Saving a Rainforest and Losing the World

“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