Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:59:25.717Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interdisciplinary analysis of the environment: insights from tropical forest research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2011

SHARACHCHANDRA LELE  and
AMIT KURIEN
SHARACHCHANDRA LELE*
Affiliation:
Centre for Environment and Development, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Srirampura, Bangalore 560 064, India Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1SD, UK
AMIT KURIEN
Affiliation:
Centre for Environment and Development, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Srirampura, Bangalore 560 064, India
*
*Correspondence: Dr Sharachchandra Lele e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Tropical forest management is a quintessential interdisciplinary (ID) problem straddling the social-natural divide, and has attracted scholars from many disciplines. This paper is a review of the ID research on tropical forests with a view to understanding the challenges involved in doing ID environmental research in general and the manner in which they might be addressed. Research on two core interdisciplinary questions in tropical forest research, namely causes of tropical forest loss and degradation and its impacts on society, is analysed to illuminate issues facing ID researchers. The challenges stem from differences in implicit values, theories and epistemologies across disciplines, as well as the relationship between individual disciplines, the ID space and the wider applied research audience. Understanding the value-laden nature of terms such as forest loss and degradation leads to a multidimensional and multidisciplinary characterization of the impact of forest change on human well-being. The analysis of causes of change has been enriched by ID research in which forest outcomes are characterized explicitly in terms of their values, measured in terms relevant to these values and linked to chains of socioeconomic variables at the appropriate scale. Explanations from different disciplines may be reconciled to some extent by seeing each as partial and perhaps having context-specific validity, although some core tensions, especially between economists and anthropologists, remain. Insights from ID research have been unevenly internalized in the literature, pointing to the absence of a broadly shared ID space as a consequence of individual social science disciplines appropriating environment as a subject of study. Shifting from theory-driven to problem-driven research and re-engaging self-consciously in this applied ID space will be required to generate more rigorous and relevant ID research on forests.

Keywords

applied researchdeforestationforest degradationforest ecosystem servicesinterdisciplinarityinterdisciplinary environmental researchnormativitysocial constructionsocial sciencetropical forests
Type
THEMATIC SECTION: Interdisciplinary Progress in Environmental Science & Management
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 38 , Issue 2: Thematic section. Interdisciplinary Progress in Environmental Science and Management , June 2011 , pp. 211 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acutt, N., Ali, A., Boyd, E., Hartmann, A., Kim, J., Lorenzoni, I., Martell, M., Pyhala, A. & Winkels, A. (2000) An interdisciplinary framework for research on global environmental issues. CSERGE GEC Working Paper no. 2000–23. University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.Google Scholar
Adams, W.M. & Hutton, J. (2007) People, parks and poverty: political ecology and biodiversity conservation. Conservation and Society 5 (2): 147–183.Google Scholar
Agarwal, B. (1986) Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Woodfuel Crisis in the Third World. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers.Google Scholar
Agrawal, A. (2007) Forests, governance, and sustainability: common property theory and its contributions. International Journal of the Commons 1 (1): 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, J.C. & Barnes, D. F. (1985) The causes of deforestation in developing countries. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 75 (2): 163–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amacher, G., Hyde, W. & Kanel, K. (1999) Nepali fuelwood production and consumption: regional and household distinctions, substitution and successful intervention. Journal Of Development Studies 35 (4): 138–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, D. & Fishwick, R. (1984) Fuelwood consumption and deforestation in African countries. World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 704. The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA.Google Scholar
Arnold, J.E.M. & Pérez, M.R. (2001) Can non-timber forest products match tropical forest conservation and development objectives? Ecological Economics 39 (3): 437–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bajracharya, D. (1983) Fuel, food or forest? Dilemmas in a Nepali village. World Development 11 (12): 1057–1074.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bardhan, P.K., ed. (1989) Conversations between Economists and Anthropologists: Methodological Issues in Measuring Economic Change in Rural India. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barkmann, J., Glenk, K., Keil, A., Leemhuis, C., Dietrich, N., Gerold, G. & Marggraf, R. (2008) Confronting unfamiliarity with ecosystem functions: the case for an ecosystem service approach to environmental valuation with stated preference methods. Ecological Economics 65 (1): 48–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauer, H.H. (1990) Barriers against interdisciplinarity: Implications for studies of science, technology and society. Science, Technology, and Human Values 15 (1): 105–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bawa, K.S. & Dayanandan, S. (1997) Socioeconomic factors and tropical deforestation. Nature 386: 562–563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhagavan, M.R. & Giriappa, S. (1987) Class character of rural energy crisis: case of Karnataka. Economic and Political Weekly 22 (26): A-57–A-69.Google Scholar
Bradshaw, G. & Bekoff, M. (2001) Ecology and social responsibility: the re-embodiment of science. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16 (8): 460–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brush, S.B. (1975) The concept of carrying capacity for systems of shifting cultivation. American Anthropologist 77 (4): 799–811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, D. J., Lusch, D. P., Smucker, T. A. & Wangui, E. E. (2005) Multiple methods in the study of driving forces of land use and land cover change: a case study of SE Kajiado District, Kenya. Human Ecology 33 (6): 763–794.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, L. M. (2003) Challenges for interdisciplinary sea turtle research: perspectives of a social scientist. Marine Turtle Newsletter 100: 28–32.Google Scholar
Campbell, L. M. (2005) Overcoming obstacles to interdisciplinary research. Conservation Biology 19 (2): 574–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carson, R. (1962) Silent Spring. New York, USA: Fawcett Crest Books, CBS Publications.Google Scholar
Chazdon, R., Peres, C., Dent, D., Sheil, D., Lugo, A., Lamb, D., Stork, N. & Miller, S. (2009) The potential for species conservation in tropical secondary forests. Conservation Biology 23 (6): 1406–1417.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chopra, K. (2004) Economic valuation of biodiversity: the case of Keoladeo National Park. In: Environmental Economics in Practice, ed. Kadekodi, G. K., pp. 86–121. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, C. (1974) The economics of overexploitation. Science 181: 630–634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clements, F. E. (1936) Nature and structure of the climax. Journal of Ecology 24 (1): 252–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costanza, R. & Daly, H. E. (1992) Natural capital and sustainable development. Conservation Biology 6 (1): 37–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronon, W. (1983) Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of England. New York, NY, USA: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Daily, G.C., ed. (1997) Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, DC, USA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Daily, G.C., Soderqvist, T., Aniyar, S., Arrow, K., Dasgupta, P., Ehrlich, P.R., Folke, C., Jansson, A., Jansson, B.-O., Kautsky, N., Levin, S., Lubchenco, J., Maler, K.-G., Simpson, D., Starrett, D., Tilman, D. & Walker, B. (2000) The value of nature and the nature of value. Science 289 (5478): 395–396.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dargavel, J., Hobley, M. & Kengen, S. (1985) Forestry of development and underdevelopment of forestry. In: Forestry: Success or Failure in Developing Countries?, ed. Dargavel, J. & Simpson, G., pp. 1–37. Canberra, Australia: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
DeFries, R.S., Foley, J.A. & Asner, G.P. (2004) Land-use choices: balancing human needs and ecosystem function. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2 (5): 249–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denevan, W.M. (1992) The pristine myth. The landscape of the Americas in 1492. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82 (3): 369–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Designated National Authority (2009) Government of India submission to UNFCCC to revise country forest definition for CDM A/R projects. Designated National Authority, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, New Delhi, India.Google Scholar
Dove, M.R. (1983) Theories of swidden agriculture, and the political economy of ignorance. Agroforestry Systems 1: 85–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dove, M.R. (1992) The dialectical history of ‘jungle’ in Pakistan: an examination of the relationship between nature and culture. Journal Of Anthropological Research 48 (3): 231–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dove, M.R. (1994) `Jungle’ in nature and culture. In: Social Ecology, ed. Guha, R., pp. 90–115. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, P. & Daily, G. (1993) Science and the management of natural resources. Ecological Applications 3 (4): 558–560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fairhead, J. & Leach, M. (1995) False forest history, complicit social analysis: rethinking some West African environmental narratives. World Development 23 (6): 1023–1035.