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521–549
‘Sustainability’ in ecological
economics, ecology and livelihoods:
a review
Christopher S. Sneddon
Department of Geography/Program in Environmental Studies, Dartmouth College,
6017 Fairchild, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
Abstract: This article reviews the work of several sets of researchers prominent in current
debates over how sustainability might be interpreted and achieved. The notion of ‘sustainable
development’ has reached a conceptual dead-end. Geographers may offer more effective inves-
tigations and critiques of socioecological transformations by instead focusing on ‘sustainability’
and its application to multiple dimensions of human and nonhuman processes. Such a move
within geography demands critical engagement with ongoing debates in ecological economics,
the ecological sciences and social applications of sustainability. Geographers are well positioned
to address crucial gaps in these fields of inquiry and to propel debates over sustainability in
several fruitful directions.
I Introduction
II Unraveling sustainability
1993) and ‘symmetrical’ approaches to the study of human and nonhuman entities
(Murdoch, 1997).
Current debates over sustainability resonate uncomfortably between calls for
consensus around single definitions that would ostensibly lead to concrete actions
(Carpenter, 1994) and assertions that it is perhaps best to abandon the concept
altogether by reason of its vacuity and malleability (Lélé, 1991). The explosion of policy-
orientated work within the natural and social sciences, concentrated on connotations of
sustainability as applied to specific developmental projects, stands in stark contrast to
the neglect of the notion’s theoretical underpinnings. This neglect is reflected in the
remarkable range of ad hoc interpretations and practices applied to the concept of sus-
tainability. It ‘is about meeting human needs, or maintaining economic growth or
conserving natural capital, or about all three’ (Redclift, 1991: 37). As a result, many
researchers at the cusp of the human–environment interface have begun to question the
usefulness of sustainability (and more specifically ‘sustainable development’) as a way
to think about social and ecological problems and to organize responses to environment
and development dilemmas. Is sustainability merely the latest in a long line of intellec-
tual and political novelties designed to capture the essence of development and its con-
sequences in as simplistic terms as possible? Or does it contain real conceptual value
and present serious challenges to preconceived notions of how humans can and should
interact with increasingly impaired ecological systems?
This article argues there are both conceptual and practical rationales for de-linking
the hitherto interwoven ideas of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainability’, and
that such an uncoupling will go some way toward clarifying specific applications of
these concepts in what are often very muddled debates. Critics of sustainable
development charge that the concept’s ambiguous theoretical basis, its inattention to
the structural forces that result in environmental problems, and its focus on achieving
consensus among fractious social groups disable effective implementation (Redclift,
1987; Lélé, 1991; Frazier, 1997) and may lead to disastrous ecological consequences
(Willers, 1994). By contrast, more and more researchers are examining ‘sustainability’
through conceptual lenses that effectively divorce it from its problematic partner
‘development’ and broach new modes of inquiry (Reed and Slaymaker, 1993: 725;
Callicott and Mumford, 1997). Several geographers have contributed in salient ways to
these debates. These include interrogating the concept as it is applied within state-
initiated development projects and programs (Adams, 1990; Munton, 1997), employing
sustainability as a measure of performance in specific agriculture-based industries
(Drummond, 1996; Le Heron and Roche, 1996), and using sustainability as a starting
point to develop comprehensive frameworks for analyzing development initiatives
(Owens, 1994; Goldman, 1995). Despite these and other works, there is still reason to
echo Wilbanks’ (1994) lament that geographers are assuming a secondary role in
debates that are perhaps ideally suited to their research interests, field experiences and
disciplinary traditions. Similarly, it is worth reiterating Peet and Watts’ (1996) call for
more penetrating analyses of sustainable development projects in all their guises.
