Abstract
Southeast Asia’s rich environment has been slowly eroded as the region taps its rich resources pursuing a growth-oriented paradigm. It is confronting serious issues such as the decrease of biodiversity and tropical forests and the degradation of peatlands. Concurrently, social issues tied to energy-dependent growth are never far from people’s lived experiences in the region, and have intensified over the last two decades. The purpose of this edited volume is to introduce dynamic approaches to the study of Southeast Asia’s environmental diversity from different disciplinary perspectives mainly through a natural/social science interface. It brings together scholars whose research is on the region’s environmental resource use and shared ecological challenges under the effects of present day globalization to offer insights for possible future directions .
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Notes
- 1.
In 1995, the ASEAN plan of Transboundary Pollution was adopted and 2002 marked the beginning of a push to reduce haze pollution in Southeast Asia with the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (2002), finally ratified by 10 countries in 2014. In a way issues, such as transboundary pollution, acted as catalysts that forced some nations to the table, tackling regional inertia especially when public health became an issue.
- 2.
- 3.
Most cities in the region are also vulnerable to at least one type of natural disaster (UNDP ESA 2016).
- 4.
See Rigg (2001) for a critical overview of the way the “rural” in Southeast Asia has been politicized by categorizing and homogenizing it as distinct from the urban in terms of economy and society. This has led to a reductionist and static view of the region’s diverse rural hinterlands.
- 5.
Decentralization and devolution in the region have had limited success in part due to the absence of democracy, transparency, and accountability.
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Lopez, M., Suryomenggolo, J. (2018). Introduction. In: Lopez, M., Suryomenggolo, J. (eds) Environmental Resources Use and Challenges in Contemporary Southeast Asia. Asia in Transition, vol 7. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8881-0_1
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