Protected areas spearhead our response to the rapidly accelerating biodiversity crisis. However, while the number of protected areas has been growing rapidly over the past 20 years, the extent to which the world's protected areas are effectively conserving species, ecosystems, and ecosystem services is poorly understood.Highlights new techniques for better management and monitoring of protected areasSets guidelines for the decision making processes ...

At Copenhagen in December 2009, the international community agreed to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of human-induced climate change. However climate scientists agree that current national emissions targets collectively will still not achieve this goal. Instead, the ‘ambition gap’ between climate science and climate policy is likely to lead to average global warming of around four degrees Celsius by or before 2100. If a ‘Four Degree World’ is t...

CONSERVATION BIOGEOGRAPHYThe Earth’s ecosystems are in the midst of an unprecedented period of change as a result of human action. Many habitats have been completely destroyed or divided into tiny fragments, others have been transformed through the introduction of new species, or the extinction of native plants and animals, while anthropogenic climate change now threatens to completely redraw the geographic map of life on this planet. The urgent need to understand ...

Ecological and biodiversity-based monitoring has been marked by an appalling lack of effectiveness and lack of success in Australia for more than 40 years, despite the billions of dollars that are invested in biodiversity conservation annually. What can be done to rectify this situation? This book tackles many aspects of the problem of biodiversity monitoring. It arose from a major workshop held at The Australian National University in February 2011, attended by leaders in the science, policy...

Biological invasions are one of the strongest drivers of global environmental change, and invasive species are now often in the public discourse. At the same time, economists have begun to take a real interest in determining how invasive species interact with economic systems, and how invaders should be controlled to optimize societal wealth. Although the work from ecologists and economists have both greatly expanded our understanding of the drivers and impacts of invasions, little integra...

As the impacts of anthropogenic activities increase in both magnitude and extent, biodiversity is coming under increasing pressure. Scientists and policy makers are frequently hampered by a lack of information on biological systems, particularly information relating to long-term trends. Such information is crucial to developing an understanding as to how biodiversity may respond to global environmental change. Knowledge gaps make it very difficult to develop effective policies and legislat...

Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features o...

This book is intended for those with an academic, scientific and practical interest in river conservation and management. It provides an overview of how changes in legislation, policies, institutional responsibilities, science, technology, practical techniques and public perception have influenced how rivers have been managed over the past 20 years and the challenges that lie ahead during the next 20 years.The book is based on the international conference River Conservation and...

This handbook, produced by world renowned experts from the World Conservation Union (IUCN), spans the full terrain of protected area management and is the international benchmark for the field. The book employs dozens of detailed international cases studies, hundreds of concise topical snapshots, maps, tables, illustrations and a colour plate section, as well as evaluation tools, checklists and numerous appendices to cover all aspects of park management from biodiversity to natural heritag...

Our knowledge of the oceans is increasing rapidly, as more powerful tools for exploration and exploitation make it easier to locate valuable resources, such as fish stocks, oil and gas reserves, or sites for wind and hydropower schemes. At the same time competition for space has intensified, affecting marine life and people's livelihoods. Much has been written about marine management using marine protected areas, but MPAs are only a small subset of spatial management tools available. MPAs ...

Tigers of the World, Second Edition explores tiger biology, ecology, conservation, management, and the science and technology that make this possible. In 1988, when the first edition was published, tiger conservation was still in its infancy, and two decades later there has been a revolution not only in what is known, but how information about tigers is obtained and disseminated. In the fast changing world of conservation, there is a great need to summarize the vast and current state-of-th...

Longhurst examines the proposition, central to fisheries science, that a fishery creates its own natural resource by the compensatory growth it induces in the fish, and that this is sustainable. His novel analysis of the reproductive ecology of bony fish of cooler seas offers some support for this, but a review of fisheries past and present confirms that sustainability is rarely achieved. The relatively open structure and strong variability of marine ecosystems is discussed in relation to ...