Who Speaks for Nature?

Using the first national survey in Ecuador featuring an oversample of Amazon indigenous communities, this path-breaking book argues that how vulnerable or exposed people have been to environmental degradation determines how strongly they feel about saving the environment. Rather than emphasizing ethnic identity or stakeholders' ideological pre-dispositions towards environmentalism, the authors argue that on the front lines of environmental conservation, peoples' views are driven by personal experiences of vulnerability. Using the survey and hundreds of interviews across Ecuador over three years, the authors also argue that the creation of interest groups across ethnic and class lines is more effective in promoting environmental activism than more traditional approaches involving only ethnic or partisan affinity groups.