Introduction: Environmental Change, Development Challenges – Revisited

Abstract

With the creation of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Environment Group in 1990, a line of research linked to policy was established that has remained central to the Institute ever since. Through highlighting a series of IDS Bulletin issues led by IDS researchers, including the authors of this article, this archive issue tracks the development of this work over 35 years. In doing this, it also tells a broader story of key debates on environment and development and how they have evolved during a period in which environmental challenges have become ever more acute and central to development studies. Key IDS Bulletin contributions track debates over the relationships between environment, development, and policy in the early 1990s; emerging emphases on social dimensions, communities, resources, and livelihoods; with a focus on the politics of environmental knowledge and narratives and work on uncertain knowledges and pathways to sustainability, combined with power and political economy analyses. Now, in a world of multiple intersecting crises, the central challenge is for people and non-human nature to thrive together on the planet, and to address the social and political imperatives of transformation and justice.