While other surveys within human geography have dealt with somewhat similar
conceptual territory (Wescoat, 1993; Whatmore, 1993; Cutter, 1994),6 none have made
sustainability the cornerstone of analysis. In addition, while several reviews of sustain-
ability and sustainable development have been undertaken by geographers (Brookfield,
1991; Adams, 1995a; O’Riordan and Voisey, 1997) and nongeographers (Lélé, 1991;
524 ‘Sustainability’ in ecological economics, ecology and livelihoods: a review
Barrow, 1995; Luke, 1995; Sunderlin, 1995; Frazier, 1997) alike, none to my knowledge
has attempted to situate geography in relation to the debates occurring in other fields.
Adams (1995b: 370), primarily addressing sustainable development, has pursued the
geography-orientated implications of these debates furthest. If we accept the assertion
there is currently a ‘far richer range of debates within the discipline’ of relevance to
discussions on people and environment, then geographers are uniquely equipped with
‘the theoretical and empirical tools . . . to both enter and lead pragmatic debates about
sustainable development,’ and should seize this opportunity in their research and
writing. Complementary to Adams’ proposed direction, one of the aims of this work is
to expose geography to salient debates in other fields that resonate strongly with
geography’s human–environment tradition and, in turn, demonstrate ways in which
geographic work might enrich deliberations over sustainability.
I first offer expanded justifications for examining ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sus-
tainability’ as separate entities. Next I review and discuss how sustainability is
addressed within three overlapping yet distinct fields of inquiry: ecological economics;
ecological science; and sustainable livelihoods. I sketch the main conceptual offerings
and practical applications of each approach followed by some critical reflections. All
three fields transcend the limitations of focusing solely on sustainable development. I
conclude with an argument for renewed vigor within geography directed at the concept
of sustainability. To the extent that geography is and should be concerned with policy
processes and social movements centered on how present and future generations of
humans respond to ecological transformations, the relative paucity of geographic work
on sustainability represents a missed opportunity. Geographers are already on several
potentially fruitful research tacks which would help redress this conceptual deficit.
the third world (Sachs, 1992; Norgaard, 1994; Escobar, 1995a; Porter, 1995; Watts, 1993;
1995; Peet and Watts, 1996), recasting this set of activities as ‘sustainable’ and declaring
it the new paradigm for human interaction with the environment is rife with
conceptual, political and ethical dilemmas. In its mainstream guise, ‘sustainable
development’ privileges global environmental problems and institutions, perceives
poverty rather than poverty-producing conditions as the root cause of environmental
degradation, reproduces economistic and developmentalist biases, and advances a
highly reductive interpretation of environment as static ‘resource’ (Escobar, 1996:
48–54). Thus, the potential of ‘sustainable development’ as rallying cry for social actions
outside the spheres of state and market is almost defunct.
Both ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainability’ are at root normative concepts,
describing visions of how human activities and ecological processes might be
reconciled for the ‘good’ of both. Yet these visions are frequently at odds depending on
the social group advocating a particular path. The advantage of ‘sustainability’ lies in
how researchers invoking it must reference it against specific geographic, temporal and
socioecological contexts. This context-specificity forces the crucial questions: what
exactly is being sustained, at what scale, by and for whom, and using what institution-
al mechanisms?
For example, ‘sustainability’ is increasingly being applied to specific socioecological
processes – e.g., urbanization, ecosystem management and agricultural practices – and
in ways that refine the general concept such as discussions of ‘weak’ versus ‘strong’ sus-
tainability (Turner, 1993; Jamieson, 1998). These extensions of the discussion encompass
insights from ecological economics, the natural sciences, alternative development
practices and an eclectic collection of theoretical perspectives that examine the
underlying social bases of unsustainable modes of resource use. The challenge to
researchers and practitioners is to uncover innovative responses to sustainability
dilemmas when sifting through multiple interpretations, and to determine which inter-
pretations might be applicable within particular spatial and temporal contexts.
