Throughout the tropical world, especially in South and Southeast Asia, tropical America, Africa and Oceania, there exists a range of forest garden farming systems. These are small, low-input, but productive and sustainable family units of highly diversified trees, palms, bushes and vines, with few conventional field crops or livestock. Providing a survey of these systems around the world and an in-depth analysis of the farms around Kandy, Sri Lanka, this book offers an economic and ecological description and evaluation of this ancient agroforestry system and its relationship to a wide range of global agro-development and environmental problems. Guided by a table that lists some 30 socio-economic and social criteria by which all farming systems can and should be evaluated, the book presents persuasive evidence supported by comprehensive references. It also examines historical and archaeological findings in order to assess the role these tropical forests played in the general adoption of agricultural farming.

Predictions about the success of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are pessimistic. It has now become commonplace to bemoan the scope, ambition, and deeply political nature of a convention that addresses issues ranging from ecosystems protection to the exploitation of genetic resources, from conservation to justice, and from commerce to scientific knowledge. Ten years after its adoption, how can we assess the difference that the CBD has made? Is it in danger of collapsing under its own weight or is it building the foundations of new patterns of relations between societies and nature? What achievements can we record and what challenges does it face? In this book, which is unique in its scope, diversity and the wealth of information it contains, contributors from a variety of academic disciplines tackle an issue of enduring importance to the protection of biodiversity and enhance our understanding of humanity's capacity to reconcile its various aspirations and halt the destructive path upon which it is set.

In this bold intervention, Cudworth and Hobden draw on recent advances in thinking about complexity theory to call for a profound re-envisioning of the study of international relations. As a discipline, IR is wedded to the enlightenment project of overcoming the "hazards" of nature, and thus remains constrained by its blinkered "human-centered" approach. Furthermore, as a means of predicting major global-political events and trends, it has failed consistently. Instead, the authors argue, it is essential we develop a much more nuanced and sophisticated analysis of global political systems, taking into account broader environmental circumstances, as well as social relations, economic practices, and formations of political power. Essentially, the book reveals how the study of international politics is transformed by the understanding that we have never been exclusively human.
An original work that is sure to provoke heated debate within the discipline, Posthuman International Relations combines insights from complexity theory and ecological thinking to provide a radical new agenda for a progressive, twenty-first century International Relations.

'John Feffer is our 21st-century Jack London' - Mike Davis In a post-Trump world, the right is still very much in power. Significantly more than half the world's population currently lives under some form of right-wing populist or authoritarian rule. Today's autocrats are, at first glance, a diverse band of brothers. But religious, economic, social and environmental differences aside, there is one thing that unites them - their hatred of the liberal, globalised world. This unity is their strength, and through control of government, civil society and the digital world they are working together across borders to stamp out the left. In comparison, the liberal left commands only a few disconnected islands - Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain and Uruguay. So far they have been on the defensive, campaigning on local issues in their own countries. This narrow focus underestimates the resilience and global connectivity of the right. In this book, John Feffer speaks to the world's leading activists to show how international leftist campaigns must come together if they are to combat the rising tide of the right. A global Green New Deal, progressive trans-European movements, grassroots campaigning on international issues with new and improved language and storytelling are all needed if we are to pull the planet back from the edge of catastrophe. This book is both a warning and an inspiration to activists terrified by the strengthening wall of far-right power.

A critical analysis of the "post-Rio consensus" on environment and development which questions the role of particular forms of internationalized elite scientific expertise. It asks why certain understandings of enviromental change "stick" with such tenacity. In exploring this, the authors unravel the politics of knowledge surrounding policymaking, looking particularly at Ethiopia, Mali and Zimbabwe and their land and soils management. The book also looks at prospects for more inclusive, participatory forms of policymaking.

