Plundering Paradise The Struggle for the Environment in the Philippines [Paperback]

This gripping portrait of environmental politics chronicles the devastating destruction of the Philippine countryside and reveals how ordinary men and women are fighting back. Traveling through a land of lush rainforests, the authors have recorded the experiences of the people whose livelihoods are disappearing along with their country's natural resources. The result is an inspiring, informative account of how peasants, fishers, and other laborers have united to halt the plunder and to improve their lives.

These people do not debate global warmingthey know that their very lives depend on the land and oceans, so they block logging trucks, protest open-pit mining, and replant trees. In a country where nearly two-thirds of the children are impoverished, the reclaiming of natural resources is offering young people hope for a future.Plundering Paradiseis essential reading for anyone interested in development, the global environment, and political life in the Third World.

Robin Broadis Assistant Professor of International Development at American University and the author ofUnequal Alliance: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Philippines(California, 1988).John Cavanaghis Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author, with Richard J. Barnet, ofGlobal Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order(1994).

Foreword, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Acknowledgments
Generation Lost
Nature's Revenge
The Last Rainforests
The First Environmentalists
Life Along the Death March
The Wall
Hearts and Minds
The Bastards of Bataan
From Plunder to Sustainability