Robert Fletcher

Bram Buscher

A post-capitalist manifesto for conservation Conservation needs a revolution. This is the only way it can contribute to the drastic transformations needed to come to a truly sustainable model of development. The good news is that conservation is ready for revolution. Heated debates about the rise of the Anthropocene and the current 'sixth extinction' crisis demonstrate an urgent need and desire to move beyond mainstream approaches. Yet the conservation community is deeply divided over where to go from here. Some want to place 'half earth' into protected areas. Others want to move away from parks to focus on unexpected and 'new' natures. Many believe conservation requires full integration into capitalist production processes. Building a razor-sharp critique of current conservation proposals and their contradictions, Büscher and Fletcher argue that the Anthropocene challenge demands something bigger, better and bolder. Something truly revolutionary. They propose convivial conservation as the way forward. This approach goes beyond protected areas and faith in markets to incorporate the needs of humans and nonhumans within integrated and just landscapes. Theoretically astute and practically relevant, The Conservation Revolution offers a manifesto for conservation in the twenty-first century--a clarion call that cannot be ignored.

Radical Ideas for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene

The Conservation Revolution

In 1862, a British merchant was killed by samurai at Namamugi, a quiet village near Yokohama. One year later, a British fleet bombarded Kagoshima to extract reparations, reducing much of this south-western city to ash. This captivating re-telling, locates the story firmly within the wider context of British imperial expansion in East Asia.

Charles Lenox Richardson and the Anglo-Satsuma War

The Ghost of Namamugi

Nigel Warburton

Marianne Talbot

Paola Romero

Amna Whiston

"In this engaging and accessible introduction to philosophy, readers aged 11+ will be introduced to a variety of philosophical ideas through the teachings of Plato, Confucius, Simone de Beauvoir, and many more."--Provided by publisher.

Philosophy a Visual Encyclopedia

Bram Büscher

Wolfram Dressler

Can “market forces” solve the world’s environmental problems? The stakes are undeniably high. With wildlife populations and biodiversity riches threatened across the globe, it is obvious that new and innovative methods of addressing the crisis are vital to the future of the planet. But is “the market” the answer? As public funding for conservation efforts grows ever scarcer and the private sector is brimming with ideas about how its role—along with its profits— can grow, market forces have found their way into environmental management to a degree unimaginable only a few years ago. Ecotourism, payment for environmental services (PES), and new conservation finance instruments such as species banking, carbon trading, and biodiversity derivatives are only some of the market mechanisms that have sprung into being. This is “NatureTM Inc.”: a fast-growing frontier of networks, activities, knowledge, and regulations that are rapidly changing the relations between people and nature on both global and local scales. NatureTM Inc. brings together cutting-edge research by respected scholars from around the world to analyze how “neoliberal conservation” is reshaping human–nature relations that have been fashioned over two centuries of capitalist development. Contributors synthesize and add to a growing body of academic literature that cuts across the disciplinary boundaries of geography, sociology, anthropology, political science, and development studies to critically interrogate the increasing emphasis on neoliberal market-based mechanisms in environmental conservation. They all grapple with one overriding question: can capitalist market mechanisms resolve the environmental problems they have helped create?

Environmental Conservation in the Neoliberal Age

Nature Inc.

An Essay Read Before the Anthropological Society of Washington, April 20, 1897

Scopelism

A Paper Read Before the Anthropological Society of Washington, December 18, 1888

Myths of the Robin Rebreast in Early English Poetry

Brian Dowd-Uribe

Guntra A. Aistara

Despite its tiny size and seeming marginality to world affairs, the Central American republic of Costa Rica has long been considered an important site for experimentation in cutting-edge environmental policy. From protected area management to ecotourism to payment for environmental services (PES) and beyond, for the past half-century the country has successfully positioned itself at the forefront of novel trends in environmental governance and sustainable development. Yet the increasingly urgent dilemma of how to achieve equitable economic development in a world of ecosystem decline and climate change presents new challenges, testing Costa Rica’s ability to remain a leader in innovative environmental governance. This book explores these challenges, how Costa Rica is responding to them, and the lessons this holds for current and future trends regarding environmental governance and sustainable development. It provides the first comprehensive assessment of successes and challenges as they play out in a variety of sectors, including agricultural development, biodiversity conservation, water management, resource extraction, and climate change policy. By framing Costa Rica as an “ecolaboratory,” the contributors in this volume examine the lessons learned and offer a path for the future of sustainable development research and policy in Central America and beyond.

