Publication: Living in the Rainforest in the 21st Century

Ekolo Mundo does not control the feasibility or viability of the proposed solutions

Structure : IRD (French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development)

Solution proposed by : IRD

Difficulty level :

Description

INTRODUCTION

As major ecosystems in the fight against global warming and hotspots of biodiversity, tropical rainforests are home to more than 700 million people at the start of the 21st century.

Sometimes viewed as guardians of the forest, sometimes blamed for deforestation, these forest-dwelling communities are the subject of many misconceptions. But who are they really, and how do they live in the modern world?

From the last hunter-gatherer peoples to landless migrants, from farmers to rubber tappers, oil palm growers, and foresters, this book describes the reality of these communities in all their diversity. It highlights the richness of their relationships with the forest, their perceptions, their practices, and their customs. It illustrates how they are part of globalization, and how the global market and public policies affect their ways of life. Finally, it underscores the impact of global change and the resulting financial mechanisms on the management of tropical forests and the future of forest-dwelling populations.

A unique overview of the tropical forests of the Amazon, Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and Madagascar, this book brings together texts by anthropologists, ecologists, geographers, economists, and others. It is supported by rich and original imagery, capturing the communities and the terrain up close.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1 - What Is a Forest?

Introduction: The Impossible Scientific Consensus on Forests
Chapter 1: What Is a Forest? Answers from the Social Sciences
Chapter 2: An Ecologist’s Perspective on “Natural” Tropical Forests

Part 2 - The “forest peoples,” between integration and marginalization

Introduction: The “forest peoples”: Who are we talking about?
Chapter 3: The inhabitants of tropical forests: from myths to realities
Chapter 4: The New Actors in the Tropical Forest
Chapter 5: The Last Hunter-Gatherer Peoples of the Tropical Forests
Chapter 6: Feeding in the Forest. Food as a Total Social Fact

Part 3 - Thinking About, Representing, and Sharing the Forest

Introduction: Representations, Knowledge, and Access Rights. To Each His Own Forest?
Chapter 7: The Pwo Karen of Thailand, Children of the Forest. An Identity Based on Harmony
Chapter 8: The Forest in Children’s Drawings (Madagascar). A Representation of the Wild and the Domesticated
Chapter 9: Local Knowledge Under Scrutiny
Chapter 10: A Highly Anthropogenic “Natural” Forest. Coffee, People, and Honey in Southwest Ethiopia
Chapter 11: The “Orphans of the Forest.” Reflections of a Society of Slash-and-Burn Farmers in Southern Cameroon
Chapter 12: Rules for managing the forest. Examples from Indonesia

Part 4 - Gathering, Hunting, and Cultivating the Forest

Introduction: Forest dwellers: gatherers, hunters, farmers, herders
Chapter 13: Shifting cultivation. Common misconceptions, rationales, and contemporary realities
Chapter 14: Cultivating the Forest. Agroforests: A Tradition with a Future
Chapter 15: Honey in the Forest
Chapter 16: Hunting. An increasingly lucrative yet increasingly unsustainable activity
Chapter 17: River fishing. A little-known and threatened cultural biodiversity
Chapter 18: Beyond Timber. Non-Timber Forest Products and Extractivism

Part 5 - Deforestation: From a Global Perspective to the Diversity of Local Dynamics

Introduction: Deforestation: Processes, Situations, and Challenges
Chapter 19: The Disappearance of Tropical Forests. The Amazonian Example
Chapter 20: The Management of Tropical Rainforests. The Past, the Present, and the Future
Chapter 21: Oil palms and deforestation in Indonesia
Chapter 22: From contested forests to deforested lands: The case of Côte d’Ivoire
Chapter 23: Forests and Biological Invasions

Part 6 - A Highly Political Forest