Why care about the environment? Is the earth's climate really changing for the worse? What are CFCs exactly? And who or what is the WTO? What are the causes of environmental problems? Who are the main actors, and what are the main ideas and issues in international environmental politics? Which countries have the best/worst environmental record and policies?
The International Encyclopedia of Environmental Politics is the essential reference source to enable all those with an interest in the politics of the environment - particularly students and academics working within political science - to answer these questions, and to explore many other related topics in international environmental politics. It will be welcomed as an essential teaching resource and a trusty companion to independent study.
Written by a team of international experts, the Encyclopedia is vital for fact-checking, provides authoritative initial orientation to a particular topic or issue and will serve as a solid starting point for wider explanation. With over 300 fully cross-referenced entries, many of which are followed with suggestions for further reading, the Encyclopedia includes:
* Country and regional entries, with country entries giving a concise overview of the history, main actors, issues and policies related to its environmental politics
* Normative and ethical dimensions of environmental politics, from animal rights, social and global justice to deep ecology
* Environmental movements, organizations, struggles and actors from local to international levels
* Issues in international environmental politics such as global warming, biodiversity, trade and the environment
* Prominent individuals (historical and current) who have inspired or been actively involved in international environmental politics - such as Mahatma Gandhi, Petra Kelly, Vandana Shiva and Aldo Leopold
* Central topics and issues in environmental politics - such as global warming, globalization, wildlife preservation, eco-taxes, energy production and consumption, sustainable development and the World Trade Organisation

The emergence of modern sciences in the seventeenth century profoundly renewed our understanding of Nature. For the last three centuries new ideas of Nature have been continuously developed by theology, politics, economics, and science, especially the sciences of the material world. The situation is even more unstable today, now that we have entered an ecological mutation of unprecedented scale. Some call it the Anthropocene, but it is best described as a new climatic regime. And a new regime it certainly is, since the many unexpected connections between human activity and the natural world oblige every one of us to reopen the earlier notions of Nature and redistribute what had been packed inside. So the question now arises: what will replace the old ways of looking at Nature? This book explores a potential candidate proposed by James Lovelock when he chose the name "Gaia" for the fragile, complex system through which living phenomena modify the Earth. The fact that he was immediately misunderstood proves simply that his readers have tried to fit this new notion into an older frame, transforming Gaia into a single organism, a kind of giant thermostat, some sort of New Age goddess, or even divine Providence. In this series of lectures on "natural religion" Bruno Latour argues that the complex and ambiguous figure of Gaia offers, on the contrary, an ideal way to disentangle the ethical, political, theological, and scientific aspects of the now obsolete notion of Nature. He lays the groundwork for a future collaboration among scientists, theologians, activists, and artists as they, and we, begin to adjust to the new climatic regime.

This urgent book brings our cities to the fore in understanding the human input into climate change. The demands we are making on nature by living in cities has reached a crisis point and unless we make significant changes to address it, the prognosis is terminal consumption. Providing a radical new argument that integrates global understandings of making nature and making cities, the authors move beyond current policies of mitigation and adaption and pose the challenge of urban stewardship to tackle the crisis. Their new way of thinking re-orients possibilities for environmental policy and calls for us to reinvent our cities as spaces for activism.

Aldo Leopold's classic work "A Sand County Almanac" is widely regarded as one of the most influential conservation books of all time. In it, Leopold sets forth an eloquent plea for the development of a "land ethic" -- a belief that humans have a duty to interact with the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise "the land" in ways that ensure their well-being and survival."For the Health of the Land," a new collection of rare and previously unpublished essays by Leopold, builds on that vision of ethical land use and develops the concept of "land health" and the practical measures landowners can take to sustain it. The writings are vintage Leopold -- clear, sensible, and provocative, sometimes humorous, often lyrical, and always inspiring. Joining them together are a wisdom and a passion that transcend the time and place of the author's life.The book offers a series of forty short pieces, arranged in seasonal "almanac" form, along with longer essays, arranged chronologically, which show the development of Leopold's approach to managing private lands for conservation ends. The final essay is a never before published work, left in pencil draft at his death, which proposes the concept of land health as an organizing principle for conservation. Also featured is an introduction by noted Leopold scholars J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle that provides a brief biography of Leopold and places the essays in the context of his life and work, and an afterword by conservation biologist Stanley A. Temple that comments on Leopold's ideas from the perspective of modern wildlife management.The book's conservation message and practical ideas are as relevant today as they werewhen first written over fifty years ago. "For the Health of the Land" represents a stunning new addition to the literary legacy of Aldo Leopold.

