Forests are in decline, and the threats these outposts of nature face - including deforestation, degradation, and fragmentation - are the result of human culture. Or are they? This volume calls these assumptions into question, revealing forests' past, present, and future conditions to be the joint products of a host of natural and cultural forces. Moreover, in many cases the coalescence of these forces - from local ecologies to competing knowledge systems - has masked a significant contemporary trend of woodland resurgence, even in the forests of the tropics. Focusing on the history and current use of woodlands from India to the Amazon, The Social Lives of Forests attempts to build a coherent view of forests sited at the nexus of nature, culture, and development. With chapters covering the effects of human activities on succession patterns in now-protected Costa Rican forests; the intersection of gender and knowledge in African shea nut tree markets; and even the unexpectedly rich urban woodlands of Chicago, this book explores forests as places of significant human action, with complex institutions, ecologies, and economies that have transformed these landscapes in the past and continue to shape them today. From rain forests to timber farms, the face of forests-how we define, understand, and maintain them-is changing.

About the Author
Susanna B. Hecht is professor in the Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Institute of the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Kathleen D. Morrison is the Neukom Family Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences in the College at the University of Chicago. Christine Padoch is the Matthew Calbraith Perry Curator of Economic Botany in the Institute of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Garden and the director of the Forests and Livelihoods Programme at the Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia.

Reviews
"A clear message emerges that established views and conservation approaches based on seeing people as separate from nature-or viewing the land as divided into the pristine and wild versus the humanized and despoiled-are erroneous and doomed to generate unsuccessful policies and approaches to stewardship. These are not novel ideas, but this volume is unusual and valuable in making a forceful case for their validity based on work from many different landscapes and cultures and a great diversity of environmental and historical conditions." (David R. Foster, director of the Harvard Forest, Harvard University)"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226322667
Author Susanna B. Hecht
Format Hardback
Page Count 512
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 851g
Dimensions(mm) 24mm * 17mm * 3mm