This multi-layered ethnography breaks new ground by describing how historical political-economic changes have influenced the shift from coercive to community-based conservation and, in the process, reinforced “managerial preferences” for agriculture and ethnicity on the island. While the turn to community-based conservation was intended to reduce inequity and poverty in support of conservation, outcomes suggest that it recast diverse livelihoods according to notions of “modernity” and “tradition” that linger in the national imagination.

The study shows that paying attention to the assumptions buried in changing conservation strategies can expose how and why interventions often become entangled in local political economic change and exacerbate socio-economic differences among the rural poor.

About the Author
Wolfram H. Dressler is Senior Lecturer in environment and development at the University of Queensland, Australia. His research interests span the politics of conservation and development, rural livelihoods, human rights and governance in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa.

Copyright 2009. 6x9 inches. 286 pages.

ISBN: 978-971-550-598-7