Communities and Conservation: Histories and Politics of Community-Based Natural Resource Management [Paperback]

The distinguished environmentalists in this collection offer an in-depth analysis and call to advocacy for community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). Their overview of this transnational movement reveals important links between environmental management and social justice agendas for sustainable use of resources by local communities. In this volume, leaders who have been instrumental in creating and shaping CBNRM describe their model programs; the countermapping movement and collective claims to land and resources; legal strategies for gaining rights to resources and territories; biodiversity conservation and land stabilization priorities; and environmental justice and minority rights. This book will be of value to instructors, practitioners and activists in anthropology, cultural geography, environmental justice, environmental policy, political ecology, indigenous rights, conservation biology, and CBNRM.J. Peter Brosius is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Charles Zerner is the Barbara B. and Bertram J. Cohn Professor of Environmental Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and co-director of the Environmental Studies/Science, Technology and Society Colloquium Series.

This collection of original essays powerfully demonstrates the vital role communities can play in conserving nature and resources; it also clearly articulates the dangers community actors face in wresting a place at the negotiating table. Based on research in more than twelve countries, the volume provides a feast of real world insights into the transnational movement called community-based conservation. It is the starting point for anyone interested in the shifting landscape of debates on conservation. Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan

Communities and Conservationis a solid effort to debate and document the historical development, political shape, alS!