“A system is viable only if it combines speed and slowness,” write Philippe Cury and Daniel Pauly. “Nature’s cycles tell us that viability requires a combination of these dynamics—fast and slow, innovation and inertia.” Obstinate Nature, a concise and powerful collaboration between two accomplished marine biologists, is centrally concerned with the imbalance in those dynamics that currently threatens our planet, our environment, and our survival. Since our emergence as a species, Homo sapi...

“A system is viable only if it combines speed and slowness,” write Philippe Cury and Daniel Pauly. “Nature’s cycles tell us that viability requires a combination of these dynamics—fast and slow, innovation and inertia.” Obstinate Nature, a concise and powerful collaboration between two accomplished marine biologists, is centrally concerned with the imbalance in those dynamics that currently threatens our planet, our environment, and our survival. Since our emergence as a species, Homo sapi...

This exciting new book grew out of an international symposium held at FAO, Rome in July 2008, but it is not just a collection of papers from that symposium. Rather, the publication brings together work on social-ecological marine research that cuts across disciplines, identifies key common elements and approaches that promote resilience of marine social-ecological systems in the face of global changes, and points to next steps.The book comprises contributions on conceptual issues r...

'This book aims to inspire the conservation community not to regard poverty reduction as someone else's job but to take responsibility for it as part of ecosystem restoration. Though no solutions are perfect,the text and examples given offer encouraging and useful guidance.' Gill Shepherd, poverty and landscapes thematic leader, IUCN Forest Conservation Programme. 'This book could be the catalyst for a real paradigm shift - not just in capital cities and international conference centres, b...

Marine ecotourism is a major growth area within ecotourism, itself a rapidly expanding area within tourism as a whole. The activity has been attracting increasing attention, both from the popular media and from professionals and academics with an interest in tourism’s potential to contribute to sustainable development. However, there is a growing consensus that far too often the term has been used merely as a tool for capitalising on the good intentions of tourists, without the industry it...

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 ...

The Handbook provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for hazard and disaster research, policy making, and practice in an international and multi-disciplinary context. It offers critical reviews and appraisals of current state of the art and future development of conceptual, theoretical and practical approaches as well as empirical knowledge and available tools.Organized into five inter-related sections, this Handbook contains sixty-five contribution...

Australia and Canada have been at the forefront of efforts to operationalize integrated oceans and coastal management. Throughout the 1990s both countries devoted considerable effort to developing strategies to give effect to international ocean management obligations.This key book focuses on principles of marine environmental conservation and management, maritime regulation and enforcement, and regional maritime planning and implementation. With contributions from respected schola...

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...

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 ...

This groundbreaking volume is the first comprehensive, critical examination of the rise of protected areas and their current social and economic position in our world. It examines the social impacts of protected areas, the conflicts that surround them, the alternatives to them and the conceptual categories they impose.The book explores key debates on devolution, participation and democracy; the role and uniqueness of indigenous peoples and other local communities; institutions and ...