ABSTRACT

The green girdle of tropical moist forests that circles the equator forms both a physical and a conceptual divide between the Global North and the Global South. For centuries, these forests were a dark, distant and mysterious ‘other’. Mahogany, ebony and teak were miraculously translated from the steamy, dripping jungles into the urban jungle of the metropole. There then arose a colonial discourse of environmental crisis, in which the spread of deserts could be prevented only by managing forests with modern scientific tools. Colonial foresters were despatched from the metropole to play their parts in this drama, but by relying on local people to be proxy managers they created niches for resistance.