This contributed volume presents relevant examples of socio-environmental research that highlight the challenges and opportunities of using geotechnologies in interdisciplinary settings across the vast, culturally, and environmentally mega-diverse region known as Latin America. While remote sensing has been mostly used for mapping and monitoring physical features, geographic information systems open up opportunities for the integration of socio-economic and environmental data collected through individual and community-based surveys, in-situ measurements, and other participatory research techniques to offer additional analytically grounded power when evaluating socio-environmental processes that shape Latin American landscapes. The topics addressed in this book include deforestation and land degradation, borderlands dynamics, agriculture and agroecological systems, environmental conservation and development, public health, tourism, environmental justice, archeology, volunteered geography and urban planning, among others. The book is intended for academics, graduate and undergraduate classrooms, and general audiences with interest in Latin America and the socio-environmental issues that threaten the sustainability of the region and local communities. The book will also appeal to practitioners, managers, and policy makers interested in the application of geo-technologies and field-based research to address complex socio-environmental problems in the Global South.

This book presents oral histories, collective dialogues, and analyses of rural and indigenous livelihoods facing global socio-environmental regime change in Latin America (LA). Since the late twentieth century, rural and indigenous producers in LA, including agriculturists, coffee-growers, as well as small-scale farmers/fishers, and others, have had to resist, cope with, or adapt to a range of neoliberal socio-environmental regimes that impact their territories and associated resources, including water, production systems and ultimately their cultural traditions. In response, rural producers are using local visions and innovation niches to decide what, when, and how to resist, cope with uncertainty, and still be successful in using their customary laws to retain their land rights and livelihoods. This book presents a range of ethnically diverse case studies from LA, which addresses socio-environmental, educational, and law regimes’ effects using transdisciplinary research approaches in rural, traditional and indigenous production systems. Based on both, the results and insights gained into how producers are resisting and adapting to these regimes, as well as decades of research carried out in LA rural territories by the participating authors, the book puts forward a baseline for devising new public policies that are better suited to the real challenges of livelihoods, poverty, and environmental degradation in LA. These recommendations are rooted in post-development thinking; they promote territorial public policy with social inclusion and a human’s rights approach. The book draws on over 20 years of research carried out by LA’s academics and their undergraduate and graduate students who have addressed collaborative work, participatory research, and transdisciplinary approaches with rural commons and communities in LA. It features 19 case studies, with contributions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, and Mexico.

This book focuses on the issues of global environmental injustice and human rights violations and explores the scope and limits of the potential of human rights to influence environmental justice. It offers a multidisciplinary perspective on contemporary development discussions, analysing some of the crucial challenges, contradictions and promises within current environmental and human rights practices in Latin America. The contributors examine how the extraction and exploitation of natural resources and the further commodification of nature have affected local communities in the region and how these policies have impacted on the promotion and protection of human rights as communities struggle to defend their rights and territories. The book analyses the emergence of transnational activism in the context of collective action organised around socio-environmental conflicts, the infringement of basic human rights and the emergence of alternative and sometimes conflicting development models. Furthermore, it critically discusses why governments are often willing to override their commitments to sustainability and human rights to promote their development agenda. The chapters originally published as a special issue in The International Journal of Human Rights.

Though still a relatively young field, the study of Latin American environmental history is blossoming, as the contributions to this definitive volume demonstrate. Bringing together thirteen leading experts on the region, A Living Past synthesizes a wide range of scholarship to offer new perspectives on environmental change in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean since the nineteenth century. Each chapter provides insightful, up-to-date syntheses of current scholarship on critical countries and ecosystems (including Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, the tropical Andes, and tropical forests) and such cross-cutting themes as agriculture, conservation, mining, ranching, science, and urbanization. Together, these studies provide valuable historical contexts for making sense of contemporary environmental challenges facing the region.

The Routledge Handbook of Latin America and the Environment provides an in-depth and accessible analysis and theorization of environmental issues in the region. It will help readers make connections between Latin American and other regions’ perspectives, experiences, and environmental concerns. Latin America has seen an acceleration of environmental degradation due to the expansion of resource extraction and urban areas. This Handbook addresses Latin America not only as an object of study, but also as a region with a long and profound history of critical thinking on these themes. Furthermore, the Handbook departs from most treatments on the topic by studying the environment as a social issue inextricably linked to politics, economy, and culture. The Handbook will be an invaluable resource for those wanting not only to understand the issues, but also to engage with ideas about environmental politics and social-ecological transformation. The Handbook covers a broad range of topics organized according to three areas: physical geography, ecology, and crucial environmental problems of the region. These are key theoretical and methodological issues used to understand Latin America’s ecosocial contexts, and institutional and grassroots practices related to more just and ecologically sustainable worlds. The Handbook will set a research agenda for the near future and provide comprehensive research on most subregions relative to environmental transformations, challenges, struggles and political processes. It stands as a fresh and much needed state of the art introduction for researchers, scholars, post-graduates and academic audiences on Latin American contributions to theorization, empirical research and environmental practices.

Human societies are influencing nature in such a way that their independent analysis is no longer suitable. Fortunately, social-ecological systems provide a conceptual framework for the interconnected analysis of societies and ecosystems. However, in the case of Latin America, the complexity of social-ecological processes undermined a much-needed compilation of theoretical concepts, methods and case studies. Increasing readers’ understanding of such systems using a postnormal approach, the book discusses current concepts and methods with examples of studies from eight countries. It is a useful resource for social actors, government decision makers and scholars.

This book examines cooperation on shared environmental concerns across national boundaries in the Southern Cone region of South America, specifically Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. It covers regional environmental cooperation in the Southern Cone since the early 1990s. By using the marginalised issues of ecological and socio-environmental concerns as an analytical lens, the author makes a significant contribution to the study of regional cooperation in Latin America. Her book also presents the first detailed study of how environmental cooperation across national boundaries takes place in a region of the South, and thus fills a lacuna in global environmental governance. This innovative work is geared toward students and scholars of environmental politics, regional cooperation in Latin America, and transboundary environmental governance.

During Latin America’s China-led commodity boom, governments turned a blind eye to the inherent flaws in the region’s economic policy. Now that the commodity boom is coming to an end, those flaws cannot be ignored. High on the list of shortcomings is the fact that Latin American governments—and Chinese investors—largely fell short of mitigating the social and environmental impacts of commodity-led growth. The recent commodity boom exacerbated pressure on the region’s waterways and forests, accentuating threats to human health, biodiversity, global climate change and local livelihoods. China and Sustainable Development in Latin America documents the social and environmental impact of the China-led commodity boom in the region. It also highlights important areas of innovation, like Chile’s solar energy sector, in which governments, communities and investors worked together to harness the commodity boom for the benefit of the people and the planet.

This anthology convenes 53 foundational readings that showcase the rich history of socio-environmental research from the late 1700s onwards. The introduction orients readers to the topic and how it has evolved and describes how to best use the book. The original readings are organised into six sections, documenting the emergence of socio-environmental research, first as a shared concern and then as a topic of specific interest to anthropology and geography; economics, sociology and political science; ecology; ethics, religious studies, and history; and technology, energy, and materials. A noted scholar introduces each section, putting the readings into historical and intellectual context. The conclusion links the legacy readings to contemporary approaches to socio-environmental research and discusses how these links can enrich the reader's understanding and work. Invaluable to students, instructors and researchers alike, this canonical reference illuminates underappreciated linkages across research domains and creates a shared basis for dialogue and collaboration.

Scholars and activists investigate the emergence of a distinctively Latin American environmental justice movement, offering analysis and case studies that illustrate the connections between popular environmental mobilization and social justice in the region.