Tropical forests and the human spirit : journeys to the brink of hope

Tropical forests are vanishing at an alarming rate.

This book, based on extensive international field research, highlights one solution for preserving this precious resource: empowering local people who depend on the forest for survival.

Synthesizing a vast amount of information that has never been brought together in one place, Roger D.

Stone and Claudia D'Andrea provide a clearly written and energizing tour of global efforts to empower community-based forest stewards.

Along the way, they show the fundamental importance of tropical forest ecosystems and deepen our sense of urgency to save them for the benefit of billions of rural people in tropical and subtropical regions as well as for countless species of plants and animals.In their travels to research this book, the authors saw many remarkable examples of how proficient even the poorest local people can be in stabilizing and recovering formerly destitute forests.

With engagingly written case studies from Thailand's Golden Triangle to Mindanao in the Philippines, from Indonesia, India and Africa to Brazil, Mexico and Central America, they introduce us to the communities and the individuals, the governments, the loggers, the age