The Fourth Circle A Political Ecology of Sumatra}}}s Rainforest Frontier [Hardcover]

This book addresses the politics of environmental change in one of the richest areas of tropical rainforest in Indonesia. Based on field studies conducted in three agricultural communities in rural Aceh, this work considers a number of questions: How do customary (adat) village and state institutions work? What roles do they play in managing local resources? How have they evolved over time? Are villagers, state policies, or corrupt local networks responsible for the loss of tropical rainforest? Will better outcomes emerge from revitalizing customary management, from changing state policies, or from transforming the way the state works? And why do projects designed by outsiders so often fail?The book describes how, as key actors interact, they create arrangements that effectively manage local resources, eclipsingadatand formal state management structures. While outside interventions try to work withadatand the state, they fail to engage fully with the main problemthat is, that district webs of power and interest, coalescing around local resources and reaching into the wider society, lead inexorably to environmental decline.John McCarthy teaches at the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Governance at the Australian National University and was previously Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Australia. He has published numerous articles and one previous book,Are Sweet Dreams Made of This?: The Impact of Tourism in Bali and Eastern Indonesia(1994). [The Fourth Circleprovides valuable ethnographic and political information about a dangerous area where researchers have found it comparatively difficult to gain access (Aceh). The book's publication now remains timely, given the broad interest in northern Sumatra after the 2004 tsunami. This book analyzes the political, legal, and economic dynamics shaping environmental outcomes across two districts in Aceh, one of the richest and most expansive areas ol³(