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Development workers, researchers and donors will find Social Aspects of
Sustainable Dryland Management by Daniel Stiles (John Wiley, £39.95, ISBN
0 471 95633 3) a wide-ranging and informative collection of papers. But will one
billion people living in the degraded dryland areas benefit from the rather
bland recommendations? Maybe, if contributions such as Ron Ayling’s refreshingly
honest analysis of why development so often fails are taken to heart.