To stop ecosystem degradation in farmland and coastal areas, bureaucrats and scientists must join hands to design new policies that can improve the situation, warns a United Nations official who has worked closely on the issue in Japan.

According to Anne McDonald, director of the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa, the 10th Conference of the Parties of the Convention of Biological Diversity (COP10) is a crucial opportunity to move things toward better "satoyama" management.

The short Japanese term refers to a traditional production landscape in which forests and farmland maintain a balanced coexistence that requires a crucial human touch to maintain.