Description:
The ongoing debate concerning the Amazon's crucial role in global climate and biodiversity is entirely dependent upon sustainable development in the region. This book analyses numerous promising local tree and forest management initiatives taken by smallholders in the Bolivian, Brazilian, Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon to better understand the key success factors.
Review Quotes:
"This is a book about profoundly good intentions, and how things didn't work out as planned, and about who bore the risks and paid the costs.While elements of it are heartening, the structural questions remain largely unsolved, and, as is often the case in the tropical world, the function, continuity and maybe even viability of field NGOs bears a sharp reprove and reexamination in the graveyard of so many failed projects. This book has a strong empirical basis of comparison and also provides insight into methodology construction and important caveats about how socially diverse Amazonia remains. It is an excellent field guide to smallfarm development in Amazonia, but it's not really for the casual reader since it assumes quite a bit of knowledge. It is a very rewarding book ..." - Susanna Hecht, University of California, Los Angeles, in The Journal of Peasant Studies.