The Political Ecology of Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia (Kyoto Area Studies on Asia Series): Historical Perspectives

Lye (Center for Environment, Technology and Development, Malaysia), de Jong (Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia), and Abe (Japan Center for Area Studies, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan) define political ecology as "a collective name for all intellectual efforts to critically analyze the problems of natural resource appropriation and political economic origins of resource degradation." Given such a broad definition, it is natural that these ten papers take differing approaches to their examination the use and degradation of tropical forests in Japan, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia as a whole. Papers look at the extraction of forest products, the impact of colonial systems of forest exploitation, logging regimes, and the role of the International Tropical Timber Organization. Some of the topics are broad and overarching, while others focus in on case studies of particular villages at particular times. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR