People scratching a living from parched land, women walking miles for scraps of firewood are both familiar images of Africa. But, in many places, people, with the help of governments and aid agencies, are putting the land into good shape, growing more food and creating a healthy cover of trees. This book joins the literature of hope by looking at these advances from the viewpoint of the energy crisis of the poor. This crisis can only be solved by going beyond the narrow confines of energy to consider all the needs of local people and the potential for change. Drawing on a wide range of case histories, the authors describe the gains in farming and forestry and woodfuel supply that have come about through this broader, people-centered approach. They also write about woodfuel prices, markets and other key elements of survival strategies for the cities. Huge efforts will be needed to recover from the failures of the past, but Leach and Mearns show that important lessons are at last being learned and that new roads to success can be mapped. Originally published in 1988

People scratching a living from parched land, women walking miles for scraps of firewood are both familiar images of Africa. But, in many places, people, with the help of governments and aid agencies, are putting the land into good shape, growing more food and creating a healthy cover of trees. This book joins the literature of hope by looking at these advances from the viewpoint of the energy crisis of the poor. This crisis can only be solved by going beyond the narrow confines of energy to consider all the needs of local people and the potential for change. Drawing on a wide range of case histories, the authors describe the gains in farming and forestry and woodfuel supply that have come about through this broader, people-centered approach. They also write about woodfuel prices, markets and other key elements of survival strategies for the cities. Huge efforts will be needed to recover from the failures of the past, but Leach and Mearns show that important lessons are at last being learned and that new roads to success can be mapped. Originally published in 1988

We have poisoned the air and water on which our lives depend. Poor countries exhaust their land in the struggle to survive while rich countries demand more and more. The Earthscan Action Handbook spells out why things have gone so terribly wrong and what each of us can do to clean up the mess. Each chapter deals with one of the major problems people and the planet now face: meeting the human needs of health, education and social justice as well as the environmental needs of our dying lakes and forests, polluted seas, threatened habitats and endangered species. Packed with suggestions for positive action, this book also gives details of who to contact, what to read and where to go if you want to do more. Whether you care about buying safe food or feeding the world, The Earthscan Action Handbook is indispensable. Originally published in 1990

Changing the Boundaries explores gender relations with respect to education, reproductive health services, and agricultural resources -- three factors that are widely recognized as being central to the struggle for gender equity, population control, and environmental sustainability. As well as defining the role of women in the population-environment quandary, author Janice Jiggins explains how that role is the key to understanding issues of population and environment. Throughout the volume, she makes extensive use of research, experience, and documentation that draws on the views and publications of women in the global South, much of which is available to development practitioners but is rarely found in academic libraries. Data, arguments, concepts, and analysis from a wide and varied range of sources are woven together to link the experience of women's daily lives with population policies and global environmental politics.

This book examines the conditions under which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) may exert influence on policies to conserve and sustainably use natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa. The book is unique in bringing together NGO campaigners in three African countries with academics specialising in development studies, systems and environmental policy.

The most pressing problem for most developing countries is how to reverse the adverse trends of the 1980s and create the conditions for sustainable development. The contributors to this volume bring a great variety of experience, background and interest to bear on this issue. Considerable attention is given to the design of appropriate structural adjustment programmes and the role of debt reduction, food aid and the European Community in this context. The need for an adaptive evolutionary approach to problems of development is, perhaps, the central theme to the volume.

The State and Social Power in Global Environmental Politics examines how the difficult issues of social, political, and economic relations will complicate the efforts initiated at the June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The contributors argue that national governments must begin to acknowledge the role of new actors in their environmental policies. The authors of these original essays-including Jesse C. Ribot, James N. Rosenau, Barbara Jancar, and Ann Hawkins-envision a world in which governments, driven by various pressures, find themselves increasingly bound to common efforts and joint solutions.

The focus of the workshop was on policy and economic issues associated with developing alternativas to slash-and-burn agriculture, since that form of land use is a major cause of tropical deforestation. Particular emphasis is given to the distribution and growth of populations in tropical forest areas, to the effects of shortnend fallow periods, and to opportunities for addressing policy research needs in these areas.

“Empire forestry”—the broadly shared forest management practice that emerged in the West in the nineteenth century—may have originated in Europe, but it would eventually reshape the landscapes of colonies around the world. Melding the approaches of environmental history and political ecology, Colonial Seeds in African Soil unravels the complex ways this dynamic played out in twentieth-century colonial Sierra Leone. While giving careful attention to topics such as forest reservation and exploitation, the volume moves beyond conservation practices and discourses, attending to the overlapping social, economic, and political contexts that have shaped approaches to forest management over time.