| Abstract / Content summary |
There are no simple explanations of land degradation; 'overpopulation', 'poverty' and 'ignorance or laziness' all fail to meet the test of close examination. If the reasons why land is misused are to be understood, the social, economic and political pressures on farmers must also be understood. This approach, called 'regional political ecology' is described in a recent book (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987) in which one of us is a principal author and the other a contributor. |