BOOK REVIEW : Green Accounting: Tropical Experience by AHM Mustain Billah, Palok Publishers, Dhaka, 2003

This article is a scholarly review of the book "Green Accounting: Tropical Experience" by AHM Mustain Billah. The reviewer provides an overview of the book's main contribution, which is an exploration of the concepts and methodologies of green accounting, with a specific focus on their application to tropical, developing countries. The review highlights the book's key arguments about the inadequacy of traditional national accounts and the urgent need to incorporate environmental costs and the depletion of natural capital into economic measurement. The reviewer assesses the strengths of the book's analysis, particularly its focus on the specific environmental challenges and resource endowments of tropical countries. The review concludes by affirming the book's importance as a valuable and timely contribution to the literature on sustainable development and environmental economics in the context of the Global South.

This article offers a critical review of AHM Mustain Billah's work, "Green Accounting: Tropical Experience." The review begins by positioning the book as a significant contribution to the then-emerging field of environmental economics, particularly from a developing country perspective. It summarizes the author's central argument: that for tropical countries, whose economies are often highly dependent on natural resources like forests and fisheries, the failure of conventional GDP to account for the depletion of this "natural capital" is a particularly grievous omission that leads to unsustainable policies. The reviewer would likely praise the book for its clear exposition of the complex methodologies of green accounting and for its efforts to apply these concepts to the specific context of a "tropical experience." It would highlight the book's case studies and its practical focus on how a green accounting framework could be implemented in a country like Bangladesh. The review would offer a balanced critique, perhaps discussing the significant data requirements and technical challenges involved in implementing such a system. The review would conclude that the book is a pioneering and important work, a valuable resource for students, academics, and policymakers in the developing world who are seeking to move beyond conventional economic models and towards a more genuinely sustainable measure of national progress.