Forests Are Gold Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam / Pamela D. McElwee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McElwee, Pamela D., Author.

Series:

Culture, Place, and Nature

Culture, place, and nature: studies in anthropology and environment

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Forestry and community.

Forest policy.

Forest management.

Vietnam.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (311 p.)

Place of Publication:

Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Ho Chi Minh, the founder of modern Vietnam, once famously remarked that "forests are gold--if we know to protect and develop them well, they will be very precious." Ho's statement conveys important ideas about nature, the state, and society that are relevant in understanding contemporary environmental issues in Vietnam. For Ho and other political leaders, forests have been about more than trees: they were about the development and administration of both people and landscapes. This book presents a genealogy of forest management in Vietnam from the beginning of French colonial rule to the present day. Using detailed ethnographic, interview, archival and biological data, Pamela McElwee presents a nuanced perspective on environmental change through the eyes of subjects on the ground. By explaining how knowledge about forests was generated, and by whom, and how this knowledge was used by different actors engaged in forest governance, the book shows that forests are not "natural" entities outside of human influence."

Contents:

Introduction : seeing the trees and people for the forests

Forests for profit or posterity? : the emergence of environmental rule under French colonialism

Planting new people : socialism, settlement, and subjectivity in the postcolonial forest

Illegal loggers and heroic rangers : the discovery of deforestation in đổi mới (renovation) Vietnam

Rule by reforestation : classifying bare hills and claiming forest transitions

Calculating carbon and ecosystem services : new regimes of environmental rule for forests

Conclusion : environmental rule in the twenty-first century.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780295806464

029580646X

OCLC:

941999442