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NEED AND GREED ON THE
LAST FRONTIER
Tropical Deforestation: The Human
Dimension. Leslie E. Sponsel, Thomas N. Headland, and Robert C.
Bailey, eds. Columbia University
Press, New York, 1996. 365 pp.
$19.50 (ISBNO-231-10319-0paper).
Tropical deforestation continues unabated after two decades of rhetoric
by governments and international
organizations alike and in the face of
increasing popular recognition that
it is contributing to human misery in
the tropics and will contribute to a
lower quality of life worldwide in
the near future. This very nicely organized; fact-filled volume from
Columbia University Press's Biology
and Resource Management in the
Tropics and Methods and Cases in
Conservation Science series examines tropical deforestation from numerous anthropological perspectives
to identify causes and offer possible
solutions. In each chapter, the authors conclude by drawing'lessons
from their case studies that can be
useful for chan ging current policy.
The editors are field anthropologists
with extensive experience in the
tropical regions most subject to current and future deforestation, so their
choice of case studies provides pertinent examples that are representative of all of the tropics.
The book is divided into five sections. The first is a single chapter in
which the editors provide a concise
overview of tropical forests: their
worth, the causes and consequences
of their loss, and some ways to preserve them. The editors note that
April 1998
deforestation is driven by need and cover and reducing hunger and povgreed, both of which are the result of erty, but these programs were abanpolitical and economic policies cho- doned during the turmoil of indepensen by national governments and in- dence and are only now being revived.
ternational devt;.lopment organizaThe fourth section contains five
tions, especially the World Bank and chapters about modern deforestathe International Monetary Fund.
tion. These chapters examine this
The two chapters in the second topic from a political-economic persection discuss prehistoric defores- spective, both national and internatation. Elliot Abrams, AnnCorinne tional. Emilio Moran's chapter on
Freter, David Rue, andJohn Wingard the Brazilian Amazon is especially
show that the collapse of the Late disturbing because he predicts inMaya civilization in Honduras was creasing violence against the disencaused in part by population pres- franchised human population and
sures that led to mismanagement of accelerating deforestation that can
the forests. Brien Meilleur shows that be avoided only if the current busithe occupation of Polynesia was ac- ness-as-usual approach is changed.
companied by extensive deforesta- Eduardo Bedoya and Lorien Klein
tion and extinction of endemic plant examine the effects of the US antiand anima 1 populations.
drug program on humans and their
The third section contains two environment in the Peruvian Amachapters that discuss historical de- zon. Again, the report is disturbing
fore station in colonial India and because it clearly shows how the
Kenya. Both chapters illuminate the lack of political will in the Uni ted
major lesson of the book, namely, States to address the reasons for drug
that deforestation results from po- use can negatively affect people in
litical and economic policies that other countries who are only redeny the rights of native peoples to sponding to an economic opportutheir land and its resources. Janis nity where no other good opportuniAlcorn and Augusta Molnar show ties exist. Susan Stonich and Billie
that before the British arrived, the DeWalt's chapter on Honduras is
Indian subcontinent was a patch- especially thought provoking because
work of small to medium king doms it shows that accepted development
in which peasant communities had strategies-the export of agricultural
alm ost total control over their for- commodities, as encouraged by the
ests. As Britain consolidated control United States and international deover the subcontinent, the forests velopment organizations-are the
were brought under state control and root causes of increased deforestapeasants were denied their traditional tion and consequent hunger and povrights to the forests. The result was erty. The increased deforestation is
increasing deforestation, which in expected because deforested land is
turn increased hunger and poverty necessary for farming; the increased
by reducing access to previously hunger and poverty are not expected,
"free" forest resources, such as food, but they are certainly the most comconstruction materials, and fire- mon outcomes of the export-led "dewood. The Indian forest service has velopment" espoused by the United
be gun work in partners hip with peas- States and international development
ants to restore some previously for- organizations.
ested areas, with variable success;
James Vandemeer, the only nonwhere such partnerships are not be- anthropologist in the book, uses a
ing tried, environmental deteriora- political-economic perspective to
compare deforestation in Nicaragua
tion and poverty continue.
In Kenya, as Alfonso Castro and Costa Rica during the 198 Os and
shows, the history of deforestation is 1990s. This chapter is especially insomewhat different, but it also in- teresting because it contrasts two
volved the loss of peasant control "treatments" over 15 years and the
over their resources, especially land reversal of one treatment after 10
rights, resulting in deforestation and years. Treatment 1 took place in
increased hunger and poverty. Early Nicaragua, where, in the 1980s, the
in this century, several districts de- Sandinistas and President Reagan
veloped farm-level forestry programs were in power and at war. The
that succeeded in increasing forest Sandinistas returned control over
321
their forest resources to local peoples,
and the conflict reduced outside development assistance. The result was
relatively little deforestation and a
reduction in hunger and poverty.
