Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout Award 2008 for the best book on international environmental problems. This pioneering study examines the impacts of neoliberal global governance on forests and provides an exhaustive overview of international forest politics: Intergovernmental Panel on ForestsWorld Commission on Forests and Sustainable DevelopmentIntergovernmental Forum on ForestsUnited Nations Forum on ForestsForest CertificationNew policies to address illegal loggingWorld Bank's forests strategyConvention on Biological Diversity - and other international forest-related processesThe book is an essential reference for students of global environmental politics and required reading for forest policy makers. It concludes by arguing for a democratization of global governance and a fundamental restructuring of the regulatory environment so that final decision making authority is restored to the local level. Driven by concern at what forest loss means for communities and future generations, this is a book that stands to make a difference.
Synopsis
Winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout Award 2008 for the best book on international environmental problems. In this timely book, David Humphreys, author of Forest Politics, extends his analysis of the main political developments in forest governance over the last decade including recent 2005 and 2006 negotiations at the UN. Humphreys shows how the unwillingness of many governments and businesses to grapple with the causes of deforestation has rendered the UN largely ineffective in protecting the public goods value of forests. As a result the crisis of deforestation has deepened. He tracks all the main intergovernmental forest processes and follows the creation of novel mechanisms to address forest certification and illegal logging, but argues that they alone cannot solve the problem. He concludes by suggesting some policy innovations to address one of the most pressing environmental problems of our age.