Southeast Asia and Environmental Sustainability in Context

(Hardback)

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Description

This volume features a set of distinct, compelling, and intentionally disparate case studies that shed much needed attention on the varied ways in which local cultural, social, and political dynamics inform and mitigate the veritable roadmap toward palpable and meaningful progress with respect to enabling the goals of environmental sustainability. The volume includes contributions from notable academics including some based in Southeast Asia - with on the ground experience, and thus they bring a much more nuanced and locally informed orientation to their respective contributions.

Reviews

This volume, edited by Sunil Kukreja, covers an astonishing range of environmental issues in Southeast Asia. Beginning by demonstrating how Vietnam's environmental efforts are smashed between the hammer of foreign investment and the ambit of local development aspirations, the collection proceeds to the fate of working elephants in Thailand. It goes on to show the ambiguity of Singapore's environmental efforts and the varied reactions to the haze in Singapore and Malaysia, where the latter seems to be in denial due to the influence of the ideologized palm oil industry. It finishes with a portrayal of the different ways fishing and religious communities in Malaysia and Indonesia approach environmental destruction. This collection provides fresh, unusual, and original views of the environmental problems facing Southeast Asia and possible solutions.--Dagmar Hellman-Rajanayagam, University of Passau

Author Bio

Sunil Kukreja is dean of the Faculty and dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Puget Sound.