Saving Forests, Protecting People?: Environmental Conservation in Central America

Tropical forest conservation is attracting widespread public interest and helping to shape the ways in which environmental scientists and other groups approach global environmental issues. Schelhas and Pfeffer show that globally-driven forest conservation efforts have had different results in different places, ranging from violent protest to the discovery of common ground among conservation programs and the various interests of local peoples. The authors examine the connections between local values, material needs, and environmental management regimes. Saving Forests, Protecting People? explores that difficult terrain where culture, the environment, and social policies meet.

John Schelhas is research forester with the Southern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service stationed at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Max J. Pfeffer is International Professor of Development Sociology and chair of the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University.