Roam and ramble in the thickets of green policy

Earthscan has a reputation as a leading publisher in the field of sustainable development. The much-praised Earthscan Readers series has now produced 14 volumes, edited by leading figures in their fields. The books, which bring together a selection of already published key articles, are designed to provide a route map for students and professionals who wish to explore a particular dimension of sustainable development.

The Earthscan Reader in Forestry and Development , edited by Jeffrey Sayer, updates and supersedes the bestselling Earthscan Reader in Tropical Forestry , edited by Simon Rietbergen. With a broader focus than its predecessor, the new volume consists of papers on forests, development and livelihoods and includes chapters that deal with climate change. It reflects the fact that arrangements for the governance and management of forests have changed rapidly in the period since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Recent critical examination of the world's forest resources has led to new discussions on forest ownership, on who should benefit from their conservation and management and on forest governance. The book is particularly strong on contributions that have enhanced the scientific basis for holistic integration management of forest systems.

Sayer has produced an excellent text. The selection criteria are clearly stated, including the fact that the author is drawn to the ecosystem approach. The book covers a wide geographical spread but also introduces a range of disciplinary approaches. Most valuable is the focus on papers that provide analysis of controversial issues, including those that the media and influential decision-makers have misunderstood or misrepresented. This makes us acutely aware that the management of forests is complex and that it is rarely safe to take decisions based on narrow, single-sector visions of forest problems and their solutions.

The book is divided into five parts, dealing with forest resources, livelihoods, threats and opportunities, the challenge of sustainable management and forestry for the future. Each part begins with clear markers to help locate the selected material in the literature. This is the only book among the three surveyed here that problematises the issue of sustainability, including selecting material that critically evaluates the capacity of the local level to promote sustainable development. Overall, Sayer has produced a rigorous and comprehensive overview and informs and challenges the student and the practitioner.

The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Agriculture , edited by Jules Pretty, is also aimed at students and practitioners. While it sets out to map the complex subject of sustainable agriculture, the contributions deal mostly with what is wrong with current or past agricultural and food systems.

Unfortunately, this reader is short on contributions that conceptualise and theorise sustainable agriculture. It begins with some historical and deep ecology perspectives on our relationship with the natural world and then discusses agro-ecological perspectives. However, although it goes on to explore ecologically sensitive agriculture, it lacks contributions that give insight into how to integrate ecological, economic and social dimensions into sustainable agricultural and food systems.

The book devotes an entire section to social perspectives, but much of this is limited to discussions on social capital and to institutions, with no contributions presenting a gender perspective. In its coverage of the Third World, the selected pieces present little more than a series of case studies. The book also slips into a strong anthropocentric mode as it progresses. The lack of theoretical and conceptual strength on sustainable agriculture leaves us wondering how such key articles examining ecological perspectives on place and health and food contribute to our understanding of sustainable agriculture.

The result is a collection that, while informative on what is wrong with existing systems, fails to provide a guiding and critical perspective on sustainable agriculture as such. Overall, it is not as helpful, rigorous or as inspiring as Sayer's book.

Both, however, are far more useful than the disappointing Earthscan Reader in Environmental Values , edited by Linda Kalof and Terre Satterfield. The editors tell us little about their selection criteria and even less about the book's organising themes. The lack of order in the presentation of material is a source of considerable annoyance, particularly regarding the division of material into parts one and four. Far from meeting its claim to be "a cutting-edge overview of the field", much of the material is drawn from debates in the early part of the 1990s.

Part two, dealing with philosophical and ethical themes, is particularly disappointing in this respect. Although it is important that a reader includes core literature on the subject, it is also expected to provide follow-on material. While the book promises to map out the schools of thought on environmental values, it promotes a North American, rational-choice model of economic valuations, showing a strong bias towards neo-classical economics in its selection. Contributions are concerned mostly with economic, cost-benefit or "willingness to pay" considerations, even though the book opens with a claim that other, normative principles must be taken into account. Contributions are concerned less with environmental values than with economic valuation. For those who expect a broad-based, critical and multidisciplinary insight into the problem of environmental values, this volume will be a let-down.

Susan Baker is professor of environmental social sciences, Cardiff University.