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Tropical forest conservation is attracting widespread public interest and helping to shape the ways in which environmental scientists and other groups approach global environmental issues. Schelhas and Pfeffer show that globally-driven forest conservation efforts have had different results in different places, ranging from violent protest to the discovery of common ground among conservation programs and the various interests of local peoples. The authors examine the connections between local values, material needs, and environmental management regimes. Saving Forests, Protecting People? explores that difficult terrain where culture, the environment, and social policies meet.
- Preface
- Introduction: Parks and protected areas in the process of environmental globalization
- Study Sites
- Diverse cultural models to manage competing interests in natural resource use in Costa Rica
- Forest conservation, park management, and value change in Honduras
- Conclusion: Situating environmental values in a globalizing world
- Appendices 1-5
John Schelhas is research forester with the Southern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service stationed at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Max J. Pfeffer is International Professor of Development Sociology and chair of the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University.
"What happens when global concerns about conserving forests and wildlife run up against the reality that people rely on those resources to make a living? Schelhas and Pfeffer examine how rural communities in Costa Rica and Honduras think about forests and conservation – and they find that global discourses about the environment have reached the farthest corners of the earth, though local people reinterpret them to meet their needs. Saving Forests, Protecting People? brings these processes sharply into focus, which is essential if we are to find realistic solutions to the problems of conservation."
– David Kaimowitz, Ford Foundation
"Schelhas and Pfeffer have written an engaging and unique book that fills an important niche in our understanding of the intersection of global and local values in tropical forest conservation."
– Steven R. Brechin, Syracuse University
"The authors offer a realistic, penetrating analysis of the values and motivations that shape local response to government policies [...] Highly recommended."
– Choice
"Shines a welcome light on the changing attitudes of poor rural peoples toward newly created parks near their homes. It is a 'must read' for anyone concerned about preserving biodiversity in the tropics."
– Thomas K. Rudel, Rutgers University
"The book is divided into five chapters [...] This organization makes the book useful to a wide audience, including forest and protected area policy makers, the interested public, researchers, faculty and students alike. Additionally, because it contextualizes parks and protected areas both locally and globally, it would be an ideal analysis for use as an environment anthropology, or as a supplement in a forestry or other natural resource management and policy course."
– Agric Hum Values
