The Struggle For Land and the Fate of the Forests

Colchester, Marcus; Lohmann, Larry

ISBN 10: 1856491390 / ISBN 13: 9781856491396

Published by Zed Books, 1996

About this Item

Book is in Used-VeryGood condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain very limited notes and highlighting.

Seller Inventory # 1856491390-2-3

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Struggle For Land and the Fate of the Forests
• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1856491390
• ISBN 13: 9781856491396
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 1.25 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

The tropical forests are vanishing faster than ever. At one international conference after another, politicals and planners wring their hands at the world's approaching doom. Deforestation, they tell us, is caused by 'poverty', 'over-population' and 'under-development'. The solutions are therefore obvious - fewer people and more development. This book challenged these assumptions. Deforestation, it argues, is an expression of structural inequalities within tropical countries in their relations with the industrial North. Throwing air money into the development pot will only accelerate forest loss if these structural issues are not simultaneously addressed. Based on six country studies from Latin America, Asia, and Africa to illustrate the real complexity of the problem and the diversity of situations that exist, this book shows how land concentration, land speculation and landlessness are the main causes of improvident land use. Poor people, denied land and livelihood are being forced into the forests in ever increasing numbers for sheer survival, often encouraged by government and development agency funding. Meanwhile the lands they have been forced to abandon are turned over to agribusiness producing cash crops for export. Agrarian reform must be moved to the top of the global agenda. Without land and food security, rural communities will become increasingly destabilises and impoverished and vulnerable ecosystems will be destroyed. Local people must be allowed to regain control over their land and their economies, and Third World debt cancelled, if the twin problems of poverty and environmental destruction are to be tackled.

About the Author

The authors assembled by the World Rainforest Movement and The Ecologist are scholars from North and South whose lives demonstrate a deep commitment to the forests and the peoples of the Tropics. Marcus Colchester and Larry Lohmann, the Editors, are respectively co-ordinator of the World Rainforest Movement and Assistant Editor of The Ecologists. The contributors include Susanna Hecht (co-author of The Fate of the Forest); Hira Jhamtani; Marvic Leonen; Rachel Monroe; George Monbiot (Poisoned Arrows); Roger Plant (Sugar and Modern Slavery); and John Witte.