We take it for granted that the streets outside out homes are designed for movement from A to B, nothing more. But what happens if we radically rethink how we use these public spaces? Could we change our lives for the better? Our dependence on cars is damaging our health - and the planet's. The Dutch seem to have the right idea, with thousands of bike highways, but even then, what happens to pedestrians or people who want to cycle at a more leisurely pace? What about children playing outside their homes? Or wildlife, which enriches our local areas? Why do we prioritise traffic above all else? Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking the fundamental questions: who do our streets belong to, what do we use them for, and who gets to decide? Join journalist Thalia Verkade and urban mobility expert Marco te Broemmelstroet as they confront their own underlying beliefs and challenge us to rethink our way of life to put people at the centre of urban design. But be warned: you will never look at the street outside your front door in the same way again.

How do we extend the "conservation ethic" to include the cultural links between local populations and their physical environments? Can considerations of human capital be incorporated into the definition and measurement of sustainability in managed forests? Can forests be managed in a manner that fulfills traditional goals for ecological integrity while also addressing the well-being of its human residents?

In this groundbreaking work, an international team of investigators apply a diverse range of social science methods to focus on the interests of the stakeholders living in the most intimate proximity to managed forests. Building on a series of criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management first tested by the editors and their colleagues in the mid-1990s, the researchers address topics such as intergenerational access to resources, gender relations and forest utilization, and equity in both forest-rich and forest-poor contexts.

People Managing Forests begins with an overview of concepts and measures of sustainability. Using examples from North America, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the book explores the overlapping systems that characterize the management of tropical forests. With rigor, insight, and a balance of quantitative and qualitative analysis, the contributors demonstrate that the diversity of forests extends to the cultures of their human inhabitants and the relationships they have with their environment. For forest managers, social scientists, and policymakers, the result is an approach to sustainability that is more accurate, complete, and humane.

People Managing Forests is a copublication of Resources for the Future (RFF) and the Center forInternational Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Presupposing no prior knowledge of philosophy, John Benson introduces the fundamentals of environmental ethics by asking whether a concern with human well-being is an adequate basis for environmental ethics. He encourages the reader to explore this question, considering techniques used to value the environment and critically examining 'light green' to 'deep green' environmentalism. Each chapter is linked to a reading from a key thinker such as J.S. Mill and E.O. Wilson.
Key features include activities and exercises, enabling readers to monitor their progress throughout the book, chapter summaries and guides to further reading.

In 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio, the United Nations adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to agree international measures aimed at preserving the vital ecosystems and biological resources on which we all depend. This is the official handbook to the Convention and presents all the most important information about the CBD, including a guide to the decisions adopted and to ongoing activities. It is an essential resource for all the governments, intergovernmental agencies, NGOs and conservation bodies and researchers working in this area. Included with the book is a fully indexed and cross-referenced CD-ROM containing all the relevant background material to the Convention, linked to relevant decisions and other sources of information.

Although Green approaches to politics have had some practical successes in a range of different countries, the movement has lacked a fully developed and coherent political theory. In this unique study David Wells and Tony Lynch demonstrate that ecological understanding and environmental concern are not just consistent with notions of social equity and grass-roots democracy, but that a concern for these aims are the logical consequence of what might be called 'political ecology'. They begin with a critique of existing approaches to Green politics, with particular attention to the claims of 'deep ecology' and go on to develop an important examination of the relationship between economic and ecological styles of thinking. They conclude with a 'social commons' inspired revision of Lockean politics. What emerges is an important understanding of the tasks of politics: rather than focusing on 'foreground' issues of individual choice, the central political challenge of our age is with the management and provision of the background conditions (the ecological conditions - understood in the broadest sense) which allows the possibility of a reasonable life. The analysis shows a concern with environmental commons engenders equal concerns for social, economic and cultural commons, develops an account of how such commons can be effectively managed and relates this account to more traditional political themes of democracy, liberty and equity.

Are profits and sustainability compatible? This book brings unique perspectives to this key debate by exploring the history of green entrepreneurship since the nineteenth century, and its spread globally in industries including renewable energy, organic food, natural beauty, ecotourism, recycling, architecture, and finance. The book uses the lens of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who defied convention and imagined that business could help save the planet, rather than consume it. The social and religious beliefs that drove many of these individuals are explored as the book looks at how they overcame huge obstacles to execute their strategies. The green entrepreneurs seen here are shown to have created new markets and industries, and driven innovations in sustainable practices, even at times when most consumers and governments marginalized the entire subject. The struggles of early pioneers appear to have been rewarded by the growth of environmental awareness among consumers, business leaders, and others in recent years, but the Earth's environmental health continues to deteriorate. If profits and sustainability have proved challenging to reconcile, the book argues that one reason was how they were both defined.

