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Political scientists have long been concerned about the tension between institutional fragmentation and policy coordination in the United States bureaucracy. The literature is rife with examples of agencies competing with each other or asserting their independence, while cooperation is relatively rare. This is of particular importance in policy areas such as biodiversity, where species, habitats, and ecosystems cross various agency jurisdictions.Bureaucratic Landscapes explores the reasons for the success and failure of interagency cooperation, focusing on several case studies of efforts to preserve biodiversity in California. The book examines why public officials tried to cooperate and the obstacles they faced, providing indirect evidence of policy impacts as well. Among other topics, it examines the role of courts in prompting agency action, the role of scientific knowledge in organizational learning, and the emergence of new institutions to resolve collective-action problems. Notable findings include the crucial role of environmental lawsuits in prompting agency action and the surprisingly active role of the Bureau of Land Management in resource preservation. ... Read more

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In the Indian context. ... Read more

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Discusses major factors influencing biodiversity in the Earth's terrestrial biomes, and the projected patterns of change for those factors. Covers ten key terrestrial biomes and freshwater ecosystems, with comprehensive scenarios of biodiversity for the 21st century. Softcover, hardcover not yet available. DLC: Biological diversity. ... Read more

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The Gulf of Aqaba-Eilat is a unique pocket-sized tropical coral ocean, functioning in a subtropical environment. This book, the first one to treat the Gulf in an interdisciplinary collection of contributed chapters, celebrates also the 40 years of existence of the Heinz Steinitz Marine Biology Laboratory in Eilat. The authors of the 28 chapters are mainly Israeli scientists , but many are also from abroad, chiefly from Germany. The results presented, related to Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian waters. In presenting the Gulf, virtually unknown some 50 years ago and today a major diving tourist hub , the issues of coral reef preservation and restoration are predominant in this richly illustrated book. ... Read more

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Despite the potential benefits that the IMO's Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) designation can deliver, recent practice within the IMO and by individual member states has considerably undermined confidence in this emerging concept. The focus of this book is on the events within the IMO that have led to this lack of confidence arising. In the process, this book presents an examination of coastal State practice with the PSSA concept.

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Although ‘biodiversity’ is a relatively new coinage, scientists have been studying the subject it describes long before the word’s first appearance in the language in the mid-1980s. In 1973, for instance, the UK Systematics Association held a symposium on ‘The Changing Flora and Fauna of Britain’ which concluded that not enough attention was being paid to the conservation of rarities, a conclusion also reached, said the symposium, at a meeting of the Linnaean Society some forty years earlier. By 1980, the Global 2000 Report to the President published by the US Council on Environmental Quality starkly warned of a diminution of up to one-fifth of all species by the turn of the century, and there is now a growing consensus that the world faces a ‘biodiversity crisis’—a potentially catastrophic global loss of genetic, ecosystem, and, most obviously, species diversity. Indeed, especially since the UN Convention on Biological Diversity was promulgated in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, conserving biodiversity has become the principal focus of the global conservation movement. Indeed, the study of the origins, maintenance, and protection of diversity has become perhaps the most vibrant offshoot of ecology and conservation studies. It is increasingly taught and studied in universities—and other research institutions—around the world.

Addressing the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of this rapidly growing subject, and its ever more complex and multidisciplinary corpus of scholarly literature, Biodiversity and Conservation is a new title in the Routledge series, Critical Concepts in the Environment. Edited by Richard Ladle of Oxford University’s Centre for the Environment, this new Major Work brings together in five volumes the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship to provide a synoptic view of all the key issues and current debates.

The first volume in the collection (‘History, Background, and Concepts’) brings together the most important scholarship covering all the major themes that have come to define the scope of the subject. For example, what is biodiversity and how is it measured? Also, what are the geographic and temporal patterns of biodiversity? And what are its values? Volumes II and III, meanwhile, collect the vital research on topics such as: population growth and development; habitat loss and fragmentation; pollution; invasive species; terrestrial, freshwater, and marine biomes; and climate change.

The scope of the materials in Volume IV (‘Responses to Biodiversity Loss’) includes international legal frameworks for conservation biodiversity; protected areas and networks; conservation planning; restoration and rewilding; reintroductions and translocations; and ex-situ conservation (via, for instance, zoos, seed and gene banks); conservation education; and community conservation.

The scholarship assembled in the final volume (‘Future Directions in Biodiversity Conservation’) collects the best and most influential work on themes such as paleo-ecology (or how to use the past to understand the future); the emergence of conservation biogeography; conservation outside protected areas (or ‘reconciliation ecology’); and the effects of the revolution in IT. Also gathered here is the finest research on the idea of a converging agenda around sustainable development, poverty, and biodiversity, as well as the crucial work on economics and market-led conservation.

