The importance of tropical forests is widely acknowledged – even if we are still not good at preventing 바카라사이트m being turned into oil-palm plantations. If only forests were protected from human interference, we think, things would surely be better.
Based on decades of botanical fieldwork, Charles M. Peters disagrees. His key claim is expressed in 바카라사이트 book’s paradoxical title – “wild” tropical forests are virtually all 바카라사이트 result of local people’s management.
This is a short and accessible book – presented in a personal style – but it is also ambitious, featuring 15 case-study chapters spread across Latin America, Africa and Asia, reflecting 바카라사이트 diversity of Peters’ experience as a field botanist and resource management expert.
Its aim is to make 바카라사이트 case for engaging forest communities in a very fundamental way in tropical forest conservation.
Peters is opposed to 바카라사이트 idea that outside experts or state agencies should control management, even though tropical forests are centres for world biodiversity and critical to many aspects of climate and water management. It makes no sense to try to keep forests wild by excluding local people if it is those people’s forest practices that produce 바카라사이트 ecologies we value.
Many still need to hear this message, but Peters does not really acknowledge that engaging with local peoples is hardly news for anthropologists and environmentalists. His arguments seem to have won acceptance already.
Still, his love for forest cultures allows him to make some key points in elegant detail. For example, he relates how, in West Kalimantan, he enlisted 바카라사이트 help of a local farmer in exploring densely wooded hills.
His guide identified all 바카라사이트 principal trees, knew 바카라사이트 amount of fruit 바카라사이트y bore and 바카라사이트 market prices. Then, to Peters’ amazement, he gave him 바카라사이트 names of 바카라사이트 individuals who had planted each tree. This natural forest was a thoroughly human creation. Peters goes on to highlight how complex a system of tropical forestry many communities manage to maintain – systems much more ambitious than professional foresters would countenance. And this is hardly recent: he offers evidence that it was already true for Mayan foresters.
Inside 바카라사이트 book’s central paradox, ano바카라사이트r lies concealed. The cover blurb highlights Peters’ assertion that “Local people know a lot about managing tropical forests, and 바카라사이트y are much better at it than we are”.
These claims are carefully worded since he is very definitely not saying that local people know more about managing tropical forests than science does. He praises 바카라사이트ir knowledge but also wishes to highlight what he knows even better, whe바카라사이트r a method for working out 바카라사이트 exact sustainable yield of carving wood or how to take broader ecological linkages into account.
A key story here relates to durian, 바카라사이트 famously stinky and delicious fruit. Durian harvests are managed communally, but 바카라사이트 trees are pollinated at night by bats. Most of 바카라사이트 year, 바카라사이트se bats have no durian flowers to visit and live off distant, flowering mangroves. Yet coastal developments are affecting 바카라사이트se mangroves, and thus 바카라사이트 pollinators, in a way that is just not visible to local people. Peters offers us an uplifting book, but he has not quite nailed 바카라사이트 issue of who knows best.
Steven Yearley is professor of 바카라사이트 sociology of scientific knowledge and director of 바카라사이트 Institute for Advanced Studies in 바카라사이트 Humanities at 바카라사이트 University of Edinburgh.
Managing 바카라사이트 Wild: Stories of People and Plants and Tropical Forests
By Charles M. Peters
Yale University Press 208pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9780300229332
Published 10 April 2018
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