Plundering Paradise: The Struggle for the Environment in the Philippines - Softcover

Broad, Robin; Cavanagh, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520089219 ISBN 13: 9780520089211

Publisher: University of California Press, 1994

This gripping portrait of environmental politics chronicles the devastating destruction of the Philippine countryside and reveals how ordinary men and women are fighting back. Traveling through a land of lush rainforests, the authors have recorded the experiences of the people whose livelihoods are disappearing along with their country's natural resources. The result is an inspiring, informative account of how peasants, fishers, and other laborers have united to halt the plunder and to improve their lives.

These people do not debate global warming―they know that their very lives depend on the land and oceans, so they block logging trucks, protest open-pit mining, and replant trees. In a country where nearly two-thirds of the children are impoverished, the reclaiming of natural resources is offering young people hope for a future. Plundering Paradise is essential reading for anyone interested in development, the global environment, and political life in the Third World.

From the Back Cover:

News of the Philippines over the past few years has been filled with devastating natural disasters: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, violent tropical storms. These make arresting copy on the six o'clock news. This book is about a far more important and hopeful story that is unfolding beyond the scrutiny of press and TV cameras. It is to fight the plunder of their forests, fisheries, and fertile lands. In an era of United Nations earth summits and spreading global environmental awareness, these Filipinos are a vital part of the answer to environmental destruction.

About the Author:

Robin Broad is Assistant Professor of International Development at American University and the author of Unequal Alliance: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Philippines (California, 1988). John Cavanagh is Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author, with Richard J. Barnet, of Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order (1994).