While the ability of ‘sustainable development’ to serve as instrument for a transfor-
mative politics of environment and development is severely curtailed, this path may
still be open to context-specfic notions of sustainability. It is a ‘more complex and less
manageable concept’ (Adams, 1995b: 371) that has not yet suffered the same degree of
co-optation by solidifying into a unilinear, mainstream interpretation. This may allow
it to serve as focal point for creative liaisons among academics, citizen’s groups, non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) and social action networks seeking to contest
socioecologically deleterious policy initiatives. Rather than listening to politicians and
state officials intone the sustainable development mantra and reacting, diverse actors
might instead use as starting point the fact that sustainability is simultaneously an
ideological stance, a point of convergence for political struggles, and a measure of
performance for development activities. The first aspect can be converted to vision and
political action based on affinity, the second to an organizing tool and the third to a
means of holding public-private development projects accountable.
Yet how are these aspects of sustainability being applied? The following sections
highlight: 1) the field of ecological economics which has spearheaded a general critique
of some of the main precepts of conventional economic theory; 2) an emerging debate
within the natural sciences over the applicability of ecological research and ecological
theory to societal questions concerning sustainability; and 3) the concept of sustainable
526 ‘Sustainability’ in ecological economics, ecology and livelihoods: a review
economy perspectives argue that ecological economics, while serving an important role
by promoting more realistic appraisals of the value of ecosystem structures and
functions, ultimately provides only a partial challenge to neoclassical economics.
Virtually ‘none of it has examined the underlying social commitments which determine
the way in which we use the environment’ (Redclift, 1994: 18). The increased use of
economic mechanisms (valuation, resource markets) owes less to ‘real motive forces’
than to the ‘pragmatism and expediency’ of political institutions willing to divest
themselves of the fiscal responsibility for environmental regulation (Rees, 1992: 387–88).
The idea of environmental valuation has generated considerable controversy. Martin
O’Connor (1994: 144, emphasis in original) perceives the pricing of an environmental
amenity as a ‘semiotic conquest’ whereby a partially separated realm of ecological
relations becomes wholly congruent with ‘the dominant representation of the overall
capitalist system activity’. This conversion of ecological entity to natural capital places
it on par with other forms of capital, increasing the likelihood of resource liquidation as
a potential trade-off for a commodity or activity with a momentarily higher use value.
Yet critics of valuation must walk a careful line between, on one hand, eschewing
monetary valuation of nature and remaining irrelevant in political debates, or, on the
other, reducing complex ecological processes and richly realized meanings to the crude
language of money (Harvey, 1996: 156).
Attacks on sustainable development have arisen from the economic right as well.
Beckerman (1996) disparages the entire sustainability project and, by implication,
ecological economics as either morally distasteful (forced to choose between
‘generations’ when current people are suffering hardships) or redundant (the
implication being that ‘development’ is by definition sustainable). Under this
conception, questions of intergenerational equity are reduced to maintaining intact
capital and constant levels of per capita consumption. ‘Sustainability’ is a purely
technical matter, devoid of normative character, and ecological economists who expend
undo attention on the broader implications of sustainable development are simply
misguided (1996: 157–60).
While some critics mistakenly conflate ecological economics with earlier manifesta-
tions such as resource/environmental economics and attack valuation in like terms, the
warnings are still worth heeding within an international development policy context
that increasingly favors market mechanisms for the resolution of environmental
degradation and subsequent resource conflicts (Rees, 1992; Webber, 1994). What does
not appear in much of ecological economics is a clearer understanding of how
differences among sectors of a given society – whether mediated through gender, class,
age, race and/or ethnicity – affect the chances for achieving the kind of policy
instruments and economic mechanisms described as crucial for sustainable
human–environment relations.9 Similarly, much of ecological economics is embedded
within studies of industrialized societies with little leeway for addressing the vastly
different historical trajectories and geographic contexts of third-world societies.
