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Assesses the success of the two humanitarian interventions in the Balkans – Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 – from the perspective of humanitarian organizations. It argues how, ironically, the effectiveness of organizations such as UNHCR can dissuade powerful states from taking the necessary steps to address the root causes of massive human rights violations. Slow and ambiguous action from the international community can raise false expectations on the part of suffering civilians, and embolden those who commit atrocities. The author argues that the political, military, and humanitarian strands of interventions are always closely interwoven, and draws a series of lessons from the Balkans experience: the need for the international community to act early, credibly, and consistently; the importance of preserving the identity of a humanitarian operation; the imperative to end the impunity of those who orchestrate and commit massive violations of human rights; and the importance of engaging the United Nations.

This chapter describes biodiversity and its value to society. The concepts of biodiversity hotspots, major tropical Wilderness Areas, and Megadiversity Countries and Conservation International's method of setting priorities are also discussed.

This chapter examines how negotiations among the Madagascar state, multilateral and bilateral donors, transnational conservation organizations, mining companies, and community leaders shaped the design and implementation of the System of Protected Areas in Madagascar (SAPM). In tracing the steps through which the initial protected areas were established, the chapter begins by discussing the history behind, rationale for, and negotiations around the announcement in 2003. It explores the contestations and compromises that took place in the processes of mapping, classifying, and designating resource uses in new areas. Focusing on the Ankeniheny–Zahamena and Fandriana–Vondrozo biological corridors in Madagascar's eastern rainforest, the chapter analyzes why only limited consultations with rural populations took place when these areas were established as temporary parks in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Finally, this chapter discusses the potential for the initiative to not only produce paper parks but also to catalyze increased deforestation.

This chapter examines how ideas about forest management changed from the nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries in response to the expanding idea of “naturalness.” In the nineteenth century, foresters dominated scientific research on forest systems. Some foresters began to criticize forestry management schemes because of their aesthetic and biological consequences. These criticisms expanded in the first half of the twentieth century as researchers in the fields of hydrology, wildlife biology, and ecology undermined key assumptions about forest conservation. The expansion of clear-felling as a harvesting method after World War II fueled public conflicts over the management of state-controlled forests in countries such as the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and India. Deforestation caused by economic growth in developing countries created controversy as well. In response to social pressure, governments in many countries began to set aside large native forests as protected areas that would preserve the biological and ecological integrity of forests. The decline of harvesting from protected areas was offset by the increase in plantation-growth timber domestically and globally.

This concluding chapter discusses how the forest management divergence is reshaping the production of timber and the protection of native forests. It challenges the suggestion that governments lock away the majority of native forests in protected areas while producing industrial timber almost exclusively from commercial intensive plantations. It discusses problems associated with the decoupling of production from protection, including the creation of “paper parks,” parks that lack adequate funding to actively manage ecological fragmentation; the threat of climate change and invasive species; and the decline of revenue from protected areas compared with managed forests. The chapter focuses on problems associated with intensive plantations, which have significant ecological and social impacts on the regions where they have been planted. It calls for an end to the forest wars, which have led to a loss of knowledge of forest management that will be necessary to manage large ecosystems for diverse purposes. The chapter concludes by suggesting that a middle path is more preferable than a total bifurcation. In order to do this, a more coordinated global program of forest certification and the regulation of cheap timber imports is suggested to make domestic forests more valuable and ensure their utilization is sustainable.

This chapter introduces the concept of the forest management divergence to analyze the separation of timber production from the protection of forest biodiversity that has occurred globally in the second half of the twentieth century. It argues that contemporary ecological and forest policy problems, such as the production of cheap wood fibre from developing tropical countries and conflicts over logging in native forests, must be seen as a result of this process. The chapter emphasizes that plantations and protected areas developed out of an earlier conservation model, which integrated environmental management with production. The conservation model spread globally from the mid 19th century until the mid 20th century, before gradually falling into decline due to the growth of plantations and protected areas from the 1980s until today. The chapter frames the global history of forest management as an interaction between human attempts to regulate forests and the constraints that shaped the outcome of these events. It suggests that many historians have given too much emphasis to the history of forestry ideas without recognizing the limitations that shaped forest management outcomes. Finally, the chapter defines the terms “plantation,” “semi-natural forest,” and “native forest” as they are used in the book.