Green Development Environment and Sustainability in the Third World

Now in paperback, "Green Development" analyzes the evolution of the concept of "sustainable development," and assesses how this can be applied in the real world. William Adams questions the established understanding of the problems of environment and development, stressing the inadequacy of a narrow view of environmental impacts and a limited response based on traditional conservation measures. He bridges the gap between environmentalism and development studies and argues that the central focus of "green development" should be on the needs of the poor, and their capacity for control, power, and self-determination.

This revised and updated new edition retains the clear and powerful argument which characterized the original. It gives a valuable analysis of the theory and practice of sustainable development and suggests that at the start of the new millennium, we should think radically about the challenge of sustainability.

Fully revised, this latest edition includes further reading, chapter outlines, chapter summaries and new discussion topics, and explores:

• the roots of sustainable development thinking and its evolution in the last three decades of the twentieth century
• the dominant ideas within mainstream sustainable development
• the nature and diversity of alternative ideas about sustainability
• the problems of environmental degradation and the environmental impacts of development
• strategies for building sustainability in development from above and below.

Offering a synthesis of theoretical ideas on sustainability based on the industrialized economies of the North and the practical, applied ideas in the South which tend to ignore 'First World' theory, this important text gives a clear discussion of theory and extensive practical insights drawn from Africa, Latin America and Asia.

1. The Dilemma of Sustainability 2. The Origins of Sustainable Development 3. The Development of Sustainable Development 4. Sustainable Development: the Rio Machine 5. Mainstream Sustainable Development 6. Countercurrents in Sustainable Development 7. Environment, Degradation and Sustainability 8. The Environmental Costs of Development 9. The Political Ecology of Sustainability 10. Sustainability and Risk Society 11. Mainstreaming Environmental Risk 12. Sustainable Development from Below 13. Green Development: Reformism or Radicalism?

Dr Bill Adams has worked for over 20 years researching the problems of environment and development in Africa. He is Reader in Conservation and Development in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge.