Alan Bond

Angus Morrison-Saunders

Jenny Pope

The Handbook of Sustainability Assessment introduces the theory and practice of sustainability assessment and showcases the state-of-the-art research. The aim is to provide inspiration and guidance to students, academics and practitioners alike and to contribute to the enhancement of sustainability assessment practice worldwide. It emphasises how traditional impact assessment practices can be enhanced to contribute to sustainable outcomes. Featuring original contributions from leading sustainability assessment researchers and practitioners, it forms part of the Research Handbooks on Impact Assessment series.

Handbook of Sustainability Assessment

The Handbook of Sustainability Assessment introduces the theory and practice of sustainability assessment and showcases the state-of-the-art research. the aim is to provide inspiration and guidance to students, academics and practitioners alike and to contribute to the enhancement of sustainability assessment practice worldwide. It emphasises how traditional impact assessment practices can be enhanced to contribute to sustainable outcomes. Featuring original contributions from leading sustainability assessment researchers and practitioners, it forms part of the Research Handbooks on Impact Assessment series.

Judy Diamond

People form enduring emotional bonds with other animal species, such as dogs, cats, and horses. For the most part, these are domesticated animals, with one notable exception: many people form close and supportive relationships with parrots, even though these amusing and curious birds remain thoroughly wild creatures. What enables this unique group of animals to form social bonds with people, and what does this mean for their survival? In Thinking like a Parrot, Alan B. Bond and Judy Diamond look beyond much of the standard work on captive parrots to the mischievous, inquisitive, and astonishingly vocal parrots of the wild. Focusing on the psychology and ecology of wild parrots, Bond and Diamond document their distinctive social behavior, sophisticated cognition, and extraordinary vocal abilities. Also included are short vignettes--field notes on the natural history and behavior of both rare and widely distributed species, from the neotropical crimson-fronted parakeet to New Zealand's flightless, ground-dwelling kākāpō. This composite approach makes clear that the behavior of captive parrots is grounded in the birds' wild ecology and evolution, revealing that parrots' ability to bond with people is an evolutionary accident, a by-product of the intense sociality and flexible behavior that characterize their lives. Despite their adaptability and intelligence, however, nearly all large parrot species are rare, threatened, or endangered. To successfully manage and restore these wild populations, Bond and Diamond argue, we must develop a fuller understanding of their biology and the complex set of ecological and behavioral traits that has led to their vulnerability. Spanning the global distribution of parrot species, Thinking like a Parrot is rich with surprising insights into parrot intelligence, flexibility, and--even in the face of threats--resilience.

Perspectives from the Wild

Thinking Like a Parrot

Alan made the mistake of being born at both the wrong time and in the wrong place. The year was 1936, a short time before the outbreak of the Second World War. The place was suburban London not far from Northolt, a major RAF fighter aerodrome. During the latter part of the Blitz his parents evacuated him to safety in Paignton, a seaside town in Devon a long distance from the German attacks on the capital and its environs. However he little knew that life in the air raid shelter among the falling bombs intended for Northolt was far less onerous than living in an old Victorian house with the admonitions of elderly grandparents constantly ringing in his ears. After the war he graduated in medicine but becoming dissatisfied with the hierarchical class structure of the new National Health Service, so redolent of the life in the environment of the class consciousness of life with his snobbish grandparents, decided to emigrate to Australia. Life In Tasmania proved too much for his first marriage. He met ‘the Blonde and together the two of them sailed a Tasmanian built wooden cutter, daring the often challenging waters of the Tasman Sea. On board the same boat they explored beautiful coasts of Tasmania, in the process uncovering some of the ghosts of the state’s colonial past.

Falling Bombs and Siren Songs

Alan Bond was a child of London, shaped by the horrors of World War II. He survived the worst of the London Blitz era before being sent to live in Devon. Even though he was sent away for his own safety, life with his elderly relatives compared rather unfavourably with life among the falling bombs. As a young man, he decided upon a career in medicine. After earning his degree at university, he followed another dream of life abroad. He settled in Tasmania to work as an anaesthetist. This new existence proved too challenging for his marriage to survive, so he started over again as a single man. But life had other plans in store for this adventurer. He met the Blonde, and his life changed forever. Now retired, he and his Australian lady shared a time of adventure on the high seas, daring the often challenging waters of the Tasman Sea and the Bass Strait. On board their boat, a wooden cutter, they explored the beautiful coasts of Tasmania and uncovered some of the ghosts of the state’s colonial past. Alan Bond’s story is one of adventure, loss, and newfound love, of second chances, surprises, and dreams pursued—and achieved.

Mark Hempsell

Around 700 BC an Assyrian scribe in the Royal Place at Nineveh made a copy of one of the most important documents in the royal collection. Two and a half thousand years later it was found by Henry Layard in the remains of the palace library. It ended up in the British Museum's cuneiform clay tablet collection as catalogue No. K8538 (also called the Planisphere), where it has puzzled scholars for over a hundred and fifty years. In this monograph Bond and Hempsell provide the first comprehensive translation of the tablet, showing it to be a contemporary Sumerian observation of an Aten asteroid over a kilometre in diameter that impacted Kofels in Austria in the early morning of 29th June 3123 BC."

Alan Bond

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