"In this volume, through case studies of forest conflicts and water conflicts in India, the authors have exposed the grim situation in a forceful and logical manner. Its logic does not remain confined to the Indian boundaries alone but extends to all over the world in general. . . . Dr. Vandana Shiva and her colleagues deserve profound admiration for their excellent work. It is a prize book, worthwhile to read and possess." --Indian Book Chronicle "Relatively little has been written on India's ecological problems as they relate to political struggles: Shiva's stands apart as an essential treatise on the subject." --The Bookwatch "The authors are some of the well-known experts in the field. . . . The book is worth reading, as it provides a comprehensive and in-depth current discussion on the issues of water and forest in India." --Development Update Due to thoughtless acts, our environment has endured harsh treatment, and in many cases, irreversible damage. Only now are we beginning to see some of the damage we have caused. Sponsored by the United Nation University's Programme on Peace and Global Transformation, this insightful volume analyzes ecology movements in contemporary society and the resulting conflicts over vital natural resources. The discussed theme relates to societies universally, and specifically addresses the intense and emerging social contradictions related to conflicts over natural resources rapidly surfacing in India. Looked at from a direct Third World perspective, rather than speculated by an outside perspective, the book examines how ecology movements have questioned the validity of dominant concepts of economic development in the world today. Shiva discusses the fundamental assumptions of modern economic development responsible for the conflicts and environmental degradation, and proposes a new development theory which supports sustainable development and the people's rights to justice and peace. Ecology and Politics of Survival will interest students and professors alike in ecology, environmental studies, development studies, sociology, and social studies of science. "This work provides insights into the interlinkages between natural resource utilization and developmental priorities in India. . . . The book is an excellent contribution as it supports ecologists' sentiments with scientific data. It provides an insight into the unseen dimension of development programs." --Productivity "The author provides systematic conceptual framework for analyzing the processes and structures of modern economic development from an ecological perspective." --Finance India "The book under review by an author, who is both a scholar and an activist herself, is an eloquent expression of the ecological critique. The book, written in association with seven others, including the late B. V. Krishnamurthy, offers a well-articulated theoretical critique as well as a documentation of the conflicts over natural resources that took place in India in the seventies and the eighties." --Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics "Indian writers about ecology and development, and Vandana Shiva in particular, are beginning to achieve the international attention they deserve. . . . It is a pioneering work because it provides an accessible set of explanations against which other case studies can be established and tested. . . . This powerful text by Shiva and colleagues . . . can help realize a change in training and thinking which we are all waiting for." --Pacific Affairs

Agrarian social movements are at a crossroads. Although these movements have made significant strides in advancing the concept of food sovereignty, the reality is that many of their members remain engaged in environmentally degrading forms of agriculture, and the lands they farm are increasingly unproductive. Whether movement farmers will be able to remain living on the land, and dedicated to alternative agricultural practices, is a pressing question. The Political Ecology of Education examines the opportunities for and constraints on advancing food sovereignty in the 17 de Abril settlement, a community born out of a massacre of landless Brazilian workers in 1996. Based on immersive fieldwork over the course of seven years, David Meek makes the provocative argument that critical forms of food systems education are integral to agrarian social movements' survival. While the need for critical approaches is especially immediate in the Amazon, Meek's study speaks to the burgeoning attention to food systems education at various educational levels worldwide, from primary to postgraduate programs. His book calls us to rethink the politics of the possible within these pedagogies.

Feminist Political Ecology explores the gendered relations of ecologies, economies and politics in communities as diverse as the rubbertappers in the rainforests of Brazil to activist groups fighting racism in New York City. Women are often at the centre of these struggles, struggles which concern local knowledge, everyday practice, rights to resources, sustainable development, environmental quality, and social justice. The book bridges the gap between the academic and rural orientation of political ecology and the largely activist and urban focus of environmental justice movements.

This study of banana contract farming in the Eastern Caribbean explores the forces that shape contract-farming enterprises everywhere_capital, the state, and the environment. Employing the increasingly popular framework of political ecology, which highlights the dynamic linkages between political-economic forces and human-environment relationships, Lawrence Grossman provides a new perspective on the history and contemporary trajectory of the Windward Islands banana industry. He reveals in rich detail the myriad impacts of banana production on the peasant laborers of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Grossman challenges the conventional wisdom on three interrelated issues central to contract farming and political ecology. First, he analyzes the process of deskilling and the associated significance of control by capital and the state over peasant labor. Second, he investigates the impacts of contract farming for export on domestic food production and food import dependency. And third, he examines the often misunderstood problem of pesticide misuse. Grossman's findings lead to a reconsideration of broader debates concerning the relevance of research on industrial restructuring and globalization for the analysis of agrarian change. Most important, his work emphasizes that we must pay greater attention to the fundamental significance of the "environmental rootedness" of agriculture in studies of political ecology and contract farming.

A provocative essay that imagines a truly ecological future based on political transformation rather than the superficialities of “sustainability.” In this provocative call for a new ecological politics, William Ophuls starts from a radical premise: “sustainability” is impossible. We are on an industrial Titanic, fueled by rapidly depleting stocks of fossil hydrocarbons. Making the deck chairs from recyclable materials and feeding the boilers with biofuels is futile. In the end, the ship is doomed by the laws of thermodynamics and by the implacable biological and geological limits that are already beginning to pinch. Ophuls warns us that we are headed for a postindustrial future that, however technologically sophisticated, will resemble the preindustrial past in many important respects. With Plato's Revenge, Ophuls, author of Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity, envisions political and social transformations that will lead to a new natural-law politics based on the realities of ecology, physics, and psychology. In a discussion that ranges widely—from ecology to quantum physics to Jungian psychology to Eastern religion to Western political philosophy—Ophuls argues for an essentially Platonic politics of consciousness dedicated to inner cultivation rather than outward expansion and the pursuit of perpetual growth. We would then achieve a way of life that is materially and institutionally simple but culturally and spiritually rich, one in which humanity flourishes in harmony with nature.

From 1984 through 1995 a small band of ecologists led by Pan Wenshi from Peking University conducted a study of wild giant pandas in the Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi Province. This project was the first Chinese-led conservation project in China and was conducted during a significant transition period in Chinese history, as the country opened its society and science to the world. The project focused on behavioral observation of wild giant pandas, but evolved to include physiology, nutrition, ecology, land-use policy, and population biology as the staff became more aware that the issues with captive pandas (assisted reproduction, unusual diet, and genetic inbreeding) were not the most critical to survival of wild populations. It is evident in this work that, as the scientists gained knowledge, they came to see giant panda conservation as wrapped in landscape ecology and human/wildlife interactions. The group was seminal in the Chinese government's enactment of a logging ban to their study area by advocating for pandas at the national level. The project was summarized in a 2001 volume, but its publication in Mandarin limited its influence on the greater conservation community. This English version of the original work translates, condenses, and refines the original volume, with added contextual chapters on the importance of this volume and how our understanding of giant panda conservation is shaped by this pioneering field work.

As humanity presses down inexorably on the natural world, people debate the extent to which we can save the Earth's millions of different species without sacrificing human economic welfare. But is this argument wise? Must the human and natural worlds be adversaries? In this book, ecologist Michael Rosenzweig finds that ecological science actually rejects such polarization. Instead it suggests that, to be successful, conservation must discover how we can blend a rich natural world into the world of economic activity. This revolutionary, common ground between development and conservation is called reconciliation ecology: creating and maintaining species-friendly habitats in the very places where people live, work, or play. The book offers many inspiring examples of the good results already achieved. The Nature Conservancy, for instance, has a cooperative agreement with the Department of Defense, with more than 200 conservation projects taking place on more than 170 bases in 41 states. In places such as Elgin Air Force Base, the human uses-testing munitions, profitable timbering and recreation--continue, but populations of several threatened species on the base, such as the long-leaf pine and the red-cockaded woodpecker, have been greatly improved. The Safe Harbor strategy of the Fish & Wildlife Service encourages private landowners to improve their property for endangered species, thus overcoming the unintended negative aspects of the Endangered Species Act. And Golden Gate Park, which began as a system of sand dunes, has become, through human effort, a world of ponds and shrubs, waterfowl and trees. Rosenzweig shows that reconciliation ecology is the missing tool of conservation, the practical, scientifically based approach that, when added to the rest, will solve the problem of preserving Earth's species.

Rejection of politics is deep and widespread. Even sincere and responsible individuals who practice it hold their nose while doing so. Yet politics must be practiced, and well, if the planet and the people are to survive. A clue for our future success as a species lies in the fact that ecology has never really been tried in politics. Yet ecology holds the secret of success for planet and people precisely in politics. Deep in ecology is the astounding fact, scientifically examined and attested to, that we are already related. Though taught by elite after elite that we are separate from nature and thus from everyone and everything, this can now be seen as the great mistake and a perpetuated lie from generation to generation. A new ontology of being related is the gateway of consciousness to a new and exciting politics for survival and democracy. Waves of transformation lap at barriers in the political sphere. But they are repulsed by an entrenched politics rooted not only in the greed and power hunger of a dominant few, or in outmoded structures of economic and political power, but in the old millennial ontology of being separate. Our extraordinary times call for a new political party animated by the ecology of being related. It is a party of a different kind, one that frees itself from giant worldwide corporations, is fully and overtly dedicated to non-violence and rooted in the awareness that the people come first. This party knows that elections must be fair and equal and must enable undistorted dialogue, and that people in government must not only proclaim but practice the principle of being of, for, and by the people. This book challenges The Green Party, now on a footing in over 100 countries, to be this party of a different kind.

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