Environmental accounts bring together economic and environmental information in a common framework to measure the contribution of the environment to the economy and the impact of the economy on the environment. They enable governments to set priorities, monitor economic policies more precisely, enact more effective environmental regulations and resource management strategies, and design more efficient market instruments for environmental policies. Many industrialized countries compile environmental accounts, but progress in developing countries has been limited - even though the need for environmental accounts is perhaps more acute in these regions. Environmental Accounting in Action studies the experiences of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, the core countries of a unique, regional environmental accounting programme in Southern Africa. Covering minerals, forestry, fisheries and water, each chapter provides important lessons about sustainable resource management. As a whole, the case studies demonstrate how to overcome the many challenges of constructing environmental accounts and the mechanics of successful implementation. By providing a transparent system of information about the relationship between human activities and the environment, the accounts have improved policy dialogue among different stakeholders and have played a significant role in environmental policy design. This book advances a powerful argument for the use of environmental accounts and is a major contribution to the environmental literature on developing countries. Environmental and ecological economists, resource managers, policymakers, NGOs and anyone concerned with sustainable development will find this an informative and valuable read.

Engraved Landscape Biesje Poort: Many Voices tell two stories. It provides a valuable record of important pre-historic and historic artefacts that would ordinarily be inaccessible to many South Africans. But more significantly it showcase new ways of doing research in a contested and fractured environment. Using a series of historic rock engravings as a springboard, the various contributors to the book- academics, communication experts, historians, architects, local Khomani residents- probe questions about the nature of heritage, about our differing cosmologies, and about our links to the land. These are inevitably subject to multiple interpretations and meanings, hence the multi-disciplinary team invited to participate in this important investigation of our heritage. – Melinda Silverman, department of architecture FADA, university of Johannesburg. Like most brilliant and eye-catching coffee table books, this compilation straddles the tantalisingly academic and the pop (ular) in anthropology. Its scholarly sections are well researched and tightly articulated. They retain this quality without being dry and overly pedagogical, hence are accessible to lay reader who wants to glean useful information. I foresee this book contributing to media anthropology, receiving critical appreciation. Descendants of the ‘First People’ participate as co-authors in the research- informants and people with their own experiential or ontological perspectives. As producers of new contemporary realities in a postcolonial South Africa, their voices include stories and myths surrounding the engravings, presented here in their own terms. As for the site, the research and informants are aware of the need to protect and preserve: the engravings that are the focus of the encounter are fragile. Research paradoxically may itself result in deterioration as people move over the rocks, but, here, awareness results in research actions and methods that try to ensure care and preservation. This is a heritage that requires informed interventions and use so that posterity may continue to enjoy the benefits of a valuable archaeological wealth. Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri, department of media & society studies, Midlands State university.

This book presents a valuable new tool for water management - water resource accounting - which significantly advances the economic analysis of water. Water resource accounts integrate detailed information about water supply and use with national income accounts to show the economic use of water, costs and tariffs paid, and the economic value of water for different economic uses.Based on the UN's handbook for environmental accounting, this book describes the implementation and policy application of water accounts in three African countries - Botswana, Namibia and South Africa - and discusses how they have been used by water managers. The book compares water use across the three countries, explaining the differences in water resources and water policy. In addition to the comprehensive outline of physical and monetary water accounts for each country, the authors provide an extensive discussion of water valuation as well as addressing a number of issues of regional importance, including water accounting for an international river basin and the impact of trade on each country's water use. By demonstrating the usefulness of water resource accounts, this book makes a major contribution to the literature on water economics and management, sustainable development, and to the development of environmental accounting in general. The Economics of Water Management in Southern Africa will appeal to a wide readership including: environmental and development economists NGOs concerned with sustainable development environmental advocacy groups professionals (economists and environmentalists) working in Africa on water and sustainable development issues water professionals national accounts experts and statisticians.

Countries regularly track gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of their economic progress, but not wealth - the assets such as infrastructure, forests, minerals, and human capital that produce GDP. In contrast, corporations routinely report on both their income and assets to assess their economic health and prospects for the future. Wealth accounts allow countries to take stock of their assets to monitor the sustainability of development, an urgent concern today for all countries. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018: Building a Sustainable Future covers national wealth for 141 countries over 20 years (1995-2014) as the sum of produced capital, 19 types of natural capital, net foreign assets, and human capital overall as well as by gender and type of employment. Great progress has been made in estimating wealth since the fi rst volume, Where Is the Wealth of Nations? Measuring Capital for the 21st Century, was published in 2006. New data substantially improve estimates of natural capital, and, for the first time, human capital is measured by using household surveys to estimate lifetime earnings. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 begins with a review of global and regional trends in wealth over the past two decades and provides examples of how wealth accounts can be used for the analysis of development patterns. Several chapters discuss the new work on human capital and its application in development policy. The book then tackles elements of natural capital that are not yet fully incorporated in the wealth accounts: air pollution, marine fisheries, and ecosystems. This book targets policy makers but will engage anyone committed to building a sustainable future for the planet.

