Theorizing and Rethinking Linkages Between the Natural Environment and the Modern World - System : Deforestation in the Late 20 th Century *

In tracing world ecological degradation over a period of fi ve millennia, Sing Chew (2001) points out that “...the history of civilizations...and states is also the history of ecological degradation and crisis...[as such]...ecological relation is as primary as the economic relation in the self-expansionary processes of societal systems...” (pp. 1–2). Particularly over the last half of the twentieth century with its expanding global markets, there has been a dramatic upsurge in the rate at which deforestation is occurring (Chew 2001:141 ff .; also see Noble and Dirzo 1997). While deforestation is a worldwide problem, prior research indicates that the rate of deforestation, as well as its causes, tends to vary markedly by a country’s position in the world-system (Burns et al. 1994; Kick et al. 1996). Th us, while the history of the modern world is replete with illustrations of the ecologically destructive nature of geographic expansion of the system (Moore 2000; Smith