Overview

An unflinching investigation of the false promises of land sparing, exposing how its illusory successes mask the failures of green capitalism   For two decades, the concept of land sparing, the claim that agricultural intensification can spare land by preventing forest clearing for agricultural expansion, has dominated tropical forest conservation. Land sparing policies transform landscapes and livelihoods with the promise of reconciling agricultural development with environmental conservation. But that land sparing promise is false.   Based on six years of research on agrarian frontiers in Indonesia, Brazil, and Bolivia, this book traces where and how land sparing becomes policy and charts the social and ecological effects of these political contests. Gregory M. Thaler explains why land sparing appears successful in some places but not in others and reveals that success as an illusion achieved by displacing deforestation to new frontiers. The failure of land sparing exposes a harsh truth behind assurances of green capitalism: capitalist development is ecocide.

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9780300272505

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Reviews

“This book provides a powerful critique of global land sparing interventions. Rather than conserve remnant tropical rainforests, Gregory Thaler clearly demonstrates how such schemes reinforce the very political and economic processes that drive their destruction.”—Wolfram Dressler, University of Melbourne “Gregory Thaler mounts a nuanced and compelling challenge to the land sparing hypothesis, demonstrating the transnational nature of deforestation and arguing that land sparing can only succeed or fail at the global scale.”—Kelly Kay, University of California, Los Angeles “A definitive dispatch of some of our most dangerous illusions—land-sparing, eco-capitalism, and—not least—sustainable development. The empirical analysis is compelling, the theorization lucid, and the writing crystal clear.”—Tania Murray Li, coauthor of Plantation Life: Corporate Occupation in Indonesia’s Oil Palm Zone

Author Information

Gregory M. Thaler is assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. His research examines the political ecology and political economy of development, global environmental governance, and agrarian politics. He lives in Atlanta, GA.

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