Global Capital and Amphibian Extinctions
Ecologically Unequal Exchange with Colonial and Neocolonial Sri Lanka
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2025.1315Keywords:
Biodiversity Loss, Amphibian Declines, Deforestation, World-Systems Theory, Dependency Theory, CapitalismAbstract
Sri Lanka has the highest number of recorded amphibian extinctions and most of the island’s remaining amphibian species are threatened with extinction. From a critical political-economic perspective that integrates previously disconnected lines of analysis in herpetological conservation, development, land use change, and colonial and neocolonial histories, we argue that these extinctions and extinction risks should not be understood as a localized event, but, instead, in relation to global networks that emerged from the international development of capitalism. Mass deforestation of the Southern Highlands, the region of Sri Lanka with the highest diversity of endemic and endangered amphibians, began following the commodification of land to establish plantations under British colonial rule. The core-periphery power relations installed during colonization remain in the neocolonial period, undergirding the forces driving deforestation to this day. Higher-income countries and multinational corporations have financially benefited from Sri Lanka’s “development” at the expense of many Sri Lankans and the island’s diverse amphibian populations and their habitats, a relationship consistent with the theory of ecologically unequal exchange.
References
Abend, Gabriel. 2008. “The meaning of ‘theory’.” Sociological Theory 26(2):173-199.
Alford, Ross A., Philip M. Dixon, and Joseph H. K. Pechmann. 2001. “Global amphibian population declines.” Nature 412(6846): 499–500.
Alford, Ross A., and Stephen J. Richards. 1999. “Global amphibian declines: a problem in applied ecology.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 30(1): 133–165.
Althouse, Jeffrey, Louison Cahen-Fourot, Bruno Carballa-Smichowski, Cedric Durand, and Steven Knauss. 2023. “Ecologically unequal exchange and uneven development patterns along global value chains.” World Development 170: 106308.
Amīn, Samir. 1974. Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Athukorala, Prema-Chandra. 2024. “The Sri Lankan economy: from optimism to debt trap.” Asian Economic Policy Review 20(1): 1–21.
Austin, Kelly. 2010. “The ‘Hamburger Connection’ as ecologically unequal exchange: a cross‐national investigation of beef exports and deforestation in less‐developed countries.” Rural Sociology 75(2): 270–299.
Bai, Yikang, and Jennifer E. Givens. 2021. “Ecologically unequal exchange of plastic waste? A longitudinal analysis of international trade in plastic waste.” Journal of World-Systems Research 27(1): 265–287.
Banaji, Jarius. 2022. “Merchant capitalism.” In The SAGE Handbook of Marxism, edited by Beverley Skeggs, Svenja Bromberg, Alberto Toscano, and Sara Farris. New York: Sage.
Bandarage, Asoka. 2023. Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World: Colonial and Neoliberal Origins: Ecological and Collective Alternatives. Boston: De Gruyter.
Bandaratillake, H.M. (2001). “Impacts and effectiveness of logging bans in natural forests: Sri Lanka.” Pp. 137–166, in Forests Out of Bounds: Impacts and Effectiveness of Logging Bans in Natural Forests in Asia-Pacific edited by Durst, P.B., T.R.Waggener, T. Enters, and T.L. Cheng. Food and Agricultural Organization, Bangkok, Thailand.
Barinaga, Marcia. 1990. “Where have all the froggies gone? It has taken a decade, but herpetologists are hopping up and down about declining amphibian populations.” Science 247(4946): 1033–1034.
Barnosky, Anthony D., Nicholas Matzke, Susumu Tomiya, Guinevere O. U. Wogan, Brian Swartz, Tiago B. Quental, Charles Marshall et al. 2011. “Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?” Nature 471(7336): 51–57.
Barraclough, Solon, and Krishna Ghimire. 1995. Forests and Livelihoods: The Social Dynamics of Deforestation in Developing Countries. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Bates, Diane. 2009. “Population, demography, and the environment.” Pp. 107–124 in Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology, edited by Kenneth A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Batuwita, Sudesh, Sampath Udugampala, Madura De Silva, Jiaojiao Diao, and Udeni Edirisinghe. 2019. “A review of amphibian fauna of Sri Lanka: distribution, recent taxonomic changes and conservation.” Journal of Animal Diversity 1(2): 44–82.
Beebee, Trevor J. C., and Richard A. Griffiths. 2005. “The amphibian decline crisis: a watershed for conservation biology?” Biological Conservation 125(3): 271–285.
Blaustein, Andrew R., and Joseph M. Kiesecker. 2002. “Complexity in conservation: lessons from the global decline of amphibian populations.” Ecology Letters 5(4): 597–608.
Bonds, Eric, and Liam Downey. 2012. “‘Green’ technology and ecologically unequal exchange: the environmental and social consequences of ecological modernization in the world-system.” Journal of World-Systems Research 18(2): 167–186.
Boswell, Terry. 1989. “Colonial empires and the capitalist world-economy: a time series analysis of colonization, 1640–1960.” American Sociological Review 54(2): 180–196.
Braudel, Fernand. 1992. The Wheels of Commerce: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th century, Vol. II. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Brenner, Robert. 1982. “The origins of capitalist development: a critique of neo-Smithian Marxism.” Pp. 54–71 in Introduction to the Sociology of “Developing Societies,” edited by Hamza Alavi and Teodor Shanin. Springer.
Bunker, Stephen G. 1984. “Modes of extraction, unequal exchange, and the progressive underdevelopment of an extreme periphery: the Brazilian Amazon, 1600-1980.” American Journal of Sociology 89(5): 1017–1064.
Bunker, Stephen G. 1985. Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Campbell Grant, Evan H., David A. W. Miller, and Erin Muths. 2020. “A synthesis of evidence of drivers of amphibian declines.” Herpetologica 76(2): 101–107.
Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle, and Todd M. Palmer. 2015. “Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction.” Science Advances 1(5): e1400253.
Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Rodolfo Dirzo. 2017. “Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(30): E6089–E6096.
Central Bank of Sri Lanka. 2023. Annual Economic Review. https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/en/publications/economic-and-financial-reports/annual-economic-review/annual-economic-review-2023.
Chirot, Daniel, and Thomas D. Hall. 1982. “World-System Theory.” Annual Review of Sociology 8: 81–106.
Chandrasekhar, C.P., Jayati Ghosh, and Debamanyu Das. 2023. “Paying with austerity: the debt crisis and restructuring in Sri Lanka.” Political Economy Research Institute Working Paper.
Cho, Kimin, Benjamin Goldstein, Dimitrios Gounaridis, and Joshua P. Newell. 2022. “Hidden risks of deforestation in global supply chains: a study of natural rubber flows from Sri Lanka to the United States.” Journal of Cleaner Production 349: 131275.
Clausen, Rebecca, and Richard York. 2008. “Global biodiversity decline of marine and freshwater fish: a cross-national analysis of economic, demographic, and ecological influences.” Social Science Research 37(4): 1310–1320.
Collins, James P. 2010. “Amphibian decline and extinction: what we know and what we need to learn.” Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 92(2-3): 93–99.
Collins, James P., Martha L. Crump, and Thomas E. Lovejoy III. 2009. Extinction in Our Times. Global Amphibian Decline. New York: Oxford University Press.
Collins, James P., and Andrew Storfer. 2003. “Global amphibian declines: sorting the hypotheses.” Diversity and Distributions 9(2): 89–98.
Corsi, Giulio, Alessandro Sapio, Raffaele Guarino, Enrique Muñoz-Ulecia, and Pier Paolo Franzese. 2024. “Uneven development and core-periphery dynamics: a journey into the perspective of ecologically unequal exchange.” Environmental Science & Policy 157: 103778.
Crusz, Hilary. 1973. “Nature conservation in Sri Lanka (Ceylon).” Biological Conservation 5(3): 199–208.
Czech, Brian. 2000. “Economic growth as the limiting factor for wildlife conservation.” Wildlife Society Bulletin 28: 4–15.
Czech, Brian, Julianne H. Mills Busa, and Roger M. Brown. 2012. “Effects of economic growth on biodiversity in the United States.” Natural Resources Forum 36(3): 160–166.
Department of Land Title Settlement. 2024. “Land settlement.” http://www.landsettledept.gov.lk/department-land-settlement#
de Silva, Anslem. 2001. The Herpetofauna of Sri Lanka: An Historical Overview, Current Status with Checklists. Amphibian and Reptile Research Organization of Sri Lanka.
________. 2011. “Some observations of malformation, eye disease, parasitic and viral infection and the effects of agrochemicals on amphibians in Sri Lanka.” FrogLog 98: 24–25.
De Silva, Anslem, Kanishka Ukuwela, and Dilan Chathuranga. 2021. A Photographic Field Guide to the Amphibians of Sri Lanka. Oxford, UK: John Beaufoy Publishing.
de Silva, S. B. D. (1982). The Political Economy of Underdevelopment. New York: Routledge.
Dietz, James L. 1980. “Dependency theory: a review article.” Journal of Economic Issues 14(3): 751–758.
Dirzo, Rodolfo, Hillary S. Young, Mauro Galetti, Gerardo Ceballos, Nick JB Isaac, and Ben Collen. 2014. “Defaunation in the Anthropocene.” Science 345(6195): 401–406.
Dorninger, Christian, Alf Hornborg, David J. Abson, Henrik Von Wehrden, Anke Schaffartzik, Stefan Giljum, John-Oliver Engler, Robert L. Feller, Klaus Hubacek, and Hanspeter Wieland. 2021. “Global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange: Implications for sustainability in the 21st century.” Ecological Economics 179: 106824.
Emmanuel, Arghiri. 1972. Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Ellepola, Gajaba, Jayampathi Herath, Kelum Manamendra-Arachchi, Nayana Wijayathilaka, Gayani Senevirathne, Rohan Pethiyagoda, and Madhava Meegaskumbura. 2021. “Molecular species delimitation of shrub frogs of the genus Pseudophilautus (Anura, Rhacophoridae).” PLoS One 16(10):e0258594.
Erdelen, Walter R. 2012. “Conservation of biodiversity in a hotspot: Sri Lanka’s amphibians and reptiles.” Amphibian and Reptile Conservation 5(2): 33–51.
Etherington, Norman. 2014. Theories of Imperialism: War, Conquest and Capital. New York: Routledge.
Fernando, Jude. 2023. “The citizen’s uprising in Sri Lanka: a watershed moment against racial capitalism.” Human Geography 16(2): 181–186.
Foster, John B., and Hannah Holleman. 2014. “The theory of unequal ecological exchange: a Marx-Odum dialectic.” Journal of Peasant Studies 41(2): 199–233.
Frank, Andre G. 1979. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Frost, Darrel. 2023. Amphibian Species of the World: An Online Reference. https://amphibiansoftheworld.amnh.org/
Gamage, Manuri, Shashika Guruge, Menuka Udugama, Mohamed Iffam, and Ishara Anjalee. 2021. “What drives deforestation? A case of deforestation drivers in Sri Lanka.” Applied Bio-Systems Technology 33.
Geist, Helmut J., and Eric F. Lambin. 2002. “Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation: tropical forests are disappearing as the result of many pressures, both local and regional, acting in various combinations in different geographical locations.” BioScience 52(2): 143–150.
Gellert, Paul K. 2010. “Extractive regimes: toward a better understanding of Indonesian development.” Rural Sociology 75(1): 28–57.
Gellert, Paul K., R. Scott Frey, and Harry F. Dahms. 2017. Introduction to ecologically unequal exchange in comparative perspective. Journal of World-Systems Research 23(2): 226–235.
Givens, Jennifer E., Xiaorui Huang, and Andrew K. Jorgenson. 2019. “Ecologically unequal exchange: a theory of global environmental injustice.” Sociology Compass 13(5): e12693.
Goldfrank, Walter L., David Goodman, and Andrew Szasz. 1999. Ecology and the World-System. Westport: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Green, David M., Michael J. Lannoo, David Lesbarrères, and Erin Muths. 2020. “Amphibian population declines: 30 years of progress in confronting a complex problem.” Herpetologica 76: 97–100.
Gunadasa, Saman. 2023. “UN report finds Sri Lanka’s social inequality among the worst in Asia.” World Socialist Web Site, 26 December. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/27/svae-d27.html.
________. 2024. “Sri Lankan government agrees with IMF to implement savage austerity measures.” World Socialist Web Site, 25 November. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/11/26/canw-n26.html.
Gunderson, Ryan, Diana Stuart, and Brian Petersen. 2025. “The political economy of amphibian declines.” Reptiles & Amphibians 32: e21692.
Habibullah, Muzafar Shah, Badariah Haji Din, Siow-Hooi Tan, and Hasan Zahid. 2022. “Impact of climate change on biodiversity loss: global evidence.” Environmental Science and Pollution Research 29(1): 1073–1086.
Hickel, Jason, Christian Dorninger, Hanspeter Wieland, and Intan Suwandi. 2022. “Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015.” Global Environmental Change 73: 102467.
Hoffmann, John P. 2004. “Social and environmental influences on endangered species: a cross-national study.” Sociological Perspectives 47(1): 79–107.
Hornborg, Alf. 1998. “Towards an ecological theory of unequal exchange: articulating world system theory and ecological economics.” Ecological Economics 25(1): 127–136.
Houlahan, Jeff E., C. Scott Findlay, Benedikt R. Schmidt, Andrea H. Meyer, and Sergius L. Kuzmin. 2000. “Quantitative evidence for global amphibian population declines.” Nature 404(6779): 752–755.
Humbel, R. 1990. “Decreasing extent of tea plantations in Sri Lanka: chance for agricultural diversification or ecological threat?” Sri Lankan Journal of Tea Science 59(2): 65–81
Irvine, Leslie. 2008. Animals and sociology. Sociology Compass 2(6): 1954–1971.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). 1954. Current Economic Situation and Prospects for Ceylon. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/977701468105863469/pdf/multi0page.pdf
International Monetary Fund (IMF). 2023. Sri Lanka: First Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility, Request for a Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criterion, Modification of Performance Criteria, Rephasing of Access, and Financing Assurances Review. - Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sri Lanka. International Monetary Fund, Asia and Pacific Development, No. 23/408.
International Monetary Fund (IMF). 2024. Sri Lanka: 2024 Article IV Consultation and Second Review under the Extended Fund Facility, Request for Modification of Performance Criterion, and Financing Assurances Review - Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sri Lanka. International Monetary Fund, Asia and Pacific Development, No. 24/161.
Jorgenson, Andrew K. 2010. “World-economic integration, supply depots, and environmental degradation: A study of ecologically unequal exchange, foreign investment dependence, and deforestation in less developed countries.” Critical Sociology 36(3): 453–477.
________. 2016. “Environment, development, and ecologically unequal exchange.” Sustainability 8(3): 227.
Jorgenson, Andrew K., and Brett Clark. 2009. “Ecologically unequal exchange in comparative perspective: a brief introduction.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 50(3–4): 211–214.
Jorgenson, Andrew K., Christopher Dick, and Kelly Austin. 2010. “The vertical flow of primary sector exports and deforestation in less-developed countries: a test of ecologically unequal exchange theory.” Society and Natural Resources 23(9): 888–897.
Kalof, Linda. 2007. Looking at Animals in Human History. London: Reaktion Books.
Kenyon, Nicholas Theis, Mauricio Betancourt, and Amanda Sikirica. 2024. “Appraising sociological approaches to ecologically unequal exchange: theoretical considerations and quantitative consequences.” Journal of World-Systems Research 30(2): 610–634.
Köhler, Gernot. 1998. “The structure of global money and world tables of unequal exchange.” Journal of World-Systems Research 4: 145–168.
Kottawa-Arachchi, Dananjaya J., and Madawala A. Wijeratne. 2017. “Climate change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems in Sri Lanka: a review.” Nature Conservation Research 2(3): 2–22.
Luedtke, Jennifer A., Janice Chanson, Kelsey Neam, Louise Hobin, Adriano O. Maciel, Alessandro Catenazzi, Amaël Borzée et al. 2023. “Ongoing declines for the world’s amphibians in the face of emerging threats.” Nature 622(7982): 308–314.
Lenka, S., and S. Pattanaik. 1979. “Sri Lanka's foreign policy: a class analysis.” Social Scientist 8(1): 48–57.
Lindström, Sara, Eskil Mattsson, and S. P. Nissanka. 2012. “Forest cover change in Sri Lanka: the role of small scale farmers.” Applied Geography 34: 680–692.
Lynch, Michael J., Michael A. Long, and Paul B. Stretesky. 2015. “Anthropogenic development drives species to be endangered: capitalism and the decline of species.” Pp. 117–146 in Green Harms and Crimes: Critical Criminology in a Changing World, edited by Ragnhild A. Sollund. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
________. 2019. Green Criminology and Green Theories of Justice: An Introduction to a Political Economic View of Eco-Justice. Springer Nature.
Mattsson, Eskil, U. Martin Persson, Madelene Ostwald, and S. P. Nissanka. 2012. “REDD+ readiness implications for Sri Lanka in terms of reducing deforestation.” Journal of Environmental Management 100: 29–40.
Meegaskumbura, Madhava, Franky Bossuyt, Rohan Pethiyagoda, Kelum Manamendra-Arachchi, Mohammed Bahir, Michel C. Milinkovitch, and Christopher J. Schneider. 2002. “Sri Lanka: an amphibian hot spot.” Science 298(5592): 379–379.
Meegaskumbura, Madhava, Kelum Manamendra-Arachchi, Christopher J. Schneider, and Rohan Pethiyagoda. 2007. “New species amongst Sri Lanka’s extinct shrub frogs (Amphibia: Rhacophoridae: Philautus).” Zootaxa 1397(1): 1–15.
Mendis Wickramasinghe, L. J., Dulan R. Vidanapathirana, and Nethu Wickramasinghe. 2012. “Back from the dead: the world’s rarest toad Adenomus kandianus rediscovered in Sri Lanka.” Zootaxa 3347(1): 63–68.
Meyer, Eric. 1998. “Forests, chena cultivation, plantations and the colonial state in Ceylon 1840-1940.” Pp. 793–827 in Nature and the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asian, edited by Richard H. Grove, Vinita Damodaran, and Satpal Sangwan. Oxford University Press. New York.
Ministry of Forestry and Environment. 1999. Biodiversity Conservation in Sri Lanka: A Framework for Action. Ministry of Forestry and Environment, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka.
Moore, Jason W. 2011. “Ecology, capital, and the nature of our times: accumulation & crisis in the capitalist world-ecology.” Journal of World-Systems Research 17(1): 108–146.
Munasinghe, Mohan, Yvani Deraniyagala, Nisitha Dassanayake, and Harshani Karunarathna. 2017. “Economic, social and environmental impacts and overall sustainability of the tea sector in Sri Lanka.” Sustainable Production and Consumption 12: 155–169.
Naidoo, Robin, and Wiktor L. Adamowicz. 2001. “Effects of economic prosperity on numbers of threatened species.” Conservation Biology 15(4): 1021–1029.
Nibert, David. 2003. “Humans and other animals: Sociology’s moral and intellectual challenge.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 23(3): 4–25.
Nkrumah, Kwame. 1965. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York: International Publishers.
Nowakowski, A. Justin, James I. Watling, Steven M. Whitfield, Brian D. Todd, David J. Kurz, and Maureen A. Donnelly. 2017. “Tropical amphibians in shifting thermal landscapes under land‐use and climate change.” Conservation Biology 31(1): 96–105.
Palat, Ravi Arvind. 2014. “Dependency theory and world‐systems analysis.” Pp. 369–383 in A Companion to Global Historical Thought, edited by Prasenjit Duara, Viren Murthy, and Andrew Sartori. Malden, MA: Wiley.
Pata, Ugur Korkut, Veli Yilanci, Bilal Hussain, and Syed Asif Ali Naqvi. 2022. “Analyzing the role of income inequality and political stability in environmental degradation: evidence from South Asia.” Gondwana Research 107: 13–29.
Pathirana, Dhanusha Gihan, and Chandana Aluthge. 2020. A History of Underdevelopment and Political Economy of Inflation in Sri Lanka. Springer Singapore.
Peet, Richard. 2009. Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO. New York: Zed Books.
Perera, Nihal. 2016. “Squandering opportunities: Sri Lanka’s overlooked development potential.” Bhumi 5(1): 30–43.
Pethiyagoda, Rohan, Kelum Manamendra-Arachchi, Mohomed M. Bahir, and Madhava Meegaskumbura. 2006. “Sri Lankan amphibians: diversity, uniqueness and conservation.” Pp. 125–133 in Fauna of Sri Lanka. Status of Taxonomy, Research and Conservation, edited by Channa N. B. Bambaradeniya. Colombo: World Conservation Union.
Pouteau, Robin, Caroline Brunel, Wayne Dawson, Franz Essl, Holger Kreft, Bernd Lenzner, Carsten Meyer et al. 2022. “Environmental and socioeconomic correlates of extinction risk in endemic species.” Diversity and Distributions 28(1): 53–64.
Pratihar, Suman, Howard O. Clark, Sushil Dutta, Muhammad Sharif Khan, Bidhan Ch Patra, Kanishka DB Ukuwela, A. Das et al. 2014. “Diversity and conservation of amphibians in South and Southeast Asia.” Sauria 36: 9–59.
Rammelt, Crelis, and Raimon C. Ylla-Català. 2025. “Ecological unequal exchange: winners and losers in global raw material trade and consumption.” Journal of World-Systems Research 31(1): 341–372.
Re:wild, Synchronicity Earth, and IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. 2023. State of the World’s Amphibians: The Second Global Amphibian Assessment. Re:wild, Texas, USA.
Rittich, Kerry. 2002. Recharacterizing Restructuring: Law, Distribution and Gender in Market Reform. New York: Kluwer Law International.
Ricci, Andrea. 2019. “Unequal exchange in the age of globalization.” Review of Radical Political Economics 51(2): 225–245.
________. 2023. “Ecologically unequal exchange and the value of money.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 34(3): 22–42.
Rodrigo, Malaka. 2020. “New assessment shows Sri Lanka’s amphibians being pushed to the brink.” Mogabay, 23 March. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/new-assessment-shows-sri-lankas-amphibians-being-pushed-to-the-brink/.
Rodrigo, V. H. L., S. M. M. Iqbal, and E. S. Munasinghe. 2009. “Rural livelihood and rubber cultivation in Eastern province of Sri Lanka.” Journal of the Rubber Research Institute of Sri Lanka 89: 58–69.
Sankalpa, J. K. S., Wasana Wijesuriya, and P. W. Jeewanthi. 2013. “Export performance of rubber products manufacturing sector in Sri Lanka.” Journal of the Rubber Research Institute of Sri Lanka 93: 51–61.
Shanmugaratnam, Nadarajah. 1981. “Impact of plantation economy and colonial policy on Sri Lanka peasantry.” Economic and Political Weekly 16(3): 69–80.
Shandra, John M., Christopher Leckband, and Bruce London. 2009a. “Ecologically unequal exchange and deforestation: a cross-national analysis of forestry export flows.” Organization & Environment 22(3): 293–310.
Shandra, John M., Christopher Leckband, Laura A. McKinney, and Bruce London. 2009b. “Ecologically unequal exchange, world polity, and biodiversity loss: A cross-national analysis of threatened mammals.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 50(3–4): 285–310.
Shandra, John M., Eric Shircliff, and Bruce London. 2011. “World Bank lending and deforestation: a cross-national analysis.” International Sociology 26(3): 292–314.
Smith, Tony. 1979. “The underdevelopment of development literature: the case of dependency theory.” World Politics 31(2): 247–288.
Sodhi, Navjot S., David Bickford, Arvin C. Diesmos, Tien Ming Lee, Lian Pin Koh, Barry W. Brook, Cagan H. Sekercioglu, and Corey JA Bradshaw. 2008. “Measuring the meltdown: drivers of global amphibian extinction and decline.” PloS One 3(2): e1636.
Sol, Joeri. 2019. “Economics in the Anthropocene: species extinction or steady state economics.” Ecological Economics 165: 106392.
Sparenborg, Lukas. 2022. “‘Power concedes nothing without a demand’: the structural injustice of climate change.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 1–24.
Stuart, Diana, and Ryan Gunderson. 2020. “Human-animal relations in the Capitalocene: environmental impacts and alternatives.” Environmental Sociology 6(1): 68–81.
Stuart, Simon N., Janice S. Chanson, Neil A. Cox, Bruce E. Young, Ana S. L. Rodrigues, Debra L. Fischman, and Robert W. Waller. 2004. “Status and trends of amphibian declines and extinctions worldwide.” Science 306(5702): 1783–1786.
Suthakar, Karunakaran, and Elisabeth N. Bui. 2008. “Land use/cover changes in the war‐ravaged Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka, 1984–early 2004.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 29(2): 205–220.
Sudhakar Reddy, C., G. Manaswini, C. S. Jha, P. G. Diwakar, and V. K. Dadhwal. 2017. “Development of national database on long-term deforestation in Sri Lanka.” Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing 45: 825–836.
Suranjan Karunarathna, D. M. S., Sujan M. Henkanaththegedara, A. A. Thasun Amarasinghe, and Anslem De Silva. 2013. “Impact of vehicular traffic on herpetofaunal mortality in a savanna forest, eastern Sri Lanka.” Taprobanica 5(2): 111–119.
Suranjan Karunarathna, D. M. S., Sudheera Ranwala, Thilina Surasinghe, and Majintha Madawala. 2017. “Impact of vehicular traffic on vertebrate fauna in Horton Plains and Yala National Parks of Sri Lanka: some implications for conservation and management.” Journal of Threatened Taxa 9(3): 9928–9939.
Surasinghe, Thilina D. 2009. “Conservation and distribution status of amphibian fauna in Sri Lanka.” Biodiversity 10(1): 3–17.
Tolisano, J., P. Abeygunewardene, T. Athukorala, C. Davis, W. Fleming, K. Goonesekera, and T. Rusinow. 1993. “An environmental evaluation of the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Program: Lessons learned and donor opportunities for improved assistance.” U.S. Agency for International Development. Bethesda, MD: DAI.
United Nations Development Program. 2024. Making Our Future: New Directions for Human Development in Asia and the Pacific. 2024 Regional Human Development Report. https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2023-11/undp_regional_human_development_report_web_final_0.pdf.
Vidyaratne, Herath. 2015. “Balancing economic growth and ecological sustainability in Sri Lanka.” South Asia Research 35(1): 119–133.
Wake, David B. 1991. “Declining amphibian populations.” Science 253(5022): 860–860.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2004. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham: Duke University Press.
________. 2011. The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (Vol. 1). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wickramagamage, P. 1998. “Large‐scale deforestation for plantation agriculture in the hill country of Sri Lanka and its impacts.” Hydrological Processes 12(13‐14): 2015–2028.
________. 2017. “Role of human agency in the transformation of the biogeography of Sri Lanka.” Ceylon Journal of Science 46: 19.
Wickramasinghe, D.A., and D.C. Cameron. 2004. “British capital, Ceylonese land, Indian labour: the imperialism and colonialism of evolution of tea plantations in Sri Lanka.” University of Sri Jayewardenepura. University of Sri Jayewardenepura: Colombo, Sri Lanka; University of Queensland Australia: Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 2004.
Wijayathilaka, Nayana, Ushani Perera, Kelum Manamendra-Arachchi, Gajaba Ellepola, Himash Adhikari, Sanoj Wijayasekara, Mendis Wickramasinghe, Vimukthi Prathap, and Madhava Meegaskumbura. 2023. “Pseudophilautus pardus, a junior synonym of P. viridis (Amphibia: Anura: Rhacophoridae).” Zootaxa 5227(4): 459–472.
World Bank. 2023a. “GDP per capita (current US$) – Sri Lanka.” World Bank Group. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=LK
________. 2023b. “GDP (current US$) – Sri Lanka.” World Bank Group. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=LK
World Population Review. 2024. “Sri Lanka.” https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/sri-lanka-population.
York, Richard, and Brett Clark. 2006. “Marxism, positivism, and scientific sociology: social gravity and historicity.” The Sociological Quarterly 47(3): 425–450.
York, Richard, and Stefano B. Longo. 2017. “Animals in the world: a materialist approach to sociological animal studies.” Journal of Sociology 53(1): 32–46.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ryan Gunderson, William Charles, Claiton Fyock
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
Revised 7/16/2018. Revision Description: Removed outdated link.
