ABSTRACT
This chapter marks a change from the discussion of thinking about sustainability (Chapters 1–7) to a discussion of sustainable development in practice. It takes as its focus the management of forests, and it approaches them from the perspective of political ecology, accepting the principle that environmental questions are everywhere socially and politically contested. It opens with a discussion of forest loss and degradation, before introducing the field of political ecology. It draws attention in particular to the importance of knowledge and narratives or discourse in framing the way the environment, and human uses of it, is understood. It reviews the power of environmental narratives of deforestation to shape understandings of tropical forests and their people. It then analyses commercial forestry and its relationships with forest peoples, and questions of forest governance. It finishes with a discussion of the way ideas about ecosystem services and markets for carbon have changed the way forests are thought about. It talks in particular about Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects and their social impacts.