Unable to face the truth, Ree doesn't want to believe that it was her fault - she is simply a victim too. How can one death cause so much strife? Yet the more she tells the lie, the more she no longer remembers what really happened. Will the darkness consume her - or will she ever find freedom of her own? Trying to forget the gruesome life he once led, Wilder would do anything to protect his daughter from ever knowing that part about himself. Yet this becomes difficult when he is forced to return to what he once did for the sake of his country. Will he ever be able to leave the past behind? Living without a home, a family, or friends seems to be his lot in life, but when Treas is sold into slavery he loses all hope of ever becoming anything more than a slave. His childhood dream of a bright future is forgotten and now all he can do is pretend to be better than he is. Is it escape he longs for - or death? In a land governed by a foreign, harsh king with an iron fist, rebellion is just below the surface. Will anyone be brave enough to fight for a better life - for freedom?

When Mary Lange asked a group of Upington women: `What do you know about the Water Snake?', this triggered a set of lyrical short stories, in an attempt to capture the myth of the Water snake. The women's response to her question formed the basis for the Water Stories , here published with a set of original drawings by regional artist Betta Steyn. Johanna (Nana) de Wee, Martha van Rooi, Maria (Mokkie) Malo, Noxolo(Girlie) Prescilla Saaiman and Elizabeth (Bessa) Sixaxa became narrators - sharing with us their beliefs surrounding the Water Snake. Religion, myth or folklore, these Water Stories provide a glimpse into beliefs, customs, traditions and everyday realities of these peoples of mixed cultural descent. The original regional Afrikaans narrations have been supplemented by an English translation as explanation. Subject fields include cultural studies, linguistics, religion, archaeology and anthropology.

The San/Bushmen are one of the most studied people in anthropology, subjects of research going back one hundred years, of documentaries, and even of popular movies (The Gods Must Be Crazy). This intriguing new work on the San is a team-based ethnography, collaborative (one of the writers is married to a member of the community), reflexive (the authors become characters in the book themselves), and literary (with poetry, dialogue, interviews, photography, and first person accounts, as well as traditional ethnographic description). In this book, South Africans are studying other South Africans, in a new environment in which many San are no longer hunter gatherers, but are activist and engaged in cultural tourism. It will be an exciting counterpoint to traditional ethnographies and stories about the San people, for anthropologists and Africanists.

The San/Bushmen are one of the most studied people in anthropology, subjects of research going back one hundred years, of documentaries, and even of popular movies (The Gods Must Be Crazy). This intriguing new work on the San is a team-based ethnography, collaborative (one of the writers is married to a member of the community), reflexive (the authors become characters in the book themselves), and literary (with poetry, dialogue, interviews, photography, and first person accounts, as well as traditional ethnographic description). In this book, South Africans are studying other South Africans, in a new environment in which many San are no longer hunter gatherers, but are activist and engaged in cultural tourism. It will be an exciting counterpoint to traditional ethnographies and stories about the San people, for anthropologists and Africanists.

One of the most important and complex problems facing both developing and industrialized nations is how to sustain economic growth without harming the environment. Faye Duchin and Glenn-Marie Lange address this issue in a practical and realistic way: through a detailed evaluation of the well-known approach to sustainable development outlined in the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future.
Taking issue with the Brundtland Report's optimistic and widely accepted assumptions, the authors show that the positive effects of recycling, increased fuel-efficiency, and other technological adjustments will not go far enough to provide for truly sustainable development in the long term. Through a new, broad-based empirical analysis, they argue that unless there are significant changes in lifestyles and the use of technologies, continued environmental degradation cannot be avoided. They warn that the trend of making only slight adjustments in the use of technologies, while feasible from an economic point of view for industrialized nations, will undoubtedly lead to further environmental damage.
In addition to offering a clear and unflinching look at what development is really doing to the global environment, the unique conceptual framework developed for this analysis provides an invaluable basis for analysis for the new, multidisciplinary field of ecological economics. Duchin and Lange describe how this new methodology will enable economists and policy-makers to evaluate our options for the future, and choose those that most effectively reduce environmental degradation and achieve sustainable development. The book will appeal to economists, environmental scientists and activists, policy analysts, and ecologists, as well as the general reader with an interest in the sustainable development of our environment.