Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development has become the basis for a vast number of "green industries" from eco-tourism to carbon sequestration. In The "Greening" of Costa Rica, Ana Isla exposes the results of the economist's rejection of physical limits to growth, the biologist's fetish with such limits, and the indebtedness of peripheral countries. Isla's case study is the 250,000 hectare Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area, created in the late 1990s as the result of Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature swaps. Rather than reducing poverty and creating equality, development in and around the conservation area has dispossessed and disenfranchised subsistence farmers, expropriating their land, water, knowledge, and labour. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in these communities, Isla exposes the duplicity of a neoliberal model in which the environment is converted into commercial assets such as carbon credits, intellectual property, cash crops, open-pit mining, and eco-tourism, few of whose benefits flow to the local population.

Debt-for-nature swaps --- Ecology --- Human ecology --- Debts, External --- Debt relief --- Sustainable development --- Economic development --- Development, Sustainable --- Ecologically sustainable development --- Economic development, Sustainable --- Economic sustainability --- ESD (Ecologically sustainable development) --- Smart growth --- Sustainable economic development --- Debtor and creditor --- Debt renegotiation --- Debt rescheduling --- Debt restructuring --- Relief, Debt --- Renegotiation, Debt --- Rescheduling, Debt --- Restructuring, Debt --- Debt --- International finance --- Investments, Foreign --- Debts, Foreign --- Debts, International --- External debts --- Foreign debts --- International debts --- Ecological engineering --- Human beings --- Human geography --- Nature --- Environment, Human --- Human environment --- Biology --- Environmental sciences --- Population biology --- Balance of nature --- Bionomics --- Ecological processes --- Ecological science --- Ecological sciences --- Environment --- Environmental biology --- Oecology --- Debt equity conversion --- Environmental protection --- Debt-for-environment swaps --- Ecoconversions of debts --- Swaps, Debt-for-nature --- Social aspects --- Economic aspects --- Environmental aspects --- Law and legislation --- Effect of environment on --- Effect of human beings on --- Costa Rica --- Republic of Costa Rica --- República de Costa Rica --- Коста-Рика --- Kosta-Rika --- Республика Коста-Рика --- Respublika Kosta-Rika --- Kosta Rrika --- Kustarika --- Коста-Рыка --- Kosta-Ryka --- Рэспубліка Коста-Рыка --- Rėspublika Kosta-Ryka --- Kostarika --- Κόστα Ρίκα --- Δημοκρατία της Κόστα Ρίκα --- Dēmokratia tēs Kosta Rika --- Kostariko --- Cósta Ríce --- Poblacht Chósta Ríce --- Yn Coose Berçhagh --- Coose Berçhagh --- Pobblaght y Choose Verçhagh --- Костарикмудин Орн --- Kostarikmudin Orn --- 코스타리카 --- K'osŭt'arik'a --- Коста-Рикæ --- Kosta-Rikæ --- קוסטה ריקה --- Ḳosṭah Riḳah --- רפובליקת קוסטה ריקה --- Republiḳat Ḳosṭah Riḳah --- Central America (Federal Republic) --- Social conditions --- Economic policy.