The design of economic instruments for the protection of ecological wealth in Latin American countries poor in financial capital, but rich in biological diversity poses very specific challenges. This article examines some of the interests, claims, discourses and values of a range of social...

Current debates on the ecological crisis and on shared responsibilities for the maintenance of the earth's commons raise fundamental anthropological questions, but anthropologists have yet to engage fully with them, or with the paradigm of sustainable development. This chapter offers a personal...

Nearly 200 million hectares of topical forests were lost between 1980 and 1995, which led many conservationists to argue for a ban on all commercial logging and land conversion in tropical forest areas. Both logging companies and national governments were seen as sharing responsibility for the...

This paper analyses comparatively the development of two coalitions for the sustainable forest management of remaining portions of the Ecuadorian Chocó owned by indigenous communities. One coalition, a network of environmental NGOs, promotes the co-operative commercialisation of community...

Whereas sustainable development used to be conceptualized in relation to differentiated development stages and contrasts between "consumer" and "basic needs" societies (Redclift 1991), the emerging green economy has internalized the new geopolitical conditions created by "globalization". Latin...