Berghahn Books
Green encounters; shaping and contesting environmentalism in rural Costa Rica.
In over 30 years Cost Rica's Monte Verde has become renowned as a model for nature conservation and the practice of ecotourism, but it is that same renown that may be hiding some of the complexities of the real political and socio-economic situation there. Vivanco anthropology, U. of Vermont) examines the area's political culture of peace and the transcendent beauty of the cloud forest that have been shaken by a rising tide of ecotourists (and criminals who fleece them) whose numbers threaten the very Eden they seek. He describes the area's other resources, such as agriculture, the patrimony of the cloud forest and how it is being "saved," the boundaries of environmentalism, the complex ways in which communities figure in reserves and efforts at sustainable development, the hidden financial and social costs of ecotourism, and the future of this movement at a crossroads. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