Treatment 2 took place in Costa Rica,
where, in the 1980s, deforestation
accelerated with outside development
assistance, although the peasants received some economic and social
benefits as well. In the 1990s, the
Sandinistas were out of power, and
Nicaragua was at peace and receiving outside developmentassistance,
resulting in loss of Iocal peoples'
control over their forest resources,
accelerating deforestation, and increasing hunger and poverty. In Costa
Rica, deforestation has slowed because of a lack of forests outside of
the few but we11-marketed national
parks, and welfare among the lower
classes is starting to deteriorate. To
me, this chapter clinched the editors'
contention that a political-economic
perspective provides important insights into the causes and consequences of deforestation.
In the final chapter of the fourth
section, David Wilkie examines a
modern logging concession in the
Congo. Not surprisingly, few economic benefits trickle down to the
indigenous population as their resource is being degrade.d. Logging
has had a major negative social impact in many other places in the
tropics as we11 but is widely recommended by the major international
development agencies.
The fifth section, entitled "Contributing to Solutions," nevertheless
presents four more ca se studies of
deforestation driven by political-economic policies. James Eder shows
that even with tradition al knowledge of sustainable agricultural practices, local peoples in the Philippines
are not always able to practice them
when they have been pushed into
marginal environments.
Carolyn Cook's chapter is especia11y interesting because it aga in
contrasts two political-economic
"treatments" on an origina11y homogeneous background: Papua New
Guinea, where the government is tryingto support local peoples' land rights
against press ure from international
economic interests, and Irian Jaya,
where the Indonesian government is
denying local peoples' land rights
322
and assisting national economic interests in pi11aging natural resources.
Indonesia's annexation ofIrianJaya,
its policy of genocide of the original
inhabitants, and its pillaging of the
natural resources are we11 known
and silently accepted by most of the
international community, but the
important role played by international economic interests is sobering. Equa11y disturbing is the role of
international economic interests, both
private and public, in undermining
local peoples' rights to their traditionallands in Papua New Guinea.
Robert Sussman, GIen Green, and
Linda Sussman deal with Madagascar, where ineffective government
policies have failed to offer opportunities for a rapidly expanding population, which is deforesting the island for food and fuel. The authors
use sate11ite imagery to identify critical areas and anthropological methods to determine the precise reasons
for deforestation in each area.
The final chapter deals with central Africa. Robert Bailey shows that
conservationists and development
planners have often given inadequate
attention to local peoples, who have
traditiona11y used forest resources
for survival and are attempting to
defend their rights to continue doing
so. The result of this inattention is
often project failure. Local people
must be apart of any solution to
reduce deforestation in Central Africa and elsewhere.
This book should be read by a11
development planners, conservationists, politicians, economists, and scientists involved in development and
conservation, especia11y those who
still have faith in the currently accepted development model, which
stresses top-down approaches. Because various chapters address accepted assumptions about politics
and economics, the book is especially valuable as a stimulus to the
kind of new thinking that will be
necessary to change the world's current disastrous course and reduce
tropical deforestation and human
misery around the world. The bottom line is that local peoples must
have rights to their traditionallands
and a say in how outside influences
are a110wed access to them. All of the
authors in this book recognize that
these rights are not a panacea but
rather the cornerstone for a future in
which development in tropical forests and elsewhere is sustainable. At
the same time, the authors demonstrate the need to temper the greed of
national and international economic
interests by using both national
policy and international agreements.
The kinds of changes that are recommended in this volume can help to
transform the rhetoric on slowing
deforestation into policy options that
might effect real change.
CHARLES R. CLEMENT
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas
da Amazonia
Cx. Postal478
69011-970 Manaus, AM, Brazil
EXAMINING E. COLI
Escherichia coli: Mechanisms of
Virulence. Max Sussman. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, UK,
1997.639 pp., illus. $100.00 (ISBN
0-521-453-1-5 cloth).
"Is this me at safe?" screamed the
cover of Newsweek magazine recently, announcing to the world the
latest outbreak of Escherichia coli
0157:H7. Although E. coli was first
identified as a pathogen by Theodor
Escherich more than 100 years ago,
this organism has since become the
cornerstone of every microbiology
la bora tory , and it is often forgotten
that E. coli can be pathogenic. Escherichia coli: Mechanisms of Virulence, an updated version of the 1985
proceedings of the Society for General Microbiology Symposium on the
Virulence of Escherichia coli, reviews
the current state of research on the
wide array of virulence determinants
that pathogenic E. coli uses. Broadly
aimed at clinicians and researchers
working on microbial pathogenicity, this book is not a coherent sequence that most people will read
BioScience Vol. 48 No . 4