Ryan Hackett reviews Jessica Dempsey’s book Enterprising Nature: Economics, Markets and Finance in Global Biodiversity Politics.
This short film combines remote sensing, qualitative interviews, desk research, and illustrations to show the complexities and controversies surrounding mangrove reforestation in Senegal and The Gambia.
Alternative Futures brings together 35 essays on India’s future, written by a diverse set of authors: activists, researchers, media persons, those who have influenced policies, and those working at the grassroots. Divided into four sections—Ecological Futures, Political Futures, Economic Futures, and Socio-Cultural Futures—the book covers a wide range of issues including environmental governance, biodiversity, democracy and power, law, agriculture, pastoralism, industry, languages, learning and education, knowledge, health and sexuality among others.
Birds in Our Lives is an account of bird conservation in India, written by conservationist Ashish Kothari. It educates the reader on the importance of birds in Indian culture and economy and highlights the imminent threats to their habitats and populations, as well as growing efforts to conserve birdlife.
Arjaan Pellis, Annemiek Pas, and Martijn Duineveld build upon Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory to study the multidimensional nature of resource-based conflicts in and around Loisaba conservancy in Kenya.
Paolo Gruppuso explores the genealogy of Edenic narratives about the Pontine Marshes in Agro Pontino, Italy, and the imaginary of the Bonifica Integrale, or integral reclamation.
The authors investigate how land cover, land use, and protected area management affects communities around a forest reserve in the Philippines. They conclude that incorporating local livelihoods into forest conservation strategies results in a measure of sustainability and positively impacts the socioeconomic well-being of communities near the protected area.
The authors use the case study approach to provide insights into how an indigenous population, the Baka in Cameroon, face barriers to participation in policy making, hindering recognition of rights to traditional forestland.
The authors provide an overview of the scientific and traditional knowledge that the Zaira community, located in the Solomon Islands, uses to underpin their community-based management regime of Leatherback Sea Turtles. This highlights the important role local communities play in the conservation of iconic species.
Based on participant observation, the author offers an ethnographic account of urban middle class Indian tourists’ experience of seeing the tiger in Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, and Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Parks in Madhya Pradesh, India.
