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The policy background

Many countries have made environmental conservation an integral feature of their development plans and have evolved the strategies, polices and legislation necessary for implementation. Policy relies mainly on command-and-control instruments, though economic incentives are becoming more widely used as economies mature and as the private sector demonstrates increasing sensitivity towards the environmental concerns of citizens. In most of Asia, business associations and private industry groups in high- and low-income countries have shown an increasing willingness to support environmental charters. In the Pacific sub-region, however, little progress has been made in bringing economic stakeholders into the dialogue on environment policy. Across the region, NGOs perform key roles in protecting the environment, especially through awareness-raising.

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