Table of Contents

Click on the chapter title to see descriptions and pictures.

Introduction: The Fire of Knowledge

1. The City: Mango Madness
Bangkok has all the ills that plague modern boomtowns, but this city full of curves may finally be turning the corner.

• Swamped By Development
• Terrorized By Traffic
• There’s No Place Like A Mobile Home
• Getting The Lead Out
• Moving Cars Or Moving People?
• Road Kill
• Moving Up The Kuznets Curve

2. Tourism: Money-Changers In The Monastery
An alternative tour of the fabled Andaman coast reveals that would-be eco-tourists face a stark choice and a serious responsibility.

• Mountains That Melt
• The Limestone Coast
• An Industry Without Smokestacks
• Golf Wars and “Green Deserts”
• The Battle Over National Parks
• Strangers In Their Own Land
• Magic Coconuts And Flying Deeds
• Beauty And The Beach

3. Dams: The Price of Power
The most contentious projects in the developing world pit city against country, and form the crucible for the environmental democracy movement.

• Mysteries Of The Mekong
• They Make The Earth Move
• Dam-Age And Democracy At The Mouth Of The Moon
• Dam Dominoes
• Nega-watts Instead of Megawatts

4. Logging: Guns, Trees and Refugees
An investigation into a timber smuggling operation on the Thai-Burma border unexpectedly ends with a border war.

• Why You Shouldn’t Climb Dead Trees When Looking For Logs
• The Roots Of Deforestation
• Trucks That Pass In The Dust
• What’s Good For People May Not Be Good For Forests
• Majoring in Jungle Warfare
• Collaboration in Burma, Confrontation in Cambodia
• The Godfather of Logging
• A Prime Minister Without A State
• Mr. Timber
• Border War
• Epilogue: The Salween Scandal

5. Forests And Farmers:
Only The Haunted Jungles Survive Surprising conflicts over wilderness and conservation areas suggests that Asians, Americans and Europeans see nature quite differently.

• The End Of Innocence
• The Man And Forest Debate
• Dancing Around The Dinosaurs
• Watermelons Vs. Bananas
• A Marriage of Conviction, Or Convenience?
• The Preserv-Asian-ists
• An Asian View Of Nature

6. The Coast: On The Edge
An industry that was supposed to provide “protein to the poor” has ended up despoiling one of the most vital eco-zones on the planet.

• The Fisherman’s Salon
• Fish Wars And The Blue Revolution
• Shrimp Fever
• Sustaining Livelihoods, Adapting Management

7. The Pipeline: A Snake In The Woods
A project that symbolizes “constructive engagement” has sparked an international human rights campaign, a landmark US court case, and tense confrontations in the forests of western Thailand.

• Languishing In Limbo
• The Back Way To The Border
• “This Interview Is Definitely Over!”
• A Global Campaign For The ‘90s
• The Greens Are Snake-Bit

8. Toxics: Mercury Rising
An expose of how two multinational oil companies were quietly dumping a dangerous neurotoxin into the Gulf of Thailand uncovers a potential threat to the entire region.

• The Riddle Of The Sediments
• First The Scientists, Then The Soothsayer
• The Oil Companies Come Clean
• Sex-Shifting Snails And Other Fishy Business
• The Eastern Seaboard Remains Murky
• An Alarm Bell Rings In Vietnam

9. Global Issues: Commerce And The Global Commons
Issues such as trade and the environment, biodiversity and climate change have divided North and South along different lines than commonly understood, and is being addressed by parceling out global resources.

• The Skies Darken Over Southeast Asia
• Tuna v. Dolphins, Shrimp v. Turtles, Trade v. Environment
• Supachai: Man Of The South At The WTO
• The Hunt For Green Gold: Bio-Prospecting Or Bio-Piracy?
• Biodiversity: Waylaid By Trade
• The Kyoto Compromise That Wasn’t
• Carving Up The Commons

10. Civil-izing Society: Three Bloody Days In May
The corruption and negligence that make green governance so difficult affects the poor most of all, but there is hope, epitomized by the reforms that followed Thailand’s 1992 democracy uprising.

• Coup Du Jour
• Something’s Rotten In The Tropics
• The Poor Pay More
• Hot For Democracy
• The “Black May” Massacre
• The King Puts Out The Fire
• Tropics And Politics

Notes and References