Biodiversity and Conservation is fully indexed and includes a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. The collection’s fresh and explicitly interdisciplinary approach provides a unique insight into the development of the subject from a predominantly science-based topic to a vibrant interdisciplinary concern, with an increasing appreciation of the social obligations of conservation. Biodiversity and Conservation is an essential reference collection and is destined to be valued by scholars and students—as well as conservation policy-makers and practitioners—as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

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A summary of data on heavy metal accumulation, biomonitoring, toxicity and tolerance, metal contamination and pollution in the environment, and the importance of biodiversity for environmental monitoring and cleanup of metal-contaminated and polluted ecosystems. It advocates the use of bacteria, mycorrhizae, freshwater algae, salt marshes, bryo- and pteridophytes, angiosperms, constructed wetlands, reed beds, and floating plant systems and tree crops to treat wastewaters and industrial effluents containing toxic heavy metals. ... Read more

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In the Indian context. ... Read more

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Few tropical ecosystems have been subjected to multi-disciplinary investigations as broad and exhaustive as those carried out on the Ilha de Maracá, a riverine island in the Brazilian Amazon. This diverse and remarkable ecological reserve, in Brazils northernmost Amazon state of Roraima, includes environments and habitats ranging from rainforests and semi-deciduous forests to natural savannas, lakes, rivers and palm swamps. These have been subjected to an in-depth international scientific study whose primary aim was to undertake one of the most detailed ecological surveys ever conducted in Amazonia. The results of this enormous body of research, involving the collaborative fieldwork of some 200 workers, span the reserves geology, geomorphology, botany, zoology, phenology, soils, limnology, ecology and historical human occupation. These have been carefully drawn together in this volume in such a manner as to provide not only a coherent and scholarly picture of an unique and fascinating environment, but also an important and enduring source of reference for a broad spectrum of disciplines to the Amazon environment. This book is a timely reminder of the crucial importance of our understanding of rainforest components and their interrelationships, appearing as it does at a period when there is an intense interest in this extremely endangered ecosystem. ... Read more

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This book explores the epistemological and ethical issues at the foundations of environmental philosophy, emphasising the conservation of biodiversity. Sahota Sarkar criticises attempts to attribute intrinsic value to nature and defends an anthropocentric position on biodiversity conservation based on an untraditional concept of transformative value. Unlike other studies in the field of environmental philosophy, this book is as much concerned with epistemological issues as with environmental ethics. It covers a broad range of topics, including problems of explanation and prediction in traditional ecology and how individual-based models and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is transforming ecology. Introducing a brief history of conservation biology, Sarkar analyses the consensus framework for conservation planning through adaptive management. He concludes with a discussion of directions for theoretical research in conservation biology and environmental philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

MA thesis
I am doing MA -thesis over biodiversity at Joensuu university in Finland

That book is very important to me, thank you!

Yours
Esko Kiovistö ... Read more

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In the last decade biodiversity loss and persistent poverty in developing countries have been recognised as major international problems that require urgent attention. However, the nature and scale of the links between these two problems, and between efforts to address them, has been the subject of much heated debate. Understanding the different elements of this debate is critical if we are to move towards constructive solutions.

This Reader provides a guide to, and commentary on, the different strands of the current conservation-poverty debate through a selection of key readings from both the conservation and development literature including policy documents, journal articles and reports. The breadth of material will help readers, including both students and professionals, to locate current debates within their wider contexts.

Among the areas of debate covered are:

" The lack of attention to biodiversity concerns in international development policy
" The social implications of protectionist conservation policy
" The roles and responsibilities of conservation NGOs towards local communities
" The links between climate change, biodiversity and poverty reduction, and in particular the implication of discussions around reduced emissions from deforestation (REDD) as a climate change mitigation strategy. ... Read more

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Managing Biodiversity in Agricultural Ecosystems takes a look at how farmers manage, maintain, and benefit from biodiversity in agricultural production systems. The volume includes the most recent research and developments in the maintenance of local diversity at the genetic, species, and ecosystem levels. Chapters cover the assessment and farmer management practices for crop, livestock, aquatic, and associated diversity (such as pollinators and soil microorganisms) in agricultural ecosystems; examine the potential role of diversity in minimizing pest and disease pressures; and present studies that exemplify the potential nutritional, ecosystem service, and financial values of this diversity under changing economic and environmental conditions. The volume contains perspectives that combine the thinking of social and biological scientists.Inappropriate or excessive use of inputs can cause damage to biodiversity within agricultural ecosystems and compromise future productivity.This book features numerous case studies that show how farmers have used alternative approaches to manage biodiversity to enhance the stability, resilience, and productivity of their farms, pointing the way toward improved biodiversity on a global scale. As custodians of the world's agricultural biodiversity, farmers are fully invested in ways to create, sustain, and assist in the evolution and adaptation of a variety of plant and animal species. Thus this text is mandatory reading for conservationists, environmentalists, botanists, zoologists, geneticists, and anyone interested in the health of our ecosystem. ... Read more

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This book provides a synthesis of the patterns, causes and consequences of biodiversity in cold-dominated ecosystems.
The first chapters document patterns and causes of genetic and species diversity of plants and animals emphasizing the interaction between historical and contemporary factors in governing biodiversity. The second section addresses how biotic diversity has changed in the past, how it is currently changing, and how it will likely respond to future changes in climate and land use. The third section treats both the conceptual basis and the evidence that biodiversity influences the functioning of arctic and alpine ecosystems. Also included are the implications of terrestrial patterns of biodiversity for landscape patterns and for patterns of diversity in aquatic ecosystems. ... Read more