ABSTRACT
The role of business in the Third World’s environmental crisis has been a crucial one. Yet insufficient attention has been devoted in Third World political ecology to the analysis of this important type of actor. Instead, political ecologists have tended to focus on other actors, especially the state, in their work. A diversity of economic activities such as logging, mining or cattle ranching that contribute to environmental degradation have often been described with inadequate reference being made to the transnational corporations (TNCs) or local businesses that are often involved in those activities. Yet TNCs and local businesses have played a central role in the development of a politicised environment in the Third World, and appear set to increase that role even further in the near future.