Perhaps even more alarming is the tendency to overplay the ‘economic’ in relation to
the ‘ecological’. With rare exceptions, ecological economists appear inattentive to the
ways in which socially defined resources are components of complex, highly dynamic
biophysical systems. These systems’ resilience may depend on entities and processes
far removed from human economies. For example, even those elements considered
redundant and easily subject to substitution by human-made ‘products’ may be crucial
Christopher S. Sneddon 529
to the overall functioning of an ecological system and the reliability of the system in
terms of providing ecological services (Naeem, 1998).
Despite these caveats, the most formidable versions of ecological economics focus
squarely on reform of economic concepts as applied in developmental contexts that
contribute directly to harmful ecological outcomes. Ecological economists are thus able,
using economists’ own dialect, to undermine many of the central assumptions of
structural adjustment programs and neoliberal ideologies that advocate a ‘spontaneous
order’ model of society where ‘timeless and universal beneficence’ emanates from
‘unfettered market processes’ (Bromley, 1998: 237). Despite reform attempts, it is
difficult to decipher their impact on the broader discipline of economics. A recent
exchange between ecological economists and some of their more lauded colleagues
from the neoclassical economic mainstream laid bare the large gaps between the two
perspectives. At the heart of the debate was the issue of substitutability, or the capacity
to replace so-called ‘natural’ capital (in the form of both exhaustible and renewable
‘resources’) with human-made capital within the production process. Ecological
economists argue there are no viable substitutes for many environmental resources and
that capital and resources are best viewed as complements in the production process
(Daly, 1997). The neoclassicists counter that ecological economists tend to confuse the
uses of complements and substitutes (Solow, 1997) and fail to understand the
speculative character of analytical models within economics (e.g., some models utilize
a near-infinite time horizon) (Stiglitz, 1997). Beyond the substance of the debates
themselves, these exchanges make clear that ecological questions are still considered
beyond the purview of most economic research and instruction (Common, 1997).
Despite this lack of influence on their parent discipline, ecological economists have
shaped debates over sustainability in significant ways. Many researchers in the field
have to some degree abandoned ‘sustainable development’ as a concept worthy of
rigorous research and intellectual discussion, and instead concentrated their efforts on
using ‘sustainability’ analyses to interrogate traditional economic approaches to envi-
ronmental problems. Its focus as a field has remained squarely on economic sustainabil-
ity as related to ecological processes, alternately refining and expanding traditional
economic concepts and mechanisms to reflect a longer-term vision of human influence
and dependence on dynamic ecological systems.
Debates over sustainability within ecology, conservation biology and related disciplines
have assumed a new prominence and urgency in recent years. Natural scientists are
being invited in increasing numbers to inform policy-makers on the subject of
ecological sustainability (Lélé and Norgaard, 1996). In addition, several international
environmental groups (based largely in the USA) have for decades sought to influence
environmental policy in the third world based on specific conceptions of how ecological
systems are sustained over time, irrespective of existing environmental politics within
third-world societies (Athanasiou, 1996: 211–18). This increasing public involvement in
sustainability debates on the part of natural scientists is concurrent with a fundamental
rethinking of ecological theory occurring over the past 25 years (McIntosh, 1987; Pickett
et al., 1997). This ‘new’ ecology has in turn informed strategies of resource management
530 ‘Sustainability’ in ecological economics, ecology and livelihoods: a review
call for advocacy developed by the Ecological Society of America (Lubchenco et al.,
1991). According to the SBI, coalitions of ecologists, other scientists, the media, NGOs,
policy-makers and resource managers will be able to communicate ecological
information to decision-makers and thus create more ecologically sensitive and flexible
environmental policy. This information is to be arrived at through rigorous ecological
research and disseminated through educational efforts. The assumption that translation
of ecological information into effective environmental decision-making is simply a case
of ‘getting the ecology right’ undermines much of the SBI project. To illustrate, the SBI
asserts that to be ‘useful to decision-makers, ecological information must be both
accessible and relevant to their mandates and responsibilities’ (Lubchenco et al., 1991:
404). However, the ‘mandates and responsibilities’ of decision-making bodies can vary
widely according to criteria far removed from ecological sustainability. There is no
guarantee that, even in the face of relatively complete and compelling evidence of the
detrimental ecological impacts of a particular project or policy, decision-makers will
incorporate this knowledge into their calculus of policy formulation. Understanding
why this might be so involves a more far more detailed examination of power relations
and how political and economic forces interact to stymie well intentioned recommen-
dations (McNeely, 1992).