Ten years ago Blueprint for a Green Economy changed the face of economic and environmental policy. It made front page news and introduced the public as well as the professionals to the central role that the environment should play in economic and public policy decisions.Ten years on, David Pearce and Edward Barbier have written the sequel to show what has been achieved, how to consolidate that and what remains to be done. In the clear language which made the earlier book so accessible and influential, they examine the efforts to define and implement the concept of sustainable economic development, its relationship to the use of 'natural' capital and human welfare, and its influence on recent environmental policy debates. They show how far environmental concerns have been integrated into everyday economic decision making--through the valuation of environmental goods and services, cost-benefit techniques, indicators for sustainable development, and the use of market-based instruments for environmental policy making around the world.Yet large, new challenges exist. Global environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and trade-environment linkages require greater cooperation towards new international agreements, institutions and distributive measures. The complex problems facing many poor economies such as deforestation, land degradation, overpopulation and resource exhaustion will demand the increasing use of environmental economics in development policy making. In all these areas, the authors demonstrate how sustainability can be brought from the periphery to the center of economic management.The book provides a blueprint for the start of a century in which our ultimatedependence on the environment will have to be at the heart of the business and policy decisions we take if we are to achieve genuinely sustainable development for economies all around the globe.

Economic activity imposes increasing costs on the global environment. The lack of progress being made in environmental management is often not as much a question of economics, technology or even of interest, as it is of perception, assumptions and how one approaches problems. Green Logic seeks to highlight the key questions regarding entrepreneurship and sustainability in terms of motivation, government intervention and ethics. Written by the highly regarded author of Managing World Economic Change, this important and accessible new book aims to examine how "Green Logic" works, how it differs from other logics and how green thinking can be targeted in order to create environmentally responsible businesses in an era of rapid change. Key questions addressed in depth include:What are the minimal ethical principles to guide environmental living and working? What motives and obstacles characterise ecopreneurship? What principles of creativity and entrepreneurship can be used as tools? In short, what does it really take to motivate entrepreneurs to design and start up green businesses? Green Logic is suitable for both business and academic audiences and significantly pushes forward the debate on environmental responsibility.

Transnational Identity Politics and the Environment attempts to transcend current social science paradigms for interpreting the relations between globalization and environmental activism, and to develop an alternative perspective that recognizes the effects of economic globalization, accelerating migration, and the retreat of the state on environmental social movements and politics. The book is a study in global sociology, and makes use of both quantitative analysis and qualitative case studies. By addressing cutting-edge theories of globalization from several disciplines, using multiple methods and multiple sources of data, and illustrating its major arguments with case studies of Turkey and Lithuania, Transnational Identity Politics and the Environment represents a theoretically daring and empirically compelling approach to environmental politics. Specifically, the book argues that trends in the direction of economic liberalization, media globalization, migration, and supranational political organization have weakened environmental movements and coalitions that relied on the nation-state and "big science." While such groups have lost popularity and influence, since the 1980s, newer groups linking environmental issues with ethnic and religious activism have flourished. An analyses of global data on the establishment of nonprofit environmental organizations, and case studies of hybrid, transnational ethnic/environmental and religious/environmental groups in Turkey and Lithuania, support the books main arguments on globalization, the state, and contemporary environmental activism.

In this interdisciplinary work, philosophers from different specialisms connect with the notion of the wild today and interrogate how it is mediated through the culture of the Anthropocene. They make use of empirical material like specific artworks, films and other cultural works related to the term 'wild' to consider the aesthetic experience of nature, focusing on the untamed, the boundless, the unwieldy, or the unpredictable; in other words, aspects of nature that are mediated by culture. This book maps out the wide range of ways in which we experience the wildness of nature aesthetically, relating both to immediate experience as well as to experience mediated through cultural expression. A variety of subjects are relevant in this context, including aesthetics, art history, theology, human geography, film studies, and architecture. A theme that is pursued throughout the book is the wild in connection with ecology and its experience of nature as both a constructive and destructive force.

