Environmental globalization and tropical forests

Abstract

Environmental globalization is a distinct dimension of the multi-dimensional phenomenon of globalization, in which the process in each dimension can be defined in a similar way. Environmental globalization involves an intensifying, deepening and expansion of global networks leading to increasing global uniformity and connectedness in regular environmental management practices. It has so far been neglected, differing from the environmental outcomes of economic globalization, and from the rise of global environmental governance. The history of external attempts to impose restrictions on tropical forest use shows that environmental globalization has been resisted by the governments of developing countries through: (a) policy ambiguity, and (b) collective action to directly contest the imposition of new institutions, most notably in defeating plans for a Forest Convention. This experience suggests that environmental globalization will only spread slowly in future, at least as far as tropical forests are concerned.

Acknowledgement

The author is indebted to Jan Oosthoek for drawing his attention to the importance of informal environmental globalization.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alan Grainger

Alan Grainger is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Leeds. He is the author of The Spreading Desert: Controlling Desertification (1990) and Controlling Tropical Deforestation (1993), and co-editor of Exploring Sustainable Development: Geographical Perspectives (2004). He has been Editor of the Journal of Forest Policy (formerly the Journal of World Forest Resource Management) since 1984.