Overall Score:
| Target Readership | Educator | For help with criteria, click here | ||||
| Presentation/Style |  |
|
||||
| Content | |
|
||||
| Literature | |
|
||||
| Originality | |
|
|
 |
|
|
| Overall | |
|
||||
Contents:
1 - Only one Earth, Stockholm 1972; 2- The duty to hope: A tribute to Barbara Ward; 3 - Stockholm: the founding of IIED; 4 - Time for change: IIED 1984-1990; 5 - Earthscan - Panos; 6 - Change that works, sometimes; 7 - Forestry and land use; 8 - The energy programme; 9 - Sustainable agriculture; 10 - Setting an urban agenda; 11 - Drylands: a history of networks; 12 - Economics of environment and development; 13 - Strategies, plans, impacts and people; 14 - Profit in need? Business and sustainable development; 15 - Globalisation, civil society and governance: challenges for the 21st century.
Review:
Even with the benefit of hindsight it would be difficult to date precisely the founding of the modern environmental movement (even if we could agree on what a start might look like and contain). In terms of major global action however, we could be reasonably certain that the first conference on environment and development held in Stockholm in 1972 was a key turning point. The political action of the 1960s did much to galvanise action but, as we have seen numerous times since, it is only when key national and international organisations are drawn into the picture that there is a concerted programme for action.
Alongside the numerous elements working prior to the 1972 conference a small group was set up. Called the International Institute for Environmental Affairs (soon to be re-badged as the International Institute for Environment and Development - IIED) its initial brief was to work as part of a larger think tank. Soon it became involved in preparing for the conference. Since that time it has grown in prestige and work. This year it celebrates its 30th anniversary: this book is in part a tribute to that work and a discussion by those involved with the IIED. The text itself is divided into four sections corresponding to phases and aspects in the Institute's life and work. The first three chapters form the beginning of IIED. Not all the work for this book is new: we start with an extract by the late Barbara Ward whose vision helped to drive Stockholm. This is followed by a tribute to Ward and chapter by Maurice Strong describing the founding and early work of the IIED. Another three chapters take up part two which looks more broadly at the development of the IIED through its 30 years. Given that these chapters were written by those closest to the action it shows the group changing and re-forming sometimes reacting to events and sometimes initiating them. We don't get a clear history but more of a series of viewpoints. Part three deals with the development of a range of topics. Here we see how IIED's work has been put into operation in various sectors. Each chapter is written by one of the people close to the operation and so we get a personal perspective of how the area has developed - a useful antidote to the more bland, seemingly objective, accounts that are found. The fourth part has just one chapter which outlines one way forward for the organisation.
The value of this text depends on your perspective. As a most unusual guide to the development of a key organisation it is very useful. It contains personal recollections beyond the more anodyne official histories. As a study of how a relatively small group of people appeared to have a far greater impact on events than numbers would suggest it is informative. Beyond that it has a more limited appeal: it would be useful in development studies and similar academic disciplines but offer less to the lay reader.