Environmental Governance and Economic Development in Costa Rica

The Ecolaboratory

Marie-Josée Fortin

This book provides a foundation for modern applied ecology. Much of current ecology research and conservation addresses problems across landscapes and regions, focusing on spatial patterns and processes. This book is aimed at teaching fundamental concepts and focuses on learning-by-doing through the use of examples with the software R. It is intended to provide an entry-level, easily accessible foundation for students and practitioners interested in spatial ecology and conservation.

Applications with R

Spatial Ecology and Conservation Modeling

Robert S. G. Fletcher

British Imperialism and 'The Tribal Question' reconstructs the history of Britain's presence in the deserts of the interwar Middle East, making the case for its significance to scholars of imperialism and of the region's past. It tells the story of what happened when the British Empire and Bedouin communities met on the desert frontiers between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. It traces the workings of the resulting practices of 'desert administration' from their origins in the wake of one World War to their eclipse after the next, as British officials, Bedouin shaykhs, and nationalist politicians jostled to influence desert affairs. Drawn to the commanding heights of political society in the region's towns and cities, historians have tended to afford frontier 'margins' merely marginal treatment. Instead, this volume combines the study of imperialism, nomads, and the desert itself to reveal the centrality of 'desert administration' to the working of Britain's empire, repositioning neglected frontier areas as nerve centres of imperial activity. British Imperialism and 'The Tribal Question' leads the shift in historians' attentions from the familiar, urban seats of power to the desert 'hinterlands' that have long been obscured.

Desert Administration and Nomadic Societies in the Middle East, 1919-1936

British Imperialism and 'the Tribal Question'

The worldwide development of ecotourism—including adventures such as mountain climbing and whitewater rafting, as well as more pedestrian pursuits such as birdwatching—has been extensively studied, but until now little attention has been paid to why vacationers choose to take part in what are often physically and emotionally strenuous endeavors. Drawing on ethnographic research and his own experiences working as an ecotour guide throughout the United States and Latin America, Robert Fletcher argues that participation in rigorous outdoor activities resonates with the particular cultural values of the white, upper-middle-class Westerners who are the majority of ecotourists. Navigating 13,000-foot mountain peaks or treacherous river rapids demands deferral of gratification, perseverance through suffering, and a willingness to assume risks in pursuit of continuous progress. In this way, characteristics originally cultivated for professional success have been transferred to the leisure realm at a moment when traditional avenues for achievement in the public sphere seem largely exhausted. At the same time, ecotourism provides a temporary escape from the ostensible ills of modern society by offering a transcendent "wilderness" experience that contrasts with the indoor, sedentary, mental labor characteristically performed by white-collar workers.

Cultural Dimensions of Ecotourism

Romancing the Wild

On prehistoric trephining and cranial amulets

Bram BŸscher

With global wildlife populations and biodiversity riches in peril, it is obvious that innovative methods of addressing our planet's environmental problems are needed. But is “the market” the answer? Nature™ Inc. brings together cutting-edge research by respected scholars from around the world to analyze how “neoliberal conservation” is reshaping human–nature relations.

Asunción Blanco Romero

Macià Blázquez-Salom

Ivan Murray Mas

Tourism and Degrowth develops a conceptual framework and research agenda for exploring the relationship between tourism and degrowth. Rapid and uneven expansion of tourism as a response to the 2008 economic crisis has proceeded in parallel with the rise of social discontent concerning so-called "overtourism." Meanwhile, despite decades of concerted global effort to achieve sustainable development, socioecological conflicts and inequality have rarely reversed, but in fact increased in many places. Degrowth, understood as both social theory and social movement, has emerged within the context of this global crisis. However, thus far the vibrant degrowth discussion has yet to engage systematically with the tourism industry in particular, while, by the same token, tourism research has largely neglected explicit discussion of degrowth. This volume brings the two discussions together to interrogate their complementarity. Identifying a growth imperative in the basic structure of the capitalist economy, the contributors contend that mounting critique of overtourism can be understood as a structural response to the ravages of capitalist development more broadly. Debate concerning overtourism thus offers a valuable opportunity to re-politicise discussion of tourism development generally. Exploring of the potential for degrowth to facilitate a truly sustainable tourism, Tourism and Degrowth will be of great interest to scholars of tourism, environmental sustainability and development. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Robert Fletcher

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