Stuart Pimm

Take a globe-circling tour of our endangered planet with conservation biologist Stuart Pimmwho is taking stock and keeping score. We use 50 percent of the world's freshwater supply. We consume 42 percent of the world's plant growth. We are liquidating animals and plants 100 times faster than the natural rate of extinction. Such numbers should make it clear that the human impact on our planet has been, and continues to be, extreme and detrimental. Yet even after decades of awareness of our environmental peril, there remains passionate disagreement over what the problems are and how they should be remedied. Much of the impasse stems from the fact that the problems are difficult to quantify. How do we assess the impact of habitat loss on various species, when we haven't even counted them all? And just what factors go into that 42 percent of biomass we are hungrily consuming? It is only through an understanding of the numbers that we will be able to break that impasse and come to agreement. Working on the front lines of conservation biology, Stuart Pimm is one of the pioneers whose work has put the "science" in environmental science. In this book, he appoints himself "investment banker of the global, biological accounts," checking the numbers gathered by tireless scientists in work that is always painstaking and often heartbreaking. Pimm explains the numerical results in lucid prose. With wit, passion, and candor, he reveals the importance of understanding where those numbers come from and what they mean. To do so, he takes the reader on a globe-circling tour of our beautiful, but weary, planet. With Pimm as our indomitable guide, we travel from the volcanic mountains and rainforests of Hawaii to the boreal forests of Siberia. We see a blue whale off the Pacific coast of Mexico, where the blue oceans are slowly turning to barren deserts. We go birdwatching high up in the leafy canopy of the Amazon, from which we can see the hundreds of smoke plumes busily working at deforestation. At times, the view looks rather grim. But Pimm is no Cassandra; he never preaches or scolds. Ever optimistic, this book presents a world filled with mysterious beauty, the infinite variety of nature, and an urgent hope that through an understanding of our planet's environmental past and present, we will be inspired to save it from future extinction. "[T]his book is unashamedly optimistic. It is a celebration of our spectacular and fascinating world. I have made no attempt to restrain my joy as I encounter its natural history and its peoples. By the time you read the Epilogue you will know that our world is not doomed, it is not fatally wounded, but neither is it healthy. It needs attention. . . ." Stuart Pimm, from the Prologue

The World According To Pimm: A Scientist Audits the Earth

William J. Sutherland

Rebecca K. Smith

Nick A. Littlewood

Ricardo Rocha

Philip A. Martin

Sarah L. Lockhart

Rebecca F. Schoonover

Elspeth Wilman

Andrew J. Bladon

Katie A. Sainsbury

Terrestrial Mammal Conservation provides a thorough summary of the available scientific evidence of what is known, or not known, about the effectiveness of all of the conservation actions for wild terrestrial mammals across the world (excluding bats and primates, which are covered in separate synopses). Actions are organized into categories based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifications of direct threats and conservation actions. Over the course of fifteen chapters, the authors consider interventions as wide ranging as creating uncultivated margins around fields, prescribed burning, setting hunting quotas and removing non-native mammals. This book is written in an accessible style and is designed to be an invaluable resource for anyone concerned with the practical conservation of terrestrial mammals. The authors consulted an international group of terrestrial mammal experts and conservationists to produce this synopsis. Funding was provided by the MAVA Foundation, Arcadia and National Geographic Big Cats Initiative. Terrestrial Mammal Conservation is the seventeenth publication in the Conservation Evidence Series, linked to the online resource www.ConservationEvidence.com. Conservation Evidence Synopses are designed to promote a more evidence-based approach to biodiversity conservation. Others in the series include Bat Conservation, Primate Conservation, Bird Conservation and Forest Conservation and more are in preparation. Expert assessment of the evidence summarised within synopses is provided online and within the annual publication What Works in Conservation.

Terrestrial Mammal Conservation: Global Evidence for the Effects of Interventions for Terrestrial Mammals Excluding Bats and Primates

Stuart Pimm

About

Books

Join the club