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5Living with Risk: A global review of disaster reduction initiatives206should be identified, adapted and adopted. Inthis regard, a crucial element to enhance theconservation of nature to reduce vulnerabilityto disasters will be a true valuation of the ecologicalbalance.Environmental actions that reduce the vulnerabilityto disasters are seldom promoted in disasterreduction strategies and usually appearonly as a beneficial but unplanned side effect.But these activities will add to the options fordisaster reduction. Widely disseminatingexamples of their application to relevant actorswill encourage their use. Links between thedisaster and environment communities willbenefit from efforts made to use similar languageand approaches. Once tools and policiesare developed, capacities will need to be builtlocally in vulnerable regions to assess andrespond to environmental sources of vulnerabilityand use environmental tools to reducedisaster impacts. The World Conservation Union(IUCN) and the International Institute for SustainableDevelopment (IISD) have launched aninitiative to promote the use of environmentalmanagement to reduce the vulnerability ofcommunities to the growing threat of climatechange and climate-related disasters. TheStockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) wasalso involved. It serves as an important step totranslate the intuitive recognition of the protectivefunction of natural systems into usefulproducts for practitioners.Ecosystems are interdependent networks of organisms of anaturally defined eco-zone that function as a unit. Examples includenatural forests, wetlands, deserts, lakes and mountain regions. Theecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management ofland, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainableuse in an viable way. Thus, the application of the ecosystemapproach will help to reach abalance of the three main objectives of sustainabledevelopment: conservation, sustainable use and the fair and equitablesharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of resources.At present, environmental management toolsdo not systematically integrate trends in hazardsoccurrence and vulnerability. Similarly,disaster reduction practitioners do not systematicallyexplore the advantages of using environmentalmanagement tools and approaches.Some benefit might be drawn from the fact thatenvironmental tools were essentially developedLessons learnt from Hurricane Mitch“So far, relatively little is being channelledto attack the root causes of vulnerability,or to contribute to the nonstructuralmitigation of disastersthrough sound environmental management,integrating regional and integratedterritorial planning at a scale thatgoes beyond individual plots or localcommunities...For these issues to be addressed, there isa need to integrate risk managementinto environmental policy. How dohealthy ecosystem contribute to abatingrisk? What has been the environmentalimpact of land concentration, misuse ofwetlands and massive deforestation? …Finally, the long term environmentalsecurity of Central American societieswill depend to a significant degree tothe capacity for adaptive and cross-scaleIn Situ management of key bufferingecosystem functions. More appliedresearch is needed on the linkagesbetween local forest management practicesand their effect on hazard mitigation.There are encouraging initiatives whichseek to contribute to more securehuman livelihoods through empoweringlocal communities to manage risk locally.There is a growing interest in therestoration of key forest ecosystems,geared to providing local communitieswith more adapted livelihoods and asecure environment. Mitigation is bestapplied locally, but require adequatelinkages into the policy sphere to guaranteethe long term governance of theregion.The new quadrennial programme proposedby the IUCN, provides a keyframework in which to apply these ideasto the Central American context. Thepost disaster context is ripe for proposinginnovative approaches to disasterprevention and mitigation.”Source: P.Girot,IUCN/CEESP Mesoamerica, 2001