The assumption of scientific consensus, the basis for ‘useful’ ecological information
in the policy sphere, is also highly problematic. Recent deliberations within ecology on
this subject were fueled by a brief article that appeared in the journal Science. The
authors argue that the ‘many plans for sustainable use or sustainable development that
are founded upon scientific information and consensus’ are ignorant of the ‘history of
resource exploitation and misunderstanding of the possibility of achieving scientific
consensus concerning resources and the environment’ (Ludwig et al., 1993: 547).
Drawing on examples of spectacular collapses in two marine fisheries, the authors
claim that scientific consensus is impossible concerning how to sustain exploited
systems and that resource management policies must include human motivations in
their calculus or sustainable human–environment relationships will continue to be an
illusory objective. The lesson is that ecological theory is also a site of contestation. Do
these examples imply ecological theory is irrelevant to debates over sustainability?
Hardly, but ecological research, along with any other scientific undertaking, is
embedded in larger systems of societal practices and values and thus subject to the
same political-economic forces that subsume and warp other policy initiatives.13
Using ‘ecological sustainability’ as a policy and management guideline, while
certainly problematic, is certainly preferable to a notion of ‘sustainable development’
wherein ecological concepts and their applications are mere afterthoughts. The former
can be linked in concrete ways to more theoretically rich concepts such as adaptive
management, biodiversity, ecological integrity, resilience and so on.14 The latter already
represents nothing if not anathema and contradiction to many ecological scientists
(Frazier, 1997). This further illustrates the main argument of the article. ‘Sustainability’,
depending on its use and specificity, may be more adaptable in its application to
human–environment relations than ‘sustainable development’, which despite its
vacuity still connotes elitism, a policy orientation and a prioritization of economic
growth over other social goals. Furthermore, if we accept the premises of a majority of
ecological economists and ecological scientists that sustainable societies are predicated
on the continued functioning of the ecosphere, and I argue we should, a thoroughly
Christopher S. Sneddon 533
VI Sustainable livelihoods
As the preceding review and discussion make clear, there are compelling grounds for
the claim that the theoretical underpinnings and pragmatic uses of sustainability are
achieving increasing levels of sophistication within diverse fields. Ecological economics
is challenging much of the ensconced wisdom of conventional economic theory and
practice. Similarly, a novel paradigm and set of conceptual tools emerging from ecology
are generating resource management strategies that problematize traditional methods
of managing nature. Researchers in both fields are striving to insert a kind of ‘sustain-
ability thinking’ into environmental policy at national and international levels.
However, these efforts are hampered by questionable operational tools (e.g., resource
markets, environmental valuation) in the case of ecological economics, and somewhat
naive portrayals of how scientific knowledge is inserted into broader societal contexts
in the case of the ecological sciences. This latter shortcoming is particularly apparent in
efforts to influence environmental policy (e.g., the Sustainable Biosphere Initiative) that
assume a politically neutral and unproblematic transfer of academic knowledge into
policy apparatuses. In a different vein, exponents of the sustainable livelihoods
framework are delineating concrete strategies for ways to make sustainability more
relevant to the daily experiences of third-world communities. These would benefit from
a broadening-out of analytical emphasis (e.g., the village or ‘local community’) to
address social forces operating at larger spatial scales that may inhibit implementation
of its precepts. All three strands of sustainability charted here have effectively departed
from simplistic formulations of ‘mainstream’ sustainable development, yet leave con-
siderable space for elaboration of their core ideas and investigation of their normative
implications. Geographers are well positioned to take advantage of these gaps, but will
need to address sustainability in a more forthright way.
