PreviousThis is the old United Nations University website. Visit the new site at http://unu.edu
In Place of the Forest
Environmental and Socio-economic Transformation in Borneo and
the Eastern Malay Peninsula
By Harold Brookfield, Lesley Potter, and Yvonne Byron
UNU Series on Critical Environmental Regions
This book describes the course of the modern transformation of Borneo and the eastern side of the Malay Peninsula, an area considered to be "environmentally critical" because of the massive deforestation that has taken place since the 1960s. Some of the conclusions drawn indicate that the greatest dangers arise from national policies that continue to treat this region as a "resource frontier despite the growing resource scarcity.
UNUP-893
ISBN 92-808-0893-1
US$30, airmail US$35
Developing country price: US$15
Amazonia
Resiliency and Dynamism of the Land and Its People
By Nigel J.H. Smith, Emanuel Adilson S. Serrão, Paulo T.
Alvim, and Italo C. Falesi
UNU Series on Critical Environmental Regions
The Amazon basin, site of the world's largest remaining tropical rain forest, is experiencing rapid ecological and socio-economic changes. This book examines the driving forces behind these changes, and considers current threats to the forests and their biodiversity.
UNUP-906
ISBN 92-808-0906-7
US$30, airmail US$35
Developing country price: US$15
The Fragile Tropics of Latin America
Sustainable Management of Changing Environments
Edited by Toshie Nishizawa and Juha I. Uitto
This book addresses the dilemma confronting Latin American countries of desiring to utilize their tropical resources to improve the living standard of their citizens on the one hand, while, on the other dealing with a growing concern about the ecological fragility of such regions and the realization of the urgent need for sustainable alternatives to prevalent models of economic development.
UNUP-877
ISBN 92-808-0877-X
US$35, airmail US$40
Developing country price: U5$17.50
Human-induced environmental change is to be found throughout the world, but there are areas that scientists consider to be "critical regions"- regions that are particularly vulnerable to or suffering from environmental degradation. In this volume nine such "critical environmental regions" (Amazonia, the Aral Sea basin, the middle mountains of Nepal, Kenya's Ukambani region, the US Southern High Plains, the Mexico Basin, the North Sea, the Ordos Plateau of China, and the eastern Sundaland region of South-East Asia) are examined as case-studies. In chapter one the authors provide a detailed look into the concepts of environmental criticality and endangerment and propose formal definitions. The nine regional studies that follow in the subsequent chapters serve to translate the conceptual framework into the physical and social realities of each area.
The case-studies make available an up-to-date synthesis of vast amounts of inaccessible data, and as such will be valuable to scholars and policy makers interested in specific areas of the world and others interested in regional comparisons. Anyone concerned with global environmental change, criticality, human-environment interactions, and how societies in different regions have responded to environmental degradation will find much that is new and important in this pioneering, innovative study.
Jeanne X. Kasperson is Research Associate Professor at the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University, USA, and Director of the Institute's research library and publications programme. She also serves as Senior Research Associate at the World Hunger Program, Brown University.
Roger E. Kasperson is Professor of Government and Geography at Clark University and currently chairs the Commission on Critical Situations/Regions in Global Environmental Change of the International Geographical Union. He has also served on numerous committees of the US National Research Council, the Council of the Society for Risk Analysis, and the Subcommittee 011 Risk Reduction Strategies of the US Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board.
B. L.Turner II is Professor of Geography and Director, the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University, and currently leads the Core Project Planning Committee on Land-Use/Cover Change of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the Human Dimensions Program of the International Social Science Council. He has served on many international and national committees dealing with the human dimensions of global environmental change.
United Nations
University Press
TOKYO • NEW YORK • PARIS
UNUP-848
ISBN 92-808-0848-6
03800 P