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairhead, J. & Leach, M. (1996) Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, H., Christian, C., Nordby, J., Pergams, O., Peterson, G. & Pyke, C. (2006) Perceived barriers to integrating social science and conservation. Conservation Biology 20 (6): 1817–1820.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, J., Truong, D.M., Rambo, A.T., Tuyen, N., Cuc, L.T. & Leisz, S. (2000) Shifting cultivation: a new old paradigm for managing tropical forests. Bioscience 50 (6): 521–528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geist, H. & Lambin, E. (2002) Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. BioScience 52 (2): 143–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godoy, R., Brokaw, N. & Wilkie, D. (1995) The effect of income on the extraction of non-timber tropical forest products: model, hypotheses, and preliminary findings from the Sumu Indians of Nicaragua. Human Ecology 23 (1): 29–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godoy, R., Groff, S. & O'Neill, K. (1998) The role of education in neotropical deforestation: household evidence from Amerindians in Honduras. Human Ecology 26 (4): 649–675.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godoy, R., Oneill, K., Groff, S., Kostishack, P., Cubas, A., Demmer, J., McSweeney, K., Overman, J., Wilkie, D., Brokaw, N. & Martinez, M. (1997a) Household determinants of deforestation by Amerindians in Honduras. World Development 25 (6): 977–987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godoy, R., Wilkie, D. & Franks, J. (1997b) The effects of markets on neotropical deforestation: a comparative study of four Amerindian societies. Current Anthropology 38 (5): 875–878.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Government of India (1988) National Forest Policy. New Delhi, India: Ministry of Environment and Forests.Google Scholar
Grove, R. (1989) Scottish missionaries, evangelical discourses and the origins of conservation thinking in Southern Africa 1820–1900. Journal of Southern African Studies 15 (2): 163–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guha, R. (1983 a) Forestry in British and post-British India: a historical analysis (parts I & II). Economic and Political Weekly 18: 1882–1896.Google Scholar
Guha, R. (1983 b) Forestry in British and post-British India: a historical analysis (parts III & IV). Economic and Political Weekly 18: 1940–47.Google Scholar
Guha, R., ed. (1994) Social Ecology. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Guha, R. & Gadgil, M. (1989) State forestry and social conflict in British India. Past and Present 123: 141–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gulbenkian Commission (1996) Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences. Stanford, USA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, S. & Wilkinson, C. (2009) Can interdisciplinary projects reduce the science-policy gap? In: UWE Science Communication Postgraduate Papers 2009 Volume 1, ed. Wilkinson, C., p. 42. Bristol, UK: University of West England.Google Scholar
Hamilton, L.S., ed. (1983) Forest and Watershed Development and Conservation in Asia and the Pacific. Boulder, CO, USA: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, S., Massey, D. & Richards, K. (2008) Conversations across the divide. Geoforum 39 (2): 549–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harriss, J. (2002) The case for cross-disciplinary approaches in international development. World Development 30 (3): 487–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heberlein, T. (1988) Improving interdisciplinary research: integrating the social and natural sciences. Society and Natural Resources 1 (1): 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hecht, S.B. (1985) Environment, development and politics: capital accumulation and the livestock sector in Eastern Amazon. World Development 13 (6): 663–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, R.B., Richert, D., Seekamp, E., Robertson, D. & Buhyoff, G.J. (2003) Understandings of environmental quality: ambiguities and values held by environmental professionals. Environmental Management 31 (1): 1–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hyde, W. & Amacher, G. (1996) Applications of environmental accounting and the new household economics: new technical economic issues with a common theme in forestry. Forest Ecology and Management 83 (3): 137–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janssen, W. & Goldsworthy, P. (1996) Multidisciplinary research for natural resource management: conceptual and practical implications. Agricultural Systems 51 (3): 259–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarosz, L. (1993) Defining and explaining tropical deforestation: shifting cultivation and population growth in colonial Madagascar (1896–1940). Economic Geography 69 (4): 366–379.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaimowitz, D. & Angelsen, A. (1998) Economic Models of Tropical Deforestation: A Review. Bogor, Indonesia: CIFOR.Google Scholar
Kanbur, R., ed.,(2001) Qual-quant: Qualitative and Quantitative Poverty Appraisal. Complementarities, Tensions and the Way Forward. Ithaca, NY, USA: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Kant, P. (2005) Raising ‘Kyoto Forests’ in the different bio-geographic zones of India: a profitability analysis. Indian Forester 131 (9): 1105–1120.Google Scholar
Kates, R.W., Clark, W.C., Corell, R., Hall, J.M., Jaeger, C.C., Lowe, I., McCarthy, J.J., Schellnhuber, H.J., Bolin, B., Dickson, N.M., Faucheux, S., Gallopin, G.C., Grübler, A., Huntley, B., Jäger, J., Jodha, N.S., Kasperson, R.E., Mabogunje, A., Matson, P., Mooney, H., Moore III, B., O'Riordan, T. & Svedlin, U. (2001) Sustainability science. Science 292 (5517): 641–642.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keeling, C.D. (1960) The concentration and isotopic abundances of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Tellus 12: 200–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinzig, A.P. (2001) Bridging disciplinary divides to address environmental and intellectual challenges. Ecosystems 4 (8): 709–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kockelmans, J.J. (1979) Why interdisciplinarity? In: Interdisciplinarity and Higher Education, ed. Kockelmans, J.J., pp. 123–160. University Park, USA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, R.A., Richter, D.D., Pattanayak, S. & Sharma, N.P. (1997) Ecological and economic analysis of watershed protection in Eastern Madagascar. Journal of Environmental Management 49 (3): 277–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambin, E.F., Geist, H. & Rindfuss, R.R. (2006) Introduction: local processes with global impacts. In: Land-use and Land-cover Change: Local Processes and Global Impacts, ed. Lambin, E.F. & Geist, H., pp. 1–8. Berlin, Germany: Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurance, W.F. (1999) Reflections on the tropical deforestation crisis. Biological Conservation 91 (2–3): 109–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurance, W.F., Croes, B.M., Tchignoumba, L., Lahm, S.A., Alonso, A., Lee, M.E., Campbell, P. & Ondzeano, C. (2006) Impacts of roads and hunting on Central African rainforest mammals. Conservation Biology 20 (4): 1251–1261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leach, M. & Fairhead, J. (2000 a) Challenging neo-Malthusian deforestation analyses in West Africa's dynamic forest landscapes. Population and Development Review 26 (1): 17–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leach, M. & Fairhead, J. (2000 b) Fashioned forest pasts, occluded histories? International environmental analysis in West African locales. Development and Change 31 (1): 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledec, G. (1985) The political economy of tropical deforestation. In: Diverting Nature's Capital. The Political Economy of Environmental Abuse in the Third World, ed. Leonard, J.H., pp. 179–226. New York, NY, USA: Holmes & Maier.Google Scholar
Lélé, S. (1993) Degradation, sustainability, or transformation: a case study of villagers’ use of forest lands in the Malnaad region of Uttara Kannada district, India. Ph.D. thesis. University of California, CA, USA.Google Scholar
Lélé, S. (1994) Sustainable use of biomass resources: a note on definitions, criteria, and practical applications. Energy for Sustainable Development 1 (4): 42–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lélé, S. & Hegde, G.T. (1997) Potential herblayer production and grazing effects in anthropogenic savannahs in the moist tropical forests of the Western Ghats of India. Tropical Grasslands 31 (6): 574–587.Google Scholar
Lele, S. (2009 a) Reflections on interdisciplinarity in environmental economics in India. In: Handbook of Environmental Economics in India, ed. Chopra, K. & Dayal, V., pp. 305–325. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lele, S. (2009 b) Watershed services of tropical forests: from hydrology to economic valuation to integrated analysis. Current Opinions in Environmental Sustainability 1 (2): 148–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lélé, S. & Norgaard, R. (2005) Practicing interdisciplinarity. Bioscience 55 (11): 967–975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lélé, S. & Norgaard, R.B. (1996) Sustainability and the scientist's burden. Conservation Biology 10 (2): 354–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lele, S., Patil, I., Badiger, S., Menon, A. & Kumar, R. (2011) Forests, Hydrological services, and agricultural income: a case study from Mysore district of the Western Ghats of India. In: Environmental Economics Valuation in South Asia, ed. A.K.E. Haque, Murty, M.N. & Shyamsundar, P. Oxford Cambridge, UK: Oxford Cambridge University Press, pp. 141–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lélé, S., Rajashekhar, G., Hegde, V.R., Kumar, G.P. & Saravanakumar, P. (1998) Meso-scale analysis of forest condition and its determinants: a case study from the Western Ghats region, India. Current Science 75 (3): 256–263.Google Scholar
Levin, S.A. (1992) Scale and sustainability. International Conference on the Definition and Measurement of Sustainability: the Biophysical Foundations, World Bank, Washington, DC, USA.Google Scholar
