The Science of Sustainable Development
Local Livelihoods and the Global Environment

Science faces major challenges in tackling the inter-linked problems of poverty and environmental sustainability. This book reviews how practical science can be applied to real-life conservation and development problems, and aims to demystify the sometimes obscure science of natural resources management, interpreting it for the benefit of those who need to deal with the day to day problems of managing complex natural resource systems. The authors give practical guidance to those who design and manage conservation programmes and demonstrate that technologies are available that enable integrated natural resource management to move from a theory to a reality. They argue that the threats to the natural environment posed by globalisation require an integrated response encompassing different scales, system components, disciplines and knowledge types, and that such a response can yield real benefits to those living in tropical developing countries, whilst also achieving global environment objectives.

List of figures; List of boxes; List of tables; Foreword Claude Martin; Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. Integrating Natural Resource Management: 1. The challenge: alleviating poverty and conserving the environment; 2. Dealing with complexity; 3. Getting into the system: multiple realities, social learning and adaptive management; 4. issues of scale; 5. Models, knowledge and negotiation; Part II. Realities on the Ground: 6. Institutions for managing natural resources in African savannahs; 7. Forest margins in Indonesian Borneo; 8. Learning by doing on tropical American hillsides; Part III. The Research-Management Continuum: 9. The spread of innovations; 10. Measuring the performance of natural resource systems; 11. Achieving research-based management; Bibliography; Index.

Jeffrey Sayer is Senior Associate, Forests for Life Programme, WWF-International, Switzerland.
Bruce Campbell is Director, Forests and Livelihoods Programme, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Indonesia.