political ecology

Anja Nygren reviews the 2017 book Green Wars: Colonization and Conservation in the Maya Forest by Megan Ybarra.

The fourth episode of the Crosscurrents podcast series focuses on professor David Wilson´s latest research on Irish organized nationalism in Canada between 1866 and 1871.

The study analyzes the political equity in fisherfolk organizations of Beach Management Units (BMUs) in Lake Victoria (Kenya). It uses this as a case study to investigate the issue of decentralization of resource management through co-management, and its relationship with political power.

The authors compare the administrative regulations and actions aimed at protecting and conserving isolated wetlands in ten states along the Mississippi River corridor. They highlight the necessity for reliable data for at-risk wetlands to foster conservation practices.

Synthesizing ethnographic case studies from mainland Southeast Asia, the authors critically review the implementation of REDD+, a UN project to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. They argue that REDD+ maps onto local power structures and political economies in its implementation, rendering it blunt as a tool for change.

Beth A. Bee studies the implementation of decentralized forms of environmental governance in Jalisco, Mexico, and the political and economic forces resulting in the marginalization of the municipalities affected by this project.

In this article for a special section on Green Wars, Jared D. Margulies considers Louis Althusser’s theory of ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) for advancing political ecology scholarship on the functioning of the state in violent environments. He uses the example of conservation as ideology in Wayanad, Kerala.

The author attempts to reframe the classical distinction in conservation biology between native and invasive species by referring to migration and settlement of nonhuman beings as diasporas. She uses the introduction of Canadian beavers in Chilean Tierra del Fuego in 1947 as a case study.

Gustavo A. Garcia-Lopez and Camille Antinori trace and analyze the historical processes driving formation and change of Mexican inter-community forestry associations over time, drawing on survey data and in-depth case studies from two Mexican states.

In this special section on Green Wars, Bram Büscher examines the case of rhino poaching in South Africa, arguing that we are seeing the uneven emergence of new geographies of conservation focused on preempting threats (ontopower).