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Essential Reading: Dick Vane-Wright on Biodiversity
From: The Natural History Museum
| By:
Dick Vane-Wright |
Fathom asked Dick Vane-Wright, head of entomology at The Natural History Museum, London, to recommend five books on the topic of biodiversity. His choices cover a range of approaches to issues of biodiversity, addressing questions of economy, law, mathematics, measurement and sociology. When teaching his students about biodiversity, Vane-Wright says that he tries to underscore that the word "biodiversity" is shorthand for a multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary whole that extends far beyond the basic biological disciplines of systematics and ecology. It encompasses the relationship between humanity, in all its manifestations, and the whole of nature. His choice of books reflects this philosophy. |
Biodiversity: a Biology of Numbers and Difference
by Kevin J. Gaston (ed.)
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I always recommend Gaston's book to the students, as it comes closest to being a course work for the sort of approach I try to encourage. As you might expect from Kevin Gaston, it mainly addresses the subject from a numerate, macroecological perspective. Although largely quantitative and focused on the biological issues of biodiversity measurement and pattern analysis, it is couched within a wider socio-economic framework. But the best framework that I know for addressing the general issues that surround the conservation of biodiversity is my next choice.
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Balancing the Scales
by Kenton R. Miller
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Kenton Miller's Balancing the Scales: Guidelines for Increasing Biodiversity's Chances through Bioregional Management is a slim paperback that promotes, in remarkably few pages, a view of conservation in which protected areas are not to be left in isolation. The special area network must be integrated within a whole ecosystem management system that not only preserves wildlife, but also actively seeks to involve local people and serve their needs. The strong emphasis on "place" relates to the essential specialness of all parts of the Earth. This is a mature, thoughtful and practical study, based on ecological and socio-economic principles. If I were forced to choose just one book, this would probably be it.
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My next three choices are more personal than systematic, and to me represent rich sources of insight and understanding for addressing the biodiversity crisis--from a conservation biologist, an environmental lawyer, and a sociologist.
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Ghost Bears: Exploring the Biodiversity Crisis
by R. Edward Grumbine
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Grumbine explores the problems of ecosystem management, with a special focus on the North Cascade Mountains that straddle the Washington/British Columbia border. The ghosts belong to the grizzlies that no longer inhabit this wild and seemingly ideal bear-country. If the bears are gone, should we encourage their return, or face "reality" and develop this land for other uses that will ensure, or even depend on their complete local extinction? This wonderful book introduces us to the real conflicts that always seem to pervade biodiversity issues and the real difficulties of getting anything effective done at ground level. Grumbine encourages us not to focus on single species, but engage with the problem at the level of whole, particular ecosystems. Although this book in some ways covers the same territory as Miller's practical synthesis, it strives for an alternative to anthropocentrism as the basic value system for conserving biodiversity. In this way it neatly bridges to my last two choices.
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The Gnat is Older than Man: Global Environment and Human Agenda
by Christopher D. Stone
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"Nothing calms the uneasy feeling that the whole earthly vessel is adrift, uncaptained and in peril" writes Chris Stone, in an Exxon Valdez metaphor for our environmental predicament. Stone lays down a basic need, to establish an appropriate environmental ethic as a basis for social self-regulation. He then attempts to identify major problems, including the loss of biodiversity, that afflict our environment, as a pre-requisite for understanding what is required to make positive interventions. Some of his specific conclusions may already seem a bit dated, but it is the thought processes that make this book so special. Stone challenges us to choose an acceptable moral framework in answer to the basic question, "How ought one to live?"
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The Value of Life: Biological Diversity and Human Society
by Stephen R. Kellert
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I have chosen to present last a book that represents the question from which I start my workshops: what are the values we attribute to living things? Values lie at both the well-spring and rainbow's-end for those wishing to do something about the biodiversity crisis. Different people can perceive very different values in nature, ranging from the utilitarian to the ethical, including stewardship--spending time and effort not to maximise personal gain, but to protect and pass on to succeeding generations, as best we can, the benefits and wonder of the biologically hyperdiverse world that it is our privilege to share. While I teach a rather terse listing from direct use to precautionary principle and option value, and try to demonstrate how different value systems drive different approaches to conservation, Stephen Kellert's book offers a passionate and unifying view on biodiversity--and its fundamental importance for our well-being.
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