ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of policy challenges, especially those arising from institutional and administrative issues. It considers the opportunities to provide incentives for sustainable land management, with special reference to recognition of the natural potential of Greater Central Asia's (GCA) vast land and water resources. GCA encompasses a vast mosaic of diverse and contrasting landscapes, plant and animal species, and human populations leading very different and unique lifestyles. Inhabitants of drylands in GCA have learnt, over millennia, to cope with permanent water scarcity, variable inter- and intra-seasonal rainfall and the recurrent risks of weather-related shocks. Projected climate shifts over GCA will present substantial challenges for primary producers, land managers and governments, with predicted declines in pastoral production and forage quality, increased livestock stress, more frequent droughts and high-intensity rainfall events, and increased land degradation and invasion by exotic pests and diseases. The GCA region has seen a change in both the concept and approaches to sustainable development.
