The Plundered Planet: Why We Must--and How We Can--Manage Nature for Global Prosperity

by Paul Collier

Overview

Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion was greeted as groundbreaking when it appeared in 2007, winning the Estoril Distinguished Book Prize, the Arthur Ross Book Award, and the Lionel Gelber Prize. Now, in The Plundered Planet, Collier builds upon his renowned work on developing countries and the world's poorest populations to confront the global mismanagement of natural resources.

Proper stewardship of natural assets and liabilities is a matter of planetary urgency: natural resources have the potential either to transform the poorest countries or to tear them apart, while the carbon emissions and agricultural follies of the developed world could further impoverish them. The Plundered Planet charts a course between unchecked profiteering on the one hand and environmental romanticism on the other to offer realistic and sustainable solutions to dauntingly complex issues.

Grounded in a belief in the power of informed citizens, Collier proposes a series of international standards that would help poor countries rich in natural assets better manage those resources, policy changes that would raise world food supply, and a clear-headed approach to climate change that acknowledges the benefits of industrialization while addressing the need for alternatives to carbon trading. Revealing how all of these forces interconnect, The Plundered Planet charts a way forward to avoid the mismanagement of the natural world that threatens our future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195395259
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/11/2010
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University and a former director of Development Research at the World Bank. In addition to the award-winning The Bottom Billion, he is the author of Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Natural Disorder
Part I: Boom at the Bottom
1. Going, Going, Gone
2. The Scramble for Africa, Mark 2
3. Bonanza: Hunky Dory or Humpty Dumpty?
Part II: Slash and Burn
4. The Breakdown of Custodianship
Part III: How Growth Creates Hunger
5. Carbon Emissions and the Decline in Food Supply
6. Asian Growth and the Increase in Food Demand
Part IV: Restoring Natural Order
7. Handing the Planet On
8. Facing the Food Crisis
9. Old Morality and New Romanticism
Conclusions
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Paul Collier is a brilliant mind with a keen understanding of the modern world's obstacles to progress. In The Plundered Planet, Collier tackles some of the most difficult questions of our time, and offers an insightful framework for effectively managing our world's natural resources. Collier's book is an important meditation on how we can build a world that is more equal, more sustainable, and more prosperous for all humankind." —President Clinton

"Paul Collier has written with great insight about the prospects of the bottom billion. In The Plundered Planet, he addresses himself to the complex opportunities, challenges and risks in managing the planet's natural resources. The bottom billion have a huge stake and an important role in the outcomes. Collier helps us see these issues through their eyes." —Michael Spence, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics

"In this path-breaking book, Paul Collier develops one of the most fascinating subjects he touched on in The Bottom Billion — the resource curse. It will be of great interest to all those who are concerned about the future of our civilization." —George Soros

"Paul Collier's 'The Plundered Planet' should not only be read by every one of us but also force-fed to every politician." — Buffalo News

"Read this book."—Sir Nicholas Stern, author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change

"Collier has made an important contribution in bringing together usually separate fields. His efforts may spark scholars in disparate disciplines to cooperate on these important problems—especially scholars who work at different scales." -Science

"A practical handbook for ending world poverty - a must read." — The Sunday Times

"The Plundered Planet is right to highlight the importance of government accountability in addressing poverty and climate change. But it will be the dispersion of power, fuelled by entrepreneurship and innovation, that will ultimately empower individuals to create accountability and solve global problems."—Nature

From the Publisher

How can poor countries escape the cycle of environmental degradation and poverty? Collier (The Bottom Billion) argues that technological innovation, environmental protection, and regulation are key to ensuring equitable development. Environmentalists and economists must work together so resources can be responsibly harnessed; if diamonds have sustained Sierra Leone’s bloody feuds, Botswana’s diamond industry has given it the world’s fastest growing economy. Collier explores where and how corruption insinuates itself during the discovery and resource extraction processes, how taxation and royalty on extraction may redistribute wealth to society, how to reinvest this wealth for the future, and how to use renewable resources sustainably. Despite the narrow treatment of “nature” as commodity and some questionable contentions that organic farming is “antiquated,” and that factory farming and genetically modified crops are the only way to alleviate hunger—claims easily challenged by more seasoned agronomists—Collier’s arguments are compassionate and convincing, and his straightforward explanations of economic principles are leavened with humor and impressively accessible. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Collier (Economics/Oxford Univ.; Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, 2009, etc.) presents a cogent argument for a major reassessment of natural-resource management. Building on the startling data he analyzed in The Bottom Billion (2007), the author delves into some of the trickiest issues facing mankind, including two paradoxical questions: "Who owns natural resources?" and "Who deserves the profits that are borne from natural resources?" The answers are integral to the developing societies making up the "bottom billion," whose potential to rise from poverty may depend on their ability to discover and manage their natural assets. Collier discusses the so-called "resource curse" and even posits-with ardent statistical support-that for a developing economy, discovering a boon of natural resources may not be in its economy's best interest. Without proper regulation, the situation could quickly become ripe for plunder. However, if the country's government handles the newfound commodity appropriately and correctly makes-and reinforces-a series of necessary decisions over the long term, the resources could bring about a sustained period of economic well-being. Collier details each of these decisions and their consequences. As much as 75 percent of the bottom billion's natural resources may still be undiscovered, he writes, and the "failure to harness natural capital is the single-most important missed opportunity in economic development." The author also argues that advanced prospecting techniques in these countries should be financed by public aid. In the second section of the book, Collier examines the same set of issues for naturally renewable commodities, a category that,while not facing the specific challenges of an issue like peak oil, deserves a close look. Despite a fair amount of dense economic analysis, the author does a nice job of presenting complex issues in easy-to-understand language. An important book-another winner from Collier.

Kirkus Reviews