Conservation Biology for All

by Navjot S. Sodhi (Editor), Paul R. Ehrlich (Editor)

Conservation Biology for All provides cutting-edge but basic conservation science to a global readership. A series of authoritative chapters have been written by the top names in conservation biology with the principal aim of disseminating cutting-edge conservation knowledge as widely as possible. Important topics such as balancing conversion and human needs, climate change, conservation planning, designing and analyzing conservation research, ecosystem services, endangered species management, extinctions, fire, habitat loss, and invasive species are covered. Numerous textboxes describing additional relevant material or case studies are also included.
The global biodiversity crisis is now unstoppable; what can be saved in the developing world will require an educated constituency in both the developing and developed world. Habitat loss is particularly acute in developing countries, which is of special concern because it tends to be these locations where the greatest species diversity and richest centres of endemism are to be found. Sadly, developing world conservation scientists have found it difficult to access an authoritative textbook, which is particularly ironic since it is these countries where the potential benefits of knowledge application are greatest. There is now an urgent need to educate the next generation of scientists in developing countries, so that they are in a better position to protect their natural resources.

Genres: Ecology, Biology, Conservation, Science, Nonfiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Miri · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of essays by leading edge conservationists, put together in the format of a book. It is great complementary reading for any module you may take on conservation, but the relatively simple language used also makes it great resource for people who may not have a good foundation in the subject matter. Being available online for free it is an excellent, up to date collection highly accessible to a wide audience.
While the book is written in plain English and explains a lot of the technical terms used it likely is a challenging read without a scientific foundation.

[Anastasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, filled with lots of good examples and clearly explained topics and definitions. Also every chapter is written by different authors which was nice for the variety.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good content, very good science being exposed there for all to learn. It also offers a chapter on computational tools that I find very important (maybe because I am a statistician by training). A chapter that you don't see in your regular 'Intro to Conservation' Lit.
It's not the best 'general audience' book (IMO) on the topic compared to more engaging books. But this might be a result of being an editors book (a collection of researchers articles), versus an authored book: it's hard to unify the content of 20 authors or so.

Don't get me wrong the content is right and I find it critical to bring this knowledge to a mass audience. I just think that the work is a bit dry to read, given that it seems to target a general/novice audience with one purpose being raising awareness. It definitely took work and commitment to go through it on my part, and I am not even one to be sold the importance of Conservation (knowledge).

No matter what, I am happy to have discovered few gems and unexpected side stories - and it has quite a few of those...

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in a Conservation class I took and highly enjoyed it. Even though it covers very depressing topics that involve human destruction of wildlife and the Earth (habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, climate change, etc.) everything was explained in a really easy way to understand. Usually I am intimidated by textbooks, but this one was super fitting with the topics we were learning and almost read like a story book more so than a textbook. Each section was 10-20 pages which was a perfect amount to explain, but also not too little or too much. I highly recommend this book!

[Enza Maria Galasso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting overview

[Holden Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit all over the place. Read during comprehensive exam studying and for a grad-level conservation biology course.

[jack towers · Rating 3 out of 5]

it’s a fine textbook but a textbook nonetheless. this course as a whole has given me a very frustrating case of the “well now what?”s.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covered the basics pretty well, such as extinction, biodiversity, habitat destruction, fragmentation and overexploitation, but less so on the practical aspects of conservation, which I felt were quite unorganized in presentation and content. Perhaps owing to each chapter being written by different contributors, the book lacks coherence, some sections being more well written and thorough than others. The last chapter throws out several statistical theories and equations without much explanation, and comes across as more a treatise on statistical theory than anything else, not very useful IMO. What this book does well is giving a broad coverage of current research topics and the latest statistics on biodiversity and habitat destruction. More a collection of essays than a textbook in the traditional sense.

[Felly · Rating 4 out of 5]

got it through mongabay.com
probably the latest dan most up to date scientific conservation report research in book form

[Chad Brock · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5