Robert J Fisher

Old thoughts in new ideas: state conservation measures, development and livelihood on Palawan Island

disappointing is that numerous references in the text refer to the work of particular individuals but the work is unreferenced. The book offers no more than an often frustratingly brief ‘Selected Readings’ at the end of each chapter*easier to read but scarcely scholarly, and with no guidance as to their utility. If only for the richness and excitement of Jared Diamond’s Collapse or David Quammen’s The song of the dodo, neither of which even make it into the references. It is not therefore obviously clear to whom this book is oriented. For those familiar with any of these groups it is likely to be somewhat simplistic. For those seeking a new understanding of the biogeography of islands the lack of engagement with other recent work and the high level of generality are frustrating. It has its moments on plant ecology*at least for those unfamiliar with the topic*and it is undeniably well illustrated (though some of the many photos of fauna and flora could surely have made way for graphs and diagrams). But it could have been so much more. The conclusion ends with a wish list of hopeful ideas (‘using rooftops rather than fields’, ‘consuming and wasting fewer resources’). Well, yes*but who will actually implement and undertake such proposals? It is significant that politics is missing from the index*and the text*since there is very little sense of the political and economic challenges that face islands and island states, let alone their relationship with the world economy or the management issues that small scale can magnify. It simply does not offer the ‘realistic guidelines for future island management’ that the cover promises.

The history and context of community forestry in Nepal

Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities.Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities. [Book Synopsis]Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities. [Book Synopsis]

Community forestry in Nepal: Origins and issues

Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities.Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities. [Book Synopsis]Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities. [Book Synopsis]

Community Forestry in Nepal: Adapting to a Changing World

Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities.Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities. [Book Synopsis]Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities. [Book Synopsis]

Savage harvest: a tale of cannibals, colonialism and Michael Rockefeller's tragic quest for primitive art

likelihood is recognised. This book focuses on culture in its broadest sense of people and their history, perceptions and life patterns, in this case placed in a desert environment. An overwhelmingly negative view of deserts is probably still held by most non-desert dwellers, who would view these places as generally hot, dry, threatening landscapes to be traversed and briefly viewed, but not to be lived in or enjoyed. Some would not immediately identify frozen landscapes like Antarctica as ‘deserts’. For geographers, there will be regret at the lack of any maps in the book, the absence of locations for some illustrations, and tenuous links between text and illustrations in some sections. However the book is easy to read, lavishly illustrated, contains a wealth of stimulating information, and will hopefully encourage greater interest among the general public in those most fascinating and interesting of places, deserts.

Environmental Impact Assessment in Australia: theory and practice (6th edition)

dynamics of production and circulation that constitute the core of capitalism as a mode of production, such as land use and ownership and money commoditisation. Chapter 4 especially demonstrates the problematic and disrupted way in which the limited discussion of capitalism unfolds in the book. For example, Webber defines the giant state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that developed the Three Gorges Dam as ‘almost-capitalist corporations’. Instead, the decision-making process by which these SOEs acquired funds, from state-owned banks, was not based on market logic but on central government policy goals. In this sense, the author argues: ‘What is important for the people evicted at the Three Gorges is consequently the configuration of state power. The centre had the power to decide to build the dam, perhaps encouraged by a coalition of potential beneficiaries ...’ (p. 91). This chapter also marks a disjuncture in Webber’s approach by featuring the role of the state in defining production, by comparison to Chapters 2, 3 and 7, which define production through small-scale privatised firms. Despite differences in analysis of the role of the market and the state in local production, Webber’s concluding chapter finds that the state proves to be decisive in determining the course of economic and social transformation in rural China. The author posits this position: ‘China’s regulatory architecture determines how the logic of market competition mediates between capitalist and other forms of production’ (p. 256). Here, ‘regulatory architecture’ indicates the decisive function of the state in determining economic processes, from the actions of cadres in Su’nan and Chongqing who control flows of money and resources, to the policies in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang that shape temporal horizons of production and migration. In this conclusion, Webber indeed remarks that the state in China is not merely an architect of reforms that advance capitalism as a mode of production, but it is also an entity that has its own economic interests. A comprehensive assessment of the complexity and variability of socio-economic change in China requires integrating observations of social change with dynamics of state power in relation to land use and money circulation.

War, violence, and population: making the body count

Tyner’s aim in writing War, violence, and population is to present a plea and a case for a new sort of population geography. He argues that population geography has been dominated by empirical concerns about demography and has had relatively little engagement with social theory, particularly postcolonialism, feminism and postmodernism. It has been concerned mainly with ‘population-related events, namely, fertility, mortality, or migration’ and ironically ‘population geographers rarely study people’ (p. 17; emphasis in original). Tyner’s plea is for a critical approach to population geography, with a commitment to change. One of the key questions raised in this critical population geography is ‘How . . . is space manipulated to facilitate the disciplining of people?’ (p. 7). The underlying concern is about the role of war and violence in ‘population control and social engineering’ (p. 3). Tyner draws on a distinction made by Foucault between biopolitics (the regulation of populations) and ‘anatomopolitics’ (the disciplining of bodies). The book consists of five chapters. The first reviews the field of population geography and presents the theoretical framework for critical population geography. The next three chapters examine case studies of the Vietnam War (Chapter 2) and the genocides in Cambodia (Chapter 3) and Rwanda (Chapter 4). The final chapter is both a summary and an argument for the importance of peace education. All three case study chapters are established in terms of historical analysis of the origins of the particular conflict. The case studies all recognise the importance of historical specificity and context. Each of them shows how ‘bodies are spatially disciplined and populations are regulated’ (p. 188). In Vietnam the US strategy was to kill the enemy faster than their capacity to replace troops, leading to all sorts of errors in counting in the direction of exaggerating the success of this strategy. Vietnamese civilians were controlled by moving them to strategic hamlets, partly to separate them from insurgents and to make recognition of insurgents easier. Dykes and farming land were destroyed. An unnerving aspect of this was that the strategy was explicitly about bombing ‘the Vietnamese into submission’ (p. 188) in the name of protecting the world from the threat of communism. Tyner sees this as masking the real intent: