The environment is in crisis. The climate is changing, rivers and lakes are polluted, fisheries are overexploited, and there is no corner of the world where human impact is not apparent. At the same time, millions of the world's poor continue to live in abject poverty, while the richer nations of the world are confronting an epidemic of chronic obesity. These crises of human development are very much of our own making. It is the relationship between humans and their environment and, ultimately, the relationship between us all that is at the root of the sustainability problematique endlessly discussed at, but not resolved by, meetings of the world's governments in Stockholm, Rio and Johannesburg in 1972, 1992 and 2002, respectively. Consequently, it is this relationship that has to be a full part of any solutions to the almighty mess that we as a human race now face.

This book starts from the belief that the crisis of unsustainability is, first and foremost, a crisis of governance. Governance, however, is a multidimensional and highly contested term within academia. If we zoom out and explore what is or is not being done actually to govern societies in ways that facilitate rather than undermine sustainability, it is abundantly clear that the governance of sustainable development is likely to be a hugely complicated and politically contested undertaking.