This edition of the Environment Times illustrates the problems and challenges before us, showing many practical examples on how useful preventive action can be taken. It lays out why we must think “environment” at every stage of disaster management, be it in preparing, preventing, mitigating or reacting. As for the structure of the paper, the intention was to present the material in the order of the stages of disasters: from prevention early warning and preparedness to relief and reconstruction. This proved to be difficult, as we all know that ‘reconstruction starts with prevention’, but we nevertheless kept this basic roster, although certain articles could fit in different categories. The four stages are each preceded by an example of a natural event and an industrial accident, where the authors show the linkages between environmental management, risk reduction and effect on livelihoods. The end of the paper gives the floor to different industrial sectors and features the role of the local level in disaster management. Another double page is dedicated to more general refl ections on the role of environmental management in disaster risk reduction. The central pages feature a set of maps displaying issues related to disasters that possibly are not necessarily perceived as such. (Special Edition for the World Conference on Disaster Reduction January 18-22, 2005, Kobe, Japan)

Year: 2006