This book proposes strategies for improving the resilience and conservation of temperate forests in South America, such that these forests can provide ecosystem services in a sustainable way. As such it contributes to the design of a resilient human-forest model that takes into account the multiculturalism of local communities, in many cases including aspects of ecological economics, development economics and territorial development planning that are related to indigenous peoples or first nations. Further, it provides proposals for public and territorial policies that improve the state of conservation of native forests and forest ecosystems, based on a critical analysis of the economic factors that lead to the degradation of forest ecosystems in South America today. This edition was conceived by members of the Transdisciplinary Research Center for Social and Ecological Strategies for Sustainable Forest Management in South America at the Universidad Austral de Chile. It includes contributions by distinguished researchers from around the world, combining the fields of economics, ecology, biology, anthropology, sociology and statistics. It is not, however, simply a collection of works written by authors from different disciplines, but rather each chapter is in itself transdisciplinary. This approach makes the book a unique contribution to enhancing social, managerial and political approaches to forestry management, helping to protect forest ecosystem services and make them more sustainable. This, in turn, will benefit local communities and society as a whole, by reducing the negative externalities of forestry management and enhancing future opportunities.

In The Impasse of the Latin American Left, Franck Gaudichaud, Massimo Modonesi, and Jeffery R. Webber explore the region’s Pink Tide as a political, economic, and cultural phenomenon. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Latin American politics experienced an upsurge in progressive movements, as popular uprisings for land and autonomy led to the election of left and center-left governments across Latin America. These progressive parties institutionalized social movements and established forms of state capitalism that sought to redistribute resources and challenge neoliberalism. Yet, as the authors demonstrate, these governments failed to transform the underlying class structures of their societies or challenge the imperial strategies of the United States and China. Now, as the Pink Tide has largely receded, the authors offer a portrait of this watershed period in Latin American history in order to evaluate the successes and failures of the left and to offer a clear-eyed account of the conditions that allowed for a right-wing resurgence.

This book analyzes the recent development paths pursued by progressive governments in Argentina and Brazil, namely deindustrialization and reprimarization, and the social and environmental consequences thereof. A key part of understanding the trajectories in both Argentina and Brazil has been the role played by international institutions, especially the IMF and WTO, and also, the ever-growing hegemony of transnational corporations in the global economy and as a result, significantly limiting the possibilities of genuine development for local populations. Two major issues which extend beyond Latin America are: the expansion of genetically modified crops and agrotoxics and the concern for global food security and sovereignty; second, how reprimarization, associated with mining, cattle, soy and petroleum, has been key in leading to the risk of desertification in the Argentine pampas and also causing deforestation in the Amazon Rain forest, described as the lungs of the planet, and thus has major implications for climate change for the planet as a whole. In addition, this book engages with a number of theoretical issues: development and dependency in the periphery: neoliberal globalization, accumulation by dispossession, ecological and environmental debates and the role of extractivism and rent. This book is aimed for both academics, activists and those politically motivated to analyze, understand and push for social change from a critical perspective, and also, those interested in a radical analysis of paths of development, dependency and socioenvironmental issues in Latin America today.