This paper explores these theoretical and practical issues, considering the question of the environmental and ecological impacts of economic activity from the viewpoint of the scale at which this activity takes place and the exchanges across time and space which affect its sustainability. Following a consideration of the dynamics of economic change in the next section, the paper discusses the meaning of trade/exchange, economic scale, and political/ecological/economic boundaries before returning in the final section to the two equity-related issues outlined above.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centr