Bernice Maxton-Lee

ETH Zurich | ETH Zürich · Department of Environmental Systems Science

The RSPO certification scheme used the palm oil industry’s legitimacy crisis to strengthen the terrain to the industry’s own advantage by issuing certificates that supposedly guarantee sustainability standards. Standards that are run by and for companies related to the palm oil sector. https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/rsp...

Vast swathes of the current economic system have to be dismantled to secure humanity’s future. Until recently that was thought impossible. Covid-19 proves this wrong. It is possible to shut polluting businesses overnight and pay people during a transition. Because Covid-19 has done half the job for us, a sustainable future is finally within our gra...

Despite carefully constructed conservation interventions, deforestation in Indonesia is not being stopped. This book identifies why large-scale international forest conservation has failed to reduce deforestation in Indonesia and considers why key stakeholders have not responded as expected to these conservation interventions. Mapping the history...

It is our approach to economics which lies at the root of the world’s deforestation, environmental degradation, and climate change. It is the elephant in the room which few people attempt to discuss, and few even take seriously.

In an era of apparent “post-democracy”, political participation is challenged on multiple levels. On the one hand, traditional understandings of democratic participation appear to be out of sync with current socio-political realities. The rise of multinational corporations has introduced a strong and dominant influence into the balance of politics,...

In a world facing mounting environmental problems, from climate change to plastic waste and species loss, narratives and policies around sustainability are filled with confusion and contradiction. Growing numbers of companies, governments, and citizens appear to be committed to climate change action, but in reality, activities that increase economi...

Indonesia’s deforestation is a crisis of global proportions. Its causes are highly complex, spanning local social and community dynamics to national political hierarchies and global corporate politics, current and historic. Development plays a key role, with global neo-liberal imperatives leveraged, resisted and competing with myriad multi-level ag...