Myth and Reality in the Rain Forest: How Conservation Strategies Are Failing in West Africa - Softcover

Oates, John F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520222520 ISBN 13: 9780520222526

Publisher: University of California Press, 1999

Synopsis

John Oates tackles one of the most serious challenges facing the world's conservation leaders today: How can the needs of wildlands and wildlife be reconciled with the needs of people? Current conservation theory holds that wildlife can best be protected through the promotion of human economic development. Oates disagrees. Drawing on his extensive experience as a primate ecologist who has worked on rainforest conservation projects in Africa and India, he argues that the linking of conservation to economic development has had disastrous consequences for many wildlife populations, especially in West Africa. He maintains that in those parts of the world where people are very poor, human well-being is more likely to be promoted by large-scale political, social, and economic reforms than by community development schemes associated with conservation projects.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"This book offers a timely, clear-headed, and uniquely important contribution to conservation, one that should be read by all bureaucrats, scientists, and others involved with development projects that supposedly benefit wildlife and wilderness."—George B. Schaller, author of Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe

About the Author:

John F. Oates is Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College and The Graduate School, CUNY. His most recent books include African Primates: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan (1996) and Colobine Monkeys: Their Ecology, Behaviour, and Evolution (with A. G. Davies, 1994).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0520222520
• ISBN 13: 9780520222526
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 338