ABSTRACT
Between these two causes there is a third that partakes of both: a ‘development’ pattern that takes natural resources away from the poor, who were using them sustainably, and gives them to the relatively rich, who exploit them unsustainably. Where poor people are subject to displacement onto marginal or unsuitable forest land, whether by cash-cropping (e.g. plantations, ranches) or government policy (e.g. Indonesian transmigration programme), their struggle for survival will obviously impact negatively on the environment. Moreover, the use by subsistence-based people of forest resources for their survival is often in conflict with these resources’ use for industrial or cash-crop purposes, as countless conflicts from Brazil (e.g. the assassination of Chico Mendes) to Sarawak (e.g. the logging blockades by the Penan people), India (e.g. social forestry in Karnataka, see EDF (1987), and the Narmada Valley Project, already described in some detail) and Thailand, demonstrate.
