Forests Are Gold: Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam (Culture, Place, and Nature)

Forests Are Gold examines the management of Vietnam's forests in the tumultuous twentieth century―from French colonialism to the recent transition to market-oriented economics―as the country united, prospered, and transformed people and landscapes. Forest policy has rarely been about ecology or conservation for nature’s sake, but about managing citizens and society, a process Pamela McElwee terms “environmental rule.” Untangling and understanding these practices and networks of rule illuminates not just thorny issues of environmental change, but also the birth of Vietnam itself.

Pamela D. McElwee is associate professor of human ecology at Rutgers University. She is the coeditor of Gender and Sustainability: Lessons from Asia and Latin America.