Clearcut : Political Economies of Deforestation

This book provides an intersectoral analysis of the political, socio-economic, and moral causes of deforestation across Brazil, Peru, and Finland. It will be valuable for advanced students, researchers, and policy makers working in (de)forestation, environmental studies, economics, conservation, climate change, and sustainability.

Regionally dominant extractive sectors - including Brazilian cattle ranching, Amazonian narco-gold mining, and Finnish paper pulping - provide the foundation for this book's analysis of the range of motivations for deforestation. This framing allows for a discussion of the global political economy and ecology in general, and an in-depth examination of the varieties of extractivisms that define land and resource use. The chapters take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on political ethnography and world systems analyses across the Global North-South divide. The book develops and applies a new theory that identifies regionally dominant political-economic systems as the driving forces behind deforestation. This book is essential reading for advanced students, researchers, and policy makers working in (de)forestation, environmental studies, environmental law, economics, conservation, climate change, and sustainability, leading to a deeper understanding of why our planet's forests are under threat. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.