Liu, J., Dietz, T., Carpenter, S.R., Alberti, M., Folke, C., Moran, E., Pell, A.N., Deadman, P., Kratz, T., Lubchenco, J., Ostrom, E., Ouyang, Z., Provencher, W., Redman, C.L., Schneider, S.H. & Taylor, W.W. (2007) Complexity of coupled human and natural systems. Science 317 (5844): 1513–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liverman, D., Moran, E.F., Rindfuss, R.R. & Stern, P.C., eds (1998) People and Pixels: Linking Remote Sensing and Social Science. Washington, DC, USA: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Locatelli, B., Rojas, V. & Salinas, Z. (2008) Impacts of payments for environmental services on local development in northern Costa Rica: a fuzzy multi-criteria analysis. Forest Policy and Economics 10 (5): 275–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubchenco, J. (1998) Entering the century of the environment: a new social contract for science. Science 279 (5350): 491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lugo, A. & Brown, S. (1984) Research and training needs in the tropics: the need for re-evaluation. In: Ecology in Practice: Part I: Ecosystem Management, ed. Castri, F.D., Baker, F.W.G. & Hadley, M., pp. 57–70. Dublin, Ireland/Paris, France: Tycooly International & UNESCO.Google Scholar
Lund, H.G. (2002) When is a forest not a forest? Journal of Forestry 100 (8): 21–28.Google Scholar
Max-Neef, M. (2005) Foundations of transdisciplinarity. Ecological Economics 53 (1): 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moench, M. (1989) Forest degradation and the structure of biomass utilization in a Himalayan foothills village. Environmental Conservation 16 (2): 137–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moench, M. (1991) Soil erosion under a successional agroforestry sequence: a case study from Idukki district, Kerala, India. Agroforestry Systems 15 (1): 31–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, N. (1980) Conversion of tropical forests. Report prepared for the Committee on Research Priorities in Tropical Biology of the National Research Council. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, USA.Google Scholar
Nadkarni, M.V., Pasha, S.A. & Prabhakar, L.S. (1989) The Political Economy of Forest Use and Management. New Delhi, India: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Nelson, E., Mendoza, G., Regetz, J., Polasky, S., Tallis, H., Cameron, D.R., Chan, K.M., Daily, G.C., Goldstein, J., Kareiva, P.M., Lonsdorf, E., Naidoo, R., Ricketts, T.H. & Shaw, M.R. (2009) Modeling multiple ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, commodity production, and tradeoffs at landscape scales. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 7 (1): 4–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nkonoki, S. & Sørensen, B. (1984) A rural energy study in Tanzania the case of Bundilya village. Natural Resources Forum 8: 51–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oldroyd, B.P. & Nanork, P. (2009) Conservation of Asian honey bees. Apidologie 40 (3): 296–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. & Nagendra, H. (2005) Insights on linking forests, trees, and people from the air, on the ground, and in the laboratory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103 (51): 19224–19231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pandey, U. & Singh, J. S. (1984) Energy-flow relationships between agro- and forest ecosystems in Central Himalayas. Environmental Conservation 11 (1): 45–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pattanayak, S.K. & Kramer, R.A. (2001) Worth of watersheds: a producer surplus approach for valuing drought mitigation in Eastern Indonesia. Environment and Development Economics 6 (1): 123–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peluso, N. (1992) Coercive conservation: the politics of state resource control. Global Environment Change 3: 199–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peluso, N.L. & Vandergeest, P. (2001) Genealogies of the political forest and customary rights in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The Journal of Asian Studies 60 (3): 761–812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, C., Gentry, A. & Mendelsohn, R. (1989) Valuation of an Amazonian rainforest. Nature 339 (6227): 655–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prabhakar, R., Somanathan, E. & Mehta, B. S. (2006) How degraded are Himalayan forests? Current Science 91 (1): 61–67.Google Scholar
Putz, F.E. & Redford, K.H. (2010) The importance of defining ‘forest’: tropical forest degradation, deforestation, long-term phase shifts, and further transitions. Biotropica 42 (1): 10–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramankutty, N., Graumlich, L. Achard, F., Alves, D., Chhabra, A., DeFries, R., Foley, J., Geist, H., Houghton, R., Goldewijk, K.K., Lambin, E., Millington, A., Rasmussen, K., Reid, R. & Turner, B.L. (2006) Global land-cover change: recent progress, remaining challenges. In: Land-use and Land-Cover Change: Local Processes and Global Impacts, ed. Lambin, E. & Geist, H., pp. 9–39. Berlin, Germany: Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Randall, A. (1991) Total and nonuse values. In: Measuring the Demand for Environmental Quality, ed. Braden, J.B. & Kolstad, C.D., pp. 132–152. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsivier/North-Holland.Google Scholar
Ricketts, T.H. (2004) Tropical forest fragments enhance pollinator activity in nearby coffee crops. Conservation Biology 18 (5): 1262–1271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rindfuss, R.R., Walsh, S.J., Turner, B.L., Fox, J. & Mishra, V. (2004) Developing a science of land change: challenges and methodological issues. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101 (39): 13976–13981.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robbins, P. (2001) Fixed categories in a portable landscape: the causes and consequences of land-cover categorization. Environment and Planning A 33: 161–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romero, A. & Silveri, P. (2006) Not all are created equal: an analysis of the environmental programs/departments in US academic institutions from 1900 until May 2005. Journal of Integrative Biology 1 (1): 1–15.Google Scholar
Rudel, T.K. (2005) Tropical Forests: Regional Paths of Destruction and Regeneration in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruiz Pérez, M. & Arnold, J.E.M., eds (1996) Current Issues in Non-Timber Forest Products Research. Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research.Google Scholar
Sagan, C., Toon, O. & Pollack, J. (1979) Anthropogenic albedo changes and the earth's climate. Science 206 (4425): 1363–1368.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saldhana, I.M. (1990) The political ecology of traditional farming practices in Thana district, Maharashtra (India). The Journal of Peasant Studies 17 (3): 433–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scales, I. (2008) Forest frontiers: the political ecology of landscape change in Western Madagascar. Ph.D. thesis. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Scales, I. (2011) Farming at the forest frontier: Land use and landscape change in western Madagascar, 1896 to 2005. Environment and History (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmink, M. & Wood, C.H. (1987) The ‘political ecology’ of Amazonia. In: Lands at Risk in the Third World: Local Level Perspectives, ed. Little, P.D. & Horowitz, M., pp. 38–57. Boulder, CO, USA: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Sheil, D. & Wunder, S. (2002) The value of tropical forest to local communities: complications, caveats, and cautions. Conservation Ecology 6 (2): 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiva, V., Bandyopadhyay, J., Hegde, P., Krishnamurthy, B. V., Kurien, J., Narendranath, G. & Ramprasad, V. (1991) Ecology and the Politics of Survival: Conflicts Over Natural Resources in India. New Delhi, India & London, UK: United Nations University Press and SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Shrader-Frechette, K.S. & McCoy, E.D. (1995) Natural landscapes, natural communities, and natural ecosystems. Forest and Conservation History 39 (3): 138–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sills, E., Lélé, S., Holmes, T. & Pattanayak, S. (2003) Non-timber forest products in the rural household economy. In: Forests in a Market Economy, ed. Sills, E. & Abt, K., pp. 259–281. Dorderecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, J.S., Pandey, U. & Tiwari, A.K. (1984) Man and forests: a Central Himalayan case study. Ambio 13 (2): 80–87.Google Scholar
Snow, C.P. (1959) The Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sociology Guide (2010) Sociology as interpretative discipline [www document]. URL http://www.sociologyguide.com/introduction-to-sociology/sociology-interpretative-discipline.phpGoogle Scholar
Somanathan, E., Prabhakar, R. & Mehta, B.S. (2005) Does decentralization work? Forest conservation in the Himalayas. Working Paper no. 96. Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, Cambridge, USA.Google Scholar
Somanathan, E., Prabhakar, R. & Mehta, B.S. (2009) Decentralization for cost-effective conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106 (11): 4143–4147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tacconi, L. (1995) Rethinking the economic analysis of forests: theory and practice. Forest Ecology and Management 73 (1–3): 229–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, R.P. (1983) The British colonial system and the forests of the Western Himalayas, 1815–1914. In: Global Deforestation and the Nineteenth-century World Economy, ed. Tucker, R.P. & Richards, J.F., pp. 146–166. Durham, NC, USA: Duke Press Policy Studies.Google Scholar
Vatn, A. (2005) Institutions and the Environment. London, UK: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Vayda, A.P. & Walters, B.B. (1999) Against political ecology. Human Ecology 27 (1): 167–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vincent, J.R. & Hartwick, J.M. (1997) Accounting for the benefits of forest resources: concepts and experience. Revised Report, Forestry Department Planning and Statistics Branch, Policy and Planning Division, FAO, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Walker, P. (2006) Political ecology: where is the policy? Progress in Human Geography 30 (3): 382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, P.A. (2005) Political ecology: where is the ecology? Progress in Human Geography 29 (1): 73–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilshusen, P.R., Brechin, S.R., Fortwangler, C.L. & West, P.C. (2002) Reinventing a square wheel: critique of a resurgent ‘protection paradigm’’ in international biodiversity conservation. Society and Natural Resources 15 (1): 17–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar