Local and regional response teams will always be the first line of defence against the destructive impact of natural disasters.

However, it is important to always balance the needs of local communities with the needs of nature and biodiversity conversation.

In Africa and many other parts of the world, we are seeing a gradual switch from centralized administrative management of natural resources to accountability of the basic communities.

IUCN has also made available several manuals containing tools aiming better to involve grass roots communities in desertification control activities.

Nauru

Nature

And you see that in nature.

For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?

La Nature.

The models for the balance of powers, the functioning of the judiciary, and local democracy must be inspired by European forms, which are closer to Georgian reality than Anglo Saxon models of the American type.

The heterocycle is found in nature.

Nature and man have lived in harmony.

And I think nature wants to express itself in the sense that we are nature, humans are of the universe.

2005 Mother Nature kicked our arse.

Paul MacCready on nature vs. humans

I feel it particularly when I'm out in nature.

Learning about the natural world is one thing learning from the natural world that's the switch.

That is why the link to governance and institutions at Rio 20 is just as important as the transition to a green economy markets are human constructs that require rules and institutions to guide not only their direction, but also their boundaries.

And so here we looked to nature.

Mike's Nature trick

Michael Pawlyn Using nature's genius in architecture

The gecko's a really great example of nanotechnology in nature.

Occurrence Titanium is always bonded to other elements in nature.

Examples All sorts of combinations may exist in nature.

This can be used to identify denitrification processes in nature.

Sometimes the tailored nature of viruses works in our favor.

In nature, water exists in liquid, solid, and gaseous states.

This one is Albert Einstein. Hi, Al! And anyway, he said, nature conformable to herself personifying nature as a female.

We took our clues from mother nature.

Nature is my greatest inspiration.

Janine Benyus shares nature's designs

Even Mother Nature has played along.

World Conservation Union

The World Conservation Union

But predicting how nature works is a very risky game.

So, my kind of hero for this in the natural world are these tropical frogs.

The authoritarian nature of the political regime is at the core of this fragility.

The park is managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Pure silicon crystals are very rarely found in nature.

Finally, as a scientist and as a person and now, as part of the TED community, I feel that I have better tools to go out to trees, to go out to forests, to go out to nature, to make new discoveries about nature and about humans' place in nature wherever we are and whomever you are.

It is a fact of nature human nature, at least that prudent and appropriate policies now will later seem excessive.

At the fifth World Parks Congress (WPC) in Durban, South Africa in 2003, the IUCN, together with the UNCCD, sought to integrate some recommendations concerning the participation of local communities in the management of dryland natural resources.

Angela Belcher Using nature to grow batteries

Nature always keeps a perfect balance.