Environmental problems facing humanity are severe and the need for solutions is urgent. 'Sustainable development' has been embraced by many as the solution to the world's environmental problems. Can the rhetoric be turned into reality? South-East Asia, with its explosive mix of rapid economic growth and pervasive environmental degradation, epitomizes the dilemmas facing policy-makers as they seek to promote sustainable development.

Environmental Change in South-East Asia brings together scholars, journalist, consultants and NGO activists to explore the interaction of people, politics and ecology. The centrality of politics to environmental change and the human response to that change is examined. Ostensibly 'green' activities - plantation forestry, ecotourism, hydro-electricity - are revealed as guises used by elites to promote their own political and economic interests.

Highlighting fatal flaws in presently exclusive economic and ecological approaches, the authors stress that neither the quest for sustainable development nor the process of environmental change itself can be understood without reference to political processes.