Routledge Handbook of the Environment in Southeast Asia.

• Author: Onn, Lee Poh
• Position: Book review

Routledge Handbook of the Environment in Southeast Asia. Edited by Philip Hirsch. London and New York: Routledge, 2017. Hardcover: 521pp.

Philip Hirsch's edited volume provides an incisive and comprehensive examination of the complex environmental challenges facing Southeast Asia, one of the world's most economically, demographically and ecologically diverse and dynamic regions in the world.

The book comprises thirty chapters in total, each interesting in its own right and each showing how thinking and writing about the environment vary depending on the author's disciplinary background, and ideological and political stance. In Part 1, the introductory chapter by Hirsch sets out the premise of the book and what readers can expect from each chapter. The next ten chapters have thematic slants (Part 2), eight focus on sectoral issues (Part 3) and twelve on regional and country studies (Part 4)

The section on themes includes chapters on physical geography, population and economic change, environmental movements, legal and governance issues, and political mobilization. It illustrates how an environmental story can evolve from a theme or a conceptual angle, often constructed imaginatively, and framed around historical, contemporary and future challenges.

In chapter two, Avijit Gupta looks at the physical geography of Southeast Asia and how it has changed over time. How population trends and economic development affect the environment is examined in chapter three by Peter Boomsgard. In chapter four, Rodolphe De Koninck and Pham Thanh Hai examine the link between population growth and deforestation. Environmentalism, which serves as a potent political force driving change in Southeast Asia, is discussed by Tim Forsyth in chapter five. Power relations and how unequal relations have shaped ecologies and their governance is examined by Peter Vandergeest and Robin Roth in chapter six. In the following chapter, Keith Barney uses the concept of neoliberalism to explain environmental governance and governmentality. In chapter eight, Ben Boer argues that despite the plethora of environmental laws, regulations and international and regional environmental legal frameworks in Southeast Asia, implementation remains patchy. On the theme of laws and governance, chapter nine by Robert Fisher provides a broad analysis of the decentralized forms of governance occurring in forestry, fisheries and protected areas, and how this has failed to resolve problems of...