MARKET TRADE IN DECENTRALIZED DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF CAJAMARCA,PERU *

Decentralized development views market trade and market towns as part of a comprehensive strategy to divert economic development away from major metropolitan areas. Seventy-one traders were surveyed in the central market of Cajamarca, Peru in 1981. Most are women earning minimal incomes, primarily because of price controls and expensive credit. Stimulating market trade as it is currently organized seems unlikely to assist migrants in secondary towns or to stimulate agricultural development in their hinterlands.     

Modeling Spatially and Temporally Complex Land‐Cover Change: The Case of Western Honduras*

This article presents an econometric analysis of land‐cover change in western Honduras. Ground‐truthed satellite image analysis indicates that between 1987 and 1996 net reforestation occurred in the 1,015‐km² study region. While some reforestation can be attributed to a 1987 ban on logging, the area of reforestation greatly exceeds that of previously clear‐cut areas. Further, new area was also deforested between 1987 and 1996. Thus, the observed land‐cover changes represent a complex mosaic of changing land‐use patterns across time and space. The analysis contributes to the literature on land‐cover change modeling in that: (1) it compares two econometric approaches to capture complex and often bidirectional changes in land cover from 1987 to 1996 as a function of agricultural suitability and transportation costs, and (2) it addresses techniques to identify and correct for spatial autocorrelation in a categorical regression framework.     

Forest Cover Change in the Toledo District,Belize from 1975 to 1999: A Remote Sensing Approach*

Measuring land‐cover change is an essential part of sustainable conservation planning. This project uses Landsat MSS and ETM+ data to document forest cover change in the Toledo District, Belize, from 1975 to 1999 and provides an initial assessment of why these changes took place. Supervised and subpixel classification methods were employed. The results showed an aggregate forest loss of almost 10 percent, which is approximately 36,000 ha. Deforestation expanded significantly in the most populous Mayan areas of central Toledo District and along the Guatemalan border. Subpixel classification results showed that in 1999 the most densely forested areas were in northern Toledo District in the Maya Mountains.     

IN THE WAY OF DEVELOPMENT: INDIGENOUS LAND‐RIGHTS ISSUES IN MALAYSIA*

The Malaysian government regards the country's indigenous peoples as “backward” and in need of “modernization.” It aims to assimilate them into the so‐called mainstream society and to incorporate their lands and resources into national and global markets. These policy objectives leave little scope for indigenous groups to pursue their own life projects. Indigenous communities want to share in the benefits of economic development, but they are not prepared to give up their lands, cultures, and identities to obtain them. They have attempted to ward off the negative consequences of development projects by forming advocacy nongovernmental organizations, engaging in various forms of resistance, and seeking redress of their grievances in the courts. Most of all, they want recognition of their rights to land and place. The efficacy of their agency is severely hampered by a battery of repressive laws and by their own political weakness.     

A Local Example of Land‐Use Change: Southern Illinois—1807, 1938, and 1993*

This article provides an analysis of a wetland site in southern Illinois from presettlement to the present. The study area is part of the Cache River‐Cypress Creek Wetland, which has international importance, as recognized by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Land‐cover data for 1807, 1938, and 1993 were created and analyzed with a geographic information system (GIS). Land‐use change by topographic setting (uplands, transitional, and bottomlands) and soil productivity was quantified and studied. Interviews with local experts informed this analysis. Results illustrate the complexity of environmental change and its driving forces. First, notable forest and swamp acreage was converted to cropland between 1807 and 1938 and, to a lesser degree, from 1938 to 1993. Second, there were land‐use variations by topographic region. Between 1807 and 1938, the largest transformation occurred in the uplands, with substantial acreage converted from forest to cropland. Between 1938 and 1993, however, agriculture decreased in the upland areas as hilly areas reverted to forest cover. At the same time, agriculture expanded in the bottomlands as this land was drained for farming. Third, there are interesting patterns within these categories of land‐use change, as soil productivity is an indicator of what lands were taken out of cropland and converted back to grassland and forest.     

KITCHENSPACE,FIESTAS, AND CULTURAL REPRODUCTION IN MEXICAN HOUSE‐LOT GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. The house‐lot garden in central Mexico is gendered space where changing cultural identities are negotiated, re‐created, and celebrated as “tradition” is continually redefined. No clear boundary separates the kitchen from the house‐lot garden or the private space of the household from the semipublic space of the community. During collective food preparation for religious fiestas, gendered reciprocity networks strengthen community relations and foster alliances between traditional neighborhoods and between communities in the region. At the intersection of everyday life and fiestas, food‐preparation spaces, or kitchenspaces, in the house‐lot garden are fertile areas in which to explore the cultural reproduction of nature‐society relations. They are vital to understanding gender, place, and culture in this region and represent people's symbolic connection with the land in increasingly urban contexts. This article analyzes the sense of place that Mexican women derive from their house‐lot gardens.     

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RISKS AND GENDER IN THE KARAKORAM‐HIMALAYA,NORTHERN PAKISTAN*

ABSTRACT. Many mountain peoples face water and environmental health problems. At particular risk is the health of women and of children who live in remote and marginalized mountain areas. Environmental health concerns are often associated with the waterborne parasitic and endemic diseases responsible for much child morbidity and mortality in the Karakoram‐Himalaya of northern Pakistan. Poor environmental health and water‐quality conditions affect child survival, and challenges to viable local interventions are severe. Transformations in women's productive and reproductive work have health consequences for children, and gender and household dynamics shape and mediate women's responses to environmental health risks. Significantly, these findings draw attention to the need for improved water and health policy, especially policy that recognizes different gender and child‐care roles in mountainous regions of the developing world.     

