are made up of the many natural processes by which ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life. Of course, there are many aspects of the World Heritage Project (WHP) area, for example spiritual and cultural aspects, that cannot be valued in economic terms. However, other ecosystem services do indeed have economic value, such as the sequestration of carbon, the preservation of endangered species and the provision of pure water and air. Estimating the monetary value of these helps demonstrate that the value of the area in its current state is far higher than just the current level of economic activity would suggest.

The full report is also available for download.