Routledge Handbook of the Environment in Southeast Asia

The environment is one of the defining issues of our times, and it is closely linked to questions and dilemmas surrounding economic development. Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most economically and demographically dynamic regions, and it is also one in which a host of environmental issues raise themselves. Now available in paperback, the Routledge Handbook of the Environment in Southeast Asia is a collection of 30 chapters dealing with the most significant scholarly debates in this rapidly growing field of study. Structured in four main parts, it gives a comprehensive regional overview of, and insight into, the environment in Southeast Asia. Wide-ranging and balanced, this Handbook promotes scholarly understanding of how environmental issues are dealt with from diverse theoretical perspectives. It offers a detailed empirical understanding of the myriad environmental problems and challenges faced in Southeast Asia. This is the first publication of its kind in this field; a helpful companion for a global audience and for scholars of Southeast Asian studies from a variety of disciplines.

Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction 1. Introduction: The environment in Southeast Asia’s past, present and future Part 2: Thematic approaches to environment 2. Understanding the physical environment of Southeast Asia: A prerequisite for better environmental management 3. Environmental histories of Southeast Asia 4. Population growth and environmental degradation in Southeast Asia 5. Environmentalism 6. A Southeast Asian political ecology 7. Environmental neoliberalism in Southeast Asia 8. Environmental law in Southeast Asia 9. Environmental governance and decentralization 10. Transboundary environmental politics in Southeast Asia: Issues, responses and challenges Part 3: Sectoral issues in natural resources and environment 11. Forests and biodiversity 12. Shifting cultivation and human interaction with forests 13. Water, rivers and dams 14. Social and political ecology of fisheries and aquaculture in Southeast Asia 15. Urban environmental transitions in Southeast Asia 16. Peri-urbanization and environmental issues in mega-urban regions 17. Adaptation to climate change in Southeast Asia: Developing a relational approach 18. Migration and the environment Part 4: Regional and country studies in environment 19. The role of ASEAN in shaping regional environmental protection 20. The Mekong: Strategic environmental assessment of mainstream hydropower development in an international river basin 21. Cambodia: Territorialisation of natural resources and environmental management 22. Indonesia: A political-economic history of environment and resources 23. Laos: Abundance, scarcity and the shifting role of natural resources 24. Malaysia: Structure and agency of the environmental movement 25. Myanmar: Evolving environmental governance under a regime in transition 26. The Philippines: Historical and geographical framing of ecological degradation and environmental governance 27. Singapore: Sustaining a global city-state and the challenges of environmental governance in the twenty-first century 28. Thailand: Whither gender in the environmental movement? 29. Timor Leste: Embracing resource governance through ritual in a post-conflict society 30. Vietnam: Governmental and societal response to emergent environmental issues in the Mekong Delta

About the Author :
Philip Hirsch is Professor of Human Geography in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research interests are in agrarian change, natural resource management and the politics of environment in Thailand and the wider Mekong region.

Review :
"Capably tied together by Hirsch, this edited volume serves as a very useful intermediate to advanced primer for those who want to quickly grasp the diversity of issues surrounding the environment, and the dilemmas that relate environmental change to communities, politics and economic development in Southeast Asia." —Lee Poh Onn, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 39 No. 2, August 2017 "In general, the consequences of mistaken policies which neglect the environment are not realized until much later. This volume offers: renewed perspectives that the environment is central to economic development; and a detailed look on an often overlooked related component — the context which frames the environment." —Seck Tan, Journal of Southeast Asian Economics, Vol. 34 No. 3, December 2017 "[This handbook] is essential reading for new and established scholars working on environmental issues in the region. Drawing on his long Southeast Asian research career, Phil Hirsch has attracted an impressive group of researchers who have produced an outstanding piece of work that should become a foundational volume for years to come. The volume provides an up-to-date resource that provides comprehensive insights about the many environmental challenges prevalent across the region. [...] This is a wonderful collection that I recommend to anyone interested in the environment in Southeast Asia and to political ecologists and those working on development studies more generally. It is a real credit to the editor and the contributors and will quickly become a landmark text for understanding human–environment dilemmas in Southeast Asia." - Andrew McGregor, Macquarie University, Australian Geographer 2018.