There is no definitive nexus of discussion on sustainability within geography, nor is
one intuitively necessary. Still, given the rancorous debates, official silences, volumes of
policy reports and torrent of journal articles about sustainability within the past 15
years, a reasonable question for this journal might be – whither geography in these
debates? I describe two possible responses, one sympathetic and one critical, to this
basic question. These in turn provide the basis for brief examples of how geographical
research – drawing on the strengths of geography’s diversity of human–environment
traditions – can buttress the ideas and claims of the strands of sustainability described
previously.
536 ‘Sustainability’ in ecological economics, ecology and livelihoods: a review
and being effective within those arenas come at the expense of other responsibilities.
Yet the dire character of socioecological transformations occurring at an ever more
rapid pace in the third world and elsewhere requires some action. It may be incumbent
for geographers seeking to ‘make a difference’ to engage in at least a ‘provocative
pragmatism’ when it comes to applied research and ‘how and what to transform and to
which ends’ (Emel, 1991: 389). Engagement with policy arenas need not require turning
in one’s radical or social theory credentials. For example, case studies of sustainable
development ‘in practice’ in the UK demonstrate how critical policy analysis might
help transcend the rhetoric of sustainability and proceed to concrete social actions for
sustainable human–environment relationships (Owens, 1994; Munton, 1997; O’Riordan
and Voisey, 1997). Yet a reasonable question at this point might be whether or not
geographers, even those so inclined, are able to make their presence felt within more
politically influential academic circles. Geographers’ reactive posture toward
movements in higher education and seeming inability effectively to promote the
discipline’s strengths in nature–society research have inhibited any movement beyond
the lower rungs of the disciplinary ladder (Turner, 1989), although there are signs this
may be changing (Turner, 1997; Liverman, 1999). This is particularly unfortunate in
light of the fields and debates reviewed here (ecological economics, ecological sciences
and sustainable livelihoods), all of which engage more deliberately with the policy-
making process, yet lag behind, as I believe the above overview amply demonstrates,
geographical work in comprehensively integrating social and ecological spheres of
knowledge. The point is not that greater collective power within academic circles will
magically confer ‘prestige’ upon geography and a voice in policy agendas, but that
current sociopolitical conditions mean elite policy-makers tend to listen more closely to
elite (and relatively noncontroversial) academics. It is within and around these rarefied
forums where many debates over sustainability tend to reside.
VIII Conclusion
At times the various fields of human geography seem littered with the remains of
unfinished projects, cast aside as the discipline’s creative intellects constantly engage
the new and the different. The human–environment project is far from finished and,
whether we approve or not, sustainability has become its dominant trope. What I have
tried to emphasize in the previous section is the breadth and specific character of work
in human–environment geography that can and should represent prominent themes in
debates over sustainability. With regard to the sustainability explosion as a whole, my
argument might be best summarized as a plea to be mindful of the multiplicity of
meanings and uses to which ‘sustainability’ is attached, a task that geographers are
readily able to assume due to a long and diverse tradition of human–environment
thinking. There is still much of value in the concept. At the very least, it forces us to
think about what the future might look like. While for many it is not a very pleasant
view, it remains a crucial task for geographers and nongeographers alike.
Christopher S. Sneddon 541
Acknowledgements
The majority of work for this article was carried out during the author’s affiliation with
the Institute for Social, Economic, and Ecological Sustainability (ISEES) at the
University of Minnesota (www.fw.umn.edu/isees). Numerous people have contributed
to the ideas presented here. At the University of Minnesota, I would like to thank in
particular Eric Sheppard and Abdi Samatar of the Department of Geography, and
Anne Kapuscinski, Sara Tjossem and Bill Cunningham of the ISEES for their generous
input. Much of the impetus for researching and writing the article was provided
by my interactions with the Sustainable Societies network of the MacArthur
Interdisciplinary Consortium on Peace and International Cooperation involving
Stanford University, the University of Minnesota and the Unviersity of Wisconsin. I
want to thank the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation for financial support
of the consortium and its innovative networks, and Connie Reimer for her patience and
understanding. ISEES deserves special thanks for a writing award. Also, I want to
acknowledge Michael Williams and three anonymous reviewers for poignant and
helpful comments.
