This title was first published in 2000: An original and thought-provoking analysis of modern initiatives in the tropical rain forest. While issues such as logging, eco-timber, eco-tourism have been widely analyzed from an outsider's perspective, this book considers them from the local people's viewpoint, in terms of a long history of the rainforest uses. The authors demonstrate that the relationship of indigenous people to the tropical forest is not essentially timeless, nor is it primarily spiritual or mystical. It is in fact firmly connected to modern realities, while still being rooted in historical beliefs and practices. Standing at the intersection of anthropology, historical geography and rainforest ecology, and also at the interface of the local and the global, this ethnographically grounded study dispels a number of commonly held assumptions. It reveals how processes of 'impact' are actually two-way interactions, as local communities in Melanesia incorporate industries like logging into rapidly evolving post-colonial society and economy.

Contents: Conceptualising the rainforest; Conceptualising Melanesian agroforestry; Life on the lands of Marovo; Above the seashore: land use in Marovo; The wet and the dry: Marovo agroforestry at European contact; The great transformations,1880-1910; Colonialism, coconut overlay and the 'age of development'; Towards the twenty-first century: adapting the indigenous system; The forest as commodity: selling logs to Asia; After logging: reforestation - or what?; Small is beautiful?: steps towards sustainable forestry; Rumours of utopia: conservation and eco-tourism; Epilogue: rainforest narratives; Bibliography; Index.