1995/03/01 by Nancy Lee Peluso, Peter Vandergeest, Lesley Potter · 2 citations
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies #Asian Studies and History #Southeast asia #Colonialism #Mythology #Geography #Economy #Natural resource #Political science #History #Ethnology #Archaeology #Economics
paper · doi:10.1017/s0022463400010584
openalex publication_date 1995/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This paper examines the major trends since the 1950s in social science writing on forest management in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is simultaneously rich in and dependent on natural resources, both for local and national use or sale. Among renewable resources, forest products have played critical roles in the region's national, provincial, and local economies before, during, and after colonialism — for as long as two millennia. Their importance in international trade illustrates that Southeast Asia's forests linked the region to other parts of the world for quite some time, dispelling myths that parts of the region such as Borneo were “remote”, “primitive”, or “pristine”.