Hemingway and Ecocriticism focuses on the famous author's short stories from ecocritical perspectives, which are concerned with the relationship between humans and the landscape and plead for a better understanding of nature. Of Hemingway's first 49 short stories, 22 exhibit ecological concerns in some form or other. They reveal great damage caused to nature and human beings alike. G. Srilatha holds that while Hemingway was an unabashed hunter, fisher, and sportsman, he was also a conservationist and conveyed this attitude in most of his stories. Many show that human and biological environments are mutually interdependent. Despite ecological devastation, Hemingway's protagonists turn to nature to escape from the trauma of war and to seek solace.

By moving beyond traditional aesthetic categories (beauty, the sublime, the religious), Eco-Aesthetics takes an inter-disciplinary approach bridging the arts, humanities and social sciences and explores what aesthetics might mean in the 21st century. It is one in a series of new, radical aesthetics promoting debate, confronting convention and formulating alternative ways of thinking about art practice. There is no doubt that the social and environmental spheres are interconnected but can art and artists really make a difference to the global environmental crisis? Can art practice meaningfully contribute to the development of sustainable lifestyles? Malcolm Miles explores the strands of eco-art, eco-aesthetics and contemporary aesthetic theories, offering timely critiques of consumerism and globalisation and, ultimately, offers a possible formulation of an engaged eco-aesthetic for the early 21st century.

For better or worse, the view through a car's windshield has redefined how we see the world around us. In some cases, such as the American parkway, the view from the road was the be-all and end-all of the highway; in others, such as the Italian autostrada, the view of a fast, efficient transportation machine celebrating either Fascism or its absence was the goal. These varied environments are neither necessary nor accidental but the outcomes of historical negotiations, and whether we abhor them or take delight in them, they have become part of the fabric of human existence.
"The World beyond the Windshield: Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe" is the first systematic, comparative look at these landscapes. By looking at examples from the United States and Europe, the chapters in this volume explore the relationship between the road and the landscape that it traverses, cuts through, defines, despoils, and enhances. The authors analyze the Washington Beltway and the Blue Ridge Parkway, as well as iconic roads
in Italy, Nazi Germany, East Germany, and Great Britain. This is a story of the transatlantic exchange of ideas about environment and technology and of the national and nationalistic appropriations of such landscaping.

The past three centuries have witnessed the accumulation of unprecedented levels of wealth and the production of unprecedented risks. These risks include the declining integrity and stability of many of the world's environments, which face dramatic and possibly irreversible change as the environmental burdens of late modern lifestyles increasingly shift to fragile ecosystems, vulnerable communities, and future generations. Globalization has increased the scope and scale of these risks, as well as the pace of their emergence. It has also made possible global environmental governance, attempts to manage risk by unprecedented numbers and types of authoritative agents, including state and non-state actors at the local, national, regional, and global levels. In The Gardeners' Dirty Hands: Environmental Politics and Christian Ethics, Noah Toly offers an interpretation of environmental governance that draws upon insights into the tragic - the need to forego, give up, undermine, or destroy one or more goods in order to possess or secure one or more other goods. Toly engages Christian and classical Greek ideas of the tragic to illuminate the enduring challenges of environmental politics. He suggests that Christians have unique resources for responsible engagement with global environmental politics while acknowledging the need for mutually agreed, and ultimately normative, restraints.

Whether you have a lifelong love of nature or you cannot identify whether something is an elder or an alder, a daisy or a dandelion, or a heron or a herring gull, The Wonders of the Wild Places is the book for you. From the mountains to the sea, woodland to farmland, heaths and riversides we have many habitats in the United Kingdom, and The Wonders of the Wild Places provides information about some of the many species which inhabit these habitats. It is packed with interesting facts about nature designed to encourage you to go out and about and enjoy the wonders of the wild places. If you have ever wondered how birds migrate or which invertebrate has the largest brain, The Wonders of the Wild Places provides the answers - and many more. It covers many subjects from folklore to language, social history to the latest science. The Wonders of the Wild Places also explains the current threats to the natural world and provides details of what is being done to protect nature and also has suggestions of how individuals can help nature, from cleaning up your nearest beach to building a bug hotel. After reading The Wonders of the Wild Places you will never see the natural world in the same way again.