Book review : Global environmental governance and small states : architectures and agency in the Caribbean

Abstract

The conservation movement has been a major shaper of thoughts on environmental governance. While scholars such as George Perkin Marsh and Mary Somerville realised the value of conservation and the implications that environmental abuse had for the general wellbeing of humanity, the situation was transformed at the turn of the 20th century with the advocacy of Gifford Pinchot, who argued that “conservation stands against the waste of natural resources which cannot be renewed ... it stands for the perpetuation of the resources which can be renewed ...”. This proved to be the precursor to a movement that challenged the dominant view of the world as a place capable of sustaining limitless growth. The first major work was a 1972 study commissioned by the Club of Rome and aptly named Limits to growth. The central finding of this study was that the closed-earth system was incapable of supporting unrestrained growth, and containment policies were therefore necessary to achieve ecological and economic equilibrium. This is the philosophical springboard of the author in this ground breaking academic study of the intersection between global environmental governance and small island developing states (SIDS), with particular reference to the Caribbean. [excerpt]