The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America is a timely examination of critical cases of land degradation, deforestation, and resource depletion in Central and South America. The contributors—seasoned researchers with years of experience in the regions they discuss—convincingly document the idea that the causes of environmental destruction have their origins in social relations, specifically the dynamics of social classes with fundamentally divergent interests. The conditions facing impoverished families on the one hand, and the granting of land on a concessionary basis to powerful individuals and corporations on the other, create incentives to extensive land use without conservation. The book thus refutes simplistic arguments that address environmental destruction as an outcome of population growth and suggests that advocacy for social equity is not merely an idealistic quest but an ecological imperative.This book is essential reading for anyone interested in development issues and should appeal particularly to anthropologists, sociologists, economists, demographers, and geographers.

Michael Painter is Chief-of-Party on the Kaa-Iya Project of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Bolivia.William H. Durham is Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University.