Notes
1. Although I examine several works directed at first-world (northern) audiences, the article
focuses primarily on sustainability as applied by researchers and policy-makers in third-world
contexts. This is due, in part, to my own experiences and inclinations and to the third-world
orientation of the historically linked ideas of ‘sustainability’ and ‘development’. Obviously, the
challenges of constructing sustainable environment–society relations lie before all peoples.
2. Writing on sustainability abounds. The academic debate, initially centered around the
disciplines of ecology and economics, has exploded in recent years to include researchers in land-use
planning, urban planning, gender studies, agricultural economics, sociology, geography, environmen-
tal history, political science, public affairs, philosophy and a host of disciplinary subgroups. Journals
as diverse as Ambio, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, Ecological Applications, Ekistics, Finance
and Development, Futures, Society and Natural Resources, The Ecologist, Third World Planning Review and
World Development have in recent years devoted entire issues to sustainability. Sustainability may
indeed be ‘with us for all time’ (O’Riordan, 1993: 37).
3. Most observers credit the World conservation strategy (IUCN/UNEP/WWF, 1980) for coining the
term ‘sustainable development’ although earlier incarnations exist in, for example, the Cocoyoc
Declaration of 1974 (O’Riordan, 1993). With publication of the World Commission on Environment
and Development’s Our common future and its frequently cited definition of what sustainability entails
(‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the means of future
generations to meet their own needs’) (WCED, 1987: 43), sustainable development became a central
part of orthodox development discourse and a prime focus of debates over environment and
development.
4. Characterizing current transformations of ecosystems as ‘deterioration’ is in itself a value-
laden interpretation. To the extent that these transformations reduce livelihood security, spur
social disruption and threaten ecological functions vital to human societies, I believe current
transformations are decidedly negative. A less anthropocentric outlook would also point out the
wholesale destruction of habitats and concomitant extinction of species attending a human-dominated
biosphere.
5. See Klein (1996) for a useful history and analysis of interdisciplinarity.
6. See Park (1995) for a review of sustainable development geared toward physical geography.
Much of what might be termed ‘sustainability thinking’ in human geography can be gleaned from the
542 ‘Sustainability’ in ecological economics, ecology and livelihoods: a review
the implications of these differences for human geography and broached something of a middle
ground (e.g., Emel, 1991; Proctor, 1998; Brown, 1999). Zimmerer (1996: 178) summarizes the political-
ecology spectrum thus: ‘Political ecology has adopted a dual set of epistemologies: on one hand it has
used ecological concepts to understand the environmental impacts of human activities, while on the
other hand human organization of those activities, their dynamics, and their origins have been
primarily the prerogative of the political economy perspective.’
19. I here do serious injustice to the work of cultural ecologists within geography, who arguably
have placed concerns over the sustainability of human–environment relations at the center of their
work for decades (Zimmerer, 1996: 167–71). My aim is to examine a broader cross-section of
human–environment geography.
20. Some of the most trenchant critiques of ‘sustainable development’ have emerged from a
variety of feminist perspectives that examine the multiple intersections of gender, environment, power
and development within debates over sustainability. See edited volumes by Shiva (1993), Harcourt
(1994) and Rocheleau et al. (1996) for salient examples.
21. See Zimmerer (1994) for a cogent historical overview of this work, and Simmons (1995) for a
somewhat different perspective on ‘green geography’.
22. Proctor (1998) sees a way forward for geographers wishing to span these divides by drawing
on the relative conceptual strengths of conceptual realism and pragmatism.
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