HMC
From the time that the plight of tropical forests first captured world attention in the late 1980s, innumerable citizens groups, international initiatives, and national policies have been launched to address this global problem. This has been accompanied by substantial research literatures in diverse academic fields. What have we learned? This course takes stock of these insights and experiences, examining the scale of deforestation, its causes and consequences, and the track record of attempted solutions. Special emphasis is placed on the values, institutions, and political-economic forces that shape - and are in turn shaped by - the social actors whose decisions will determine the fate of the forests.
Required Texts
Course Schedule
Tuesday, Aug. 31
Introduction and Course Overview
Readings:
THE SCOPE AND SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
Thursday, Sept. 2
Patterns of Deforestation
Readings:
Patterns of Production and Consumption
Readings:
FOUNDATIONS
Thursday, Sept. 9
The Role of Social Values
Readings:
Ecology I: The Global Extinction Crisis
Research topic due
Readings:
Ecology II: The Ecology of Tropical Forests
Guest speaker: Professor Donald McFarlane
Readings:
Economics I: Resource Economics
Readings:
Economics II: Political Economy
Readings:
Politics and Institutions
Readings:
Tropical Forests: Policy and Practice
| Prof. Paul Steinberg | Tues/Thur 9:35 -10:50 a.m. |
| Political Studies 179-02 | Room: Parsons 1285 |
| Harvey Mudd College | Fall 2004 |
| Office Hours: Tu/Wed 4:15-5:15 p.m. or by appt. |
From the time that the plight of tropical forests first captured world attention in the late 1980s, innumerable citizens groups, international initiatives, and national policies have been launched to address this global problem. This has been accompanied by substantial research literatures in diverse academic fields. What have we learned? This course takes stock of these insights and experiences, examining the scale of deforestation, its causes and consequences, and the track record of attempted solutions. Special emphasis is placed on the values, institutions, and political-economic forces that shape - and are in turn shaped by - the social actors whose decisions will determine the fate of the forests.
Required Texts
- United Nations Development Programme et al., World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: the Fraying Web of Life, World Resources Institute, 2000.
- Nancy Lee Peluso, Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java, University of California Press, 1992.
- Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn, The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon, Verso Publishers, 1989.
| Class Participation |
10% |
| Quiz |
10% |
| Midterm 1 |
15% |
| Midterm 2 |
15% |
| Draft Research Paper |
15% |
| Final Research Paper |
15% |
| Final Presentation |
20% |
Course Schedule
Tuesday, Aug. 31
Introduction and Course Overview
Readings:
- World Resources 2000-2001, chapter 2 (pp. 3-41)
THE SCOPE AND SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
Thursday, Sept. 2
Patterns of Deforestation
Readings:
- U. N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000: Main Report, Rome, 2001. Read "Forest Area and Area Change" under Global Issues.
- Browse maps at: http://earthtrends.wri.org (select tab for forests, then maps)
Patterns of Production and Consumption
Readings:
- International Tropical Timber Organization, Annual Review and Assessment of the World Timber Situation, 2003. Skim text on pp 11-44, and study tables/figures, to discern major patterns.
- Conduct an analysis of patterns from the forestry data link at http://apps.fao.org/faostat
FOUNDATIONS
Thursday, Sept. 9
The Role of Social Values
Readings:
- World Resources 2000-2001, pp. 87-102.
- Fate of the Forest, Chapter 1.
- David Pearce, Francis E. Putz and Jerome K. Vanclay (2003) Sustainable Forestry in the Tropics: Panacea or Folly?, Forest Ecology and Management 172:229-247. Section 4 only (pp. 232-234).
Ecology I: The Global Extinction Crisis
Research topic due
Readings:
- Robert M. May (1992) How Many Species Inhabit the Earth?, Scientific American 267(4):42-48.
- Stuart L. Pimm and Peter Raven (2000) Biodiversity - Extinction by Numbers, Nature 403(6772):843-845.
- Norman Myers et al. (2000) Biodiversity Hotspots for Conservation Priorities, Nature 403:853-858.
- Rodolfo Dirzo and Peter H. Raven (2003) Global State of Biodiversity and Loss, Annual Review of Environment and Resources 28:137-167. Selections to be announced.
Ecology II: The Ecology of Tropical Forests
Guest speaker: Professor Donald McFarlane
Readings:
- P. C. Whitmore, An Introduction to Tropical Rain Forests, Oxford University Press, 1990. Chapter 2.
- Fate of the Forests, pp. 33-44.
Economics I: Resource Economics
Readings:
- David Pearce, An Economic Approach to Saving the Tropical Forests, pp. 239-262 in Dieter Helm (ed.), Economic Policy Towards the Environment, Blackwell Publishers, 1991.
- Mariano Torras (2000) The Total Economic Value of Amazonian Deforestation, 1978-1993, Ecological Economics 33(2):283-297. Only read the table pp. 288-289.
Economics II: Political Economy
Readings:
- Fate of the Forests, Chapters 4 and 5.
Politics and Institutions
Readings:
- Paul F. Steinberg, Environmental Leadership in Developing Countries, MIT Press, 2001. Chapter 5.
- Additional readings to be announced.
Thursday, Sept. 30
Midterm I
CAUSES OF FOREST DEGRADATION
Tueday, Oct. 5
Overview
Readings:
- Arild Angelsen and David Kaimowitz (1999) Rethinking the Causes of Deforestation: Lessons from Economic Models, The World Bank Research Observer 14(1):73-98.
Thursday, Oct. 7
Governance I: The Impact of Public Policy
Readings:
- Binswanger, Hans P. (1991) Brazilian Policies that Encourage Deforestation in the Amazon, World Development 19(7):821-829.
- Fate of the Forests, Chapter 6.
Tuesday, Oct. 12
Governance II: Corruption and Illegal Logging
Readings:
- Arnoldo Contreras Hermosilla, Law Compliance in the Forestry Sector: An Overview, World Bank, 2001.
- Environmental Investigation Agency/Telapak, Profiting from Plunder: How Malaysia Smuggles Endangered Wood, 2004.
- Browse: http://www.illegal-logging.info/index.php
Thursday, Oct. 14
Multinational Corporations
Readings:
- Peter Dauvergne, Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia, MIT Press, 1997. Selections to be announced.
- Richard P. Tucker, Banana Republics, pp. 120-178 in Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World, University of California Press, 2000. Selections to be announced.
Tuesday, Oct. 19
Fall break
Thursday, Oct. 21
Political Ecology I
Readings:
- Rich Forests, Poor People. Chapters 1, 2, and 3.
Tuesday, Oct. 26
Political Ecology II
Readings:
- Rich Forests, Poor People. Chapters 7 and 8.
Thursday, Oct. 28
Midterm II
THE SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS
Tuesday, Nov. 2
Sustainable Forestry
Student presentations begin today
Readings:
- David Pearce, Francis E. Putz and Jerome K. Vanclay (2003) Sustainable Forestry in the Tropics: Panacea or Folly?, Forest Ecology and Management 172:229-247.
- Theodore Panayotou and Peter S. Ashton, Not by Timber Alone: Economics and Ecology for Sustaining Tropical Forests, Island Press, 1992. Chapter 3.
Thursday, Nov. 4
Forest Certification
Readings:
- Joseph Domask, From Boycotts to Global Partnership: NGOs, the Private Sector, and the Struggle to Protect the World's Forests, in J. Doh and H. Teegen, Globalization and NGOs, Praeger, 2003.
- F. Gale, Caveat Certificatum: The Case of Forest Certification, pp. 275-299 in T. Princen, M. Maniates and K. Conca (eds.), Confronting Consumption, MIT Press, 2002.
Tuesday, Nov. 9
Protected Areas I: Overview
Readings:
- Kathy MacKinnon, The Ecological Foundations of Biodiversity Protection, pp. 36-63 in Randall Kramer et al. (eds.) Last Stand: Protected Areas and the Defense of Tropical Biodiversity, Oxford University Press, 1997. Selections to be announced.
- Michael J. B. Green and James Paine, State of the World's Protected Areas at the End of the Twentieth Century, IUCN, 1997. Selections to be announced.
Thursday, Nov. 11
Protected Areas II: The Critique
Readings:
- Nancy Lee Peluso, Coercing Conservation: The Politics of State Resource Control, pp. 343-352 in Ronnie D. Lipschutz and Ken Conca (eds.), The State and Social Power in Global Environmental Politics, Columbia University Press, 1993.
- Crystal L. Fortwangler, The Winding Road: Incorporating Social Justice and Human Rights into Protected Areas Policies, pp. 25-40 in Steven R. Brechin et al. (eds.), Contested Nature: Promoting International Biodiversity with Social Justice in the Twenty-first Century, SUNY Press, 2003. (Skip section "The road toward..," pp. 26-31.)
- Alexander Stille, In the "Greened" World, It Isn't Easy to Be Human, New York Times, July 15, 2000.
Tuesday, Nov. 16
Community-based Conservation I: Overview
Readings:
- David Western and R. Michael Wright, The Background to Community-based Conservation, pp. 1-12 in David Western et al. (eds.), Natural Connections: Perspectives in Community-based Conservation, Island Press, 1994.
- World Resources 2000-2001, India case study, pp. 181-192.
Thursday, Nov. 18
Community-based Conservation II: The Critique
Readings:
- Katrina Brandon, Policy and Practical Considerations in Land Use Strategies for Biodiversity Conservation, pp. 90-114, in Randall Kramer et al. (eds.), Last Stand, 1997.
- J. D. Hackel (1999) Community Conservation and the Future of Africa’s Wildlife, Conservation Biology 13(4):726-734.
Tuesday, Nov. 23
Advising week – no class
Draft paper due
Thursday, Nov. 25
No class - Happy Thanksgiving!
Tuesday, Nov. 30
Ecotourism
Readings:
- Patrick C. West et al., The Political Economy of Ecotourism: Pendjari National Park and Ecotourism Concentration in Northern Benin, pp. 103-116 in Steven R. Brechin et al., Contested Nature, 2003.
- C. J. Stem et al. (2003) Community Participation in Ecotourism Benefits: The Link to Conservation Practices and Perspectives, Society & Natural Resources 16(5):387-413.
Thursday, Dec. 2
International Responses I: Regulatory Regimes
Quiz on November's readings
Readings:
- Readings to be announced.
Tuesday, Dec. 7
International Responses II: Overseas Development Assistance
Readings:
- Michael Ross, Conditionality and Logging Reform in the Tropics, pp. 167-197 in Robert O. Keohane and Marc A. Levy (eds.), Institutions for Environmental Aid: Pitfalls and Promise, MIT Press, 1996.
- Additional readings to be announced.
Thursday, Dec. 9
Wrap up
Final papers due
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