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that articulate that farmer with fi nancial institutions and development agencies in
London or Washington, DC? Surely the livelihoods of farmers and those of develop-
ment practitioners are imbricated in ways that demand a re-scaling of traditional
development categories (Batterbury, 2001). For instance, smallholder agricultur-
alists may belong to peasant cooperatives through which they are inserted into
domestic and foreign markets, which in turn may be connected to non-governmental
organisations, state agencies, fi nancial institutions, activists and academics. These
complex, dynamic and often extensive networks channel development activities,
acting both to facilitate and constrain individual agency. Whether as part of formal,
self-acknowledged networks linking development organisations with common goals,
or part of informal mesh-works that connect various actors across scales and at
different sites, there is a growing focus among geographers on the role of networks
in the fl ows of capital and knowledge (Bebbington, 2005). Crucially, the effects of
such network relations depend to a considerable extent on the institutional context
within which they operate (Bebbington and Kothari, 2006). As such, the best work
on networks for environment and development focuses not only on the structure of
the network itself, but also (and primarily) on the social relations and spatial forms
that are produced and reproduced through the network; the ways that power
relations are or are not reconfi gured; and the infl uence that such networks have
on environmental outcomes (Radcliffe, 2001; Pieck, 2006). The transnational, net-
worked character of environment and development projects is particularly apparent
in the discourses and practices of sustainable development, considered next.
Sustainability and sustainable development
Since its entry into both academic discourse and mainstream environmentalism in
the 1980s, the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability have inspired
much research, theorisation and critique. Famously characterised by the World
Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987, p. 43) as 'Develop-
ment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs,' the notion of sustainable development surely
raises more questions than it answers (Redclift, 1987). One persistent problem lies
in the very conceptualisation of what, precisely, sustainable development is to
sustain. Here, the central tension between environment and development - between
fostering human welfare and ensuring nature conservation - is most apparent. If
we accept that human welfare unquestionably depends on some measure of envi-
ronmental protection, it is equally true that development demands environmental
transformation and, inevitably, some degree of degradation of biodiversity and the
integrity of geo-ecological systems. The key issue then is not
whether
natural envi-
ronments should be modifi ed by development, but the rather more complex ques-
tions of quantity and quality: to what degree, and in what manner, should natural
systems be modifi ed to meet human needs. Fundamentally, then, sustainable devel-
opment revolves around normative questions of how people should arrange their
social relations with one another and with their natural environment. In spite of its
technocratic roots, then, sustainable development remains at heart a fundamentally
political concept, though its political nature is seldom acknowledged in the technical
reports of development agency.
As outlined above, the foundational ideas of sustainable development emerged
in the 1970s and 1980s, largely the result of international conservation and develop-