"VALUING THE TROPICS": DISCOURSES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE FARM AND FOREST SECTORS OF FRENCH INDOCHINA, circa 1900–40

The paper examines how land and forest management policies were elaborated in French Indochina circa 1900–40. It places their development in the context of a scientific and economic discourse about the value of land and forest resources, the most appropriate ways in which they might be exploited and the relationship between colonial science and indigenous knowledge. By focusing on debates and laws relating to the development of small‐scale and plantation farming systems (Land Code legislations) and forest management and exploitation (Forest Code legislations) the paper seeks to ground arguments about Western conceptions of the “tropics” within a discussion of national policy development and impacts. Focusing primarily on Cochinchina and Annam (southern and central Vietnam) and drawing on materials from French archives, the paper shows how changes in both attitudes and legislation have had lasting consequences on systems of property rights in forest management and on the place and status of indigenous peoples in Indochina.     

“OUR HOME IS DROWNING”: IÑUPIAT STORYTELLING AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN POINT HOPE,ALASKA*

ABSTRACT. Contemporary storytelling among the IÑupiat of Point Hope, Alaska, is a means of coping with the unpredictable future that climate change poses. Arctic climate change impacts IÑupiat lifeways on a cultural level by threatening their homeland, their sense of place, and their respect for the bowhead whale that is the basis of their cultural identity. What I found during my fieldwork was that traditional storytelling processed environmental changes as a way of maintaining a connection to a disappearing place. In this article I describe how environmental change is culturally manifest through tales of the supernatural, particularly spirit beings or ghosts. The types of IÑupiat stories and modes of telling them reveal people's uncertainty about the future. Examining how people perceive the loss of their homeland, I argue that IÑupiat storytelling both reveals and is a response to a changing physical and spiritual landscape.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed is the article: Small-State Security in the Balkans . Aurel Braun. South American Development: A Geographical Introduction . Rosemary D. F. Bromley and Ray Bromley. Interregional Migration, National Policy and Social Justice . Gordon L. Clark. Marketing Architectural and Engineering Services . Weld Coxe. A Geography of the Third World . J. P. Dickenson, C. G. Clarke, W. T. S. Gould, R. M. Prothero, D. J. Siddle, C. T. Smith, E. M. Thomas-Hope, and A. G. Hodgkiss. Wildlife and Man in Texas: Environmental Change and Conservation . Robin W. Doughty. At the Sea's Edge . William T. Fox. Englewood Cliffs Geography and Ecology . I. P. Gerasimov. Urbanization in Contemporary Latin America. Critical Approaches to the Analysis of Urban Issues . Alan Gilbert in association with Jorge E. Hardoy and Ronaldo Ramírez, eds. The Coming of the Transactional City . Jean Gottmann. College Park Visions of City and Country: Prints and Photographs of Nineteenth-Century France . Bonnie L. Grad and Timothy A. Riggs. Worcester Soviet Geography Today: Physical Geography . N. A. Gvozdetskiy, ed. Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians . Raymond B. Hames and William T. Vickers, eds. Urban and Regional Industrial Research: The Changing UK Data Base . Michael Healey, ed. Cuando se Acaban los Montes . Stanley Heckadon Moreno. A Panama Forest and Shore: Natural History and Amerindian Culture in Bocas del Toro . Burton L. Gordon. Pacific Grove Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900–1982 . Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman. Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy . Robert G. Jensen, Theodore Shabad, and Arthur W. Wright, eds. The Changing Geography of the United Kingdom . R. J. Johnston and J. C. Doornkamp, eds. Pluralism and Political Geography—People, Territory and State . Nurit Kliot and Stanley Waterman, eds. Landmarks Preservation and the Property Tax . David Listokin. Irrigation Horticulture in Highland Guatemala: The Tablón System of Panajachel . Kent Mathewson. Her Space, Her Place: A Geography of Women . Mary Ellen Mazey and David R. Lee. Man, A Geomorphological Agent . Dov Nir. Dordrecht The Book of America: Inside the 50 States Today . Neal R. Peirce and Jerry Hagstrom. Rivers . Geoffrey E. Petts. Proceedings, United States/Australia Workshop on Design and Implementation of Computer-Based Geographic Information Systems . Donna Peuquet and John O'Callaghan, eds. Outdoor Recreational and Resource Management . John Pigram. Remaking the City: Social Science Perspectives on Urban Design . John S. Pipkin, Mark La Gory and Judith R. Blau, eds. The Crust of Our Earth: An Armchair Traveler's Guide to the New Geology . Chet Raymo. Englewood Cliffs Concepts and Themes in the Regional Geography of Canada J. Lewis Robinson. Vancouver Secondary Cities in Developing Countries: Policies for Diffusing Urbanization . Dennis A. Rondinelli. Beverly Hills Legal Foundations of Environmental Planning , Vol 1. J. G. Rose. Can We Delay a Greenhouse Warming? Stephen Seidel and Dale Keyes. Mobilizing Human Resources in the Arab World . R. Paul Shaw. Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota . William C. Sherman. The Future of Conflict in the 1980s . William J. Taylor, Jr. and Steven A. Maaranen, eds. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information . Edward R. Tufte. U.S. 40 Today: Thirty Years of landscape Change in America . Thomas R. Vale and Geraldine R. Vale. Madison Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria . Michael Watts. Readings in Historic Preservation: Why? What? How? Norman Williams Jr., Edmund Kellogg and Frank Gilbert, eds.