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945
Conservation Biology, Pages 945–950Volume 13, No. 4, August 1999
Book Reviews
A Conversation about Population
Maybe One: An Environmentaland Personal Argument for Single-
Child Families.
McKibben, B. 1998.Simon and Schuster, New York. 254pp. $23.00. ISBN 0–684–85281–0.
Human population growth is one ofthe root causes of environmental deg-radation, yet it is difficult to discuss.Talk about it and you are quickly inthe realm of sex, religion, and poli-tics, subjects typically deemed unsuit-able for polite company.
That is the sort of conversation BillMcKibben wants to start with
MaybeOne
. How does the combination ofpopulation and resource consumptionaffect the environment? Are we closeto the earth’s limits? Would more one-child families help? Are only childrenspoiled and selfish? Can we ethicallylimit immigration to the United Stateswhen we live in relative luxury? Whatdoes and doesn’t work to limit humanpopulations? What about religious ob-jections? What are the economic andsocial consequences of a stable, agingpopulation?
McKibben asks us these questions,and, more important, he asks them ofhimself. Environmentalists are some-times accused of telling others how tolive while themselves living other-wise. By placing himself at the centerof his argument, McKibben diffusessome of this potential criticism. Wehear about his family, friends, and theSunday school class he teaches. Wehear about his daughter Sophie. Wehear about his vasectomy. As he ex-plores thorny issues, he is unfailinglythoughtful and yes, polite, admitting,“At some level it’s not any of my busi-ness how many kids anyone else has.”
Population is often viewed as athird-world problem. Not so, saysMcKibben. The United States has ahigh rate of consumption per capita,
and its population is one of the fastest-growing among developed nations, sopopulation is our problem too, maybemore so. The U.S. population is pro-jected to reach 400 million by 2050,up from 270 million currently. If U.S.birthrates fell from about 2 to 1.5 chil-dren per female and immigration rateswere halved to 400,000 per year, itspopulation would stabilize at 230 mil-lion. Such a change would require thatmany more couples choose to haveonly one child, which McKibben ar-gues would buy us time to make thetechnological and lifestyle changesthat might lessen our environmentalimpact.
This is McKibben’s argument in anutshell, and he summarizes it in abrief introduction. The body of thebook is divided into four sections. Thefirst section, on family, asks whetheronly children are developmentallydifferent than children with siblings.The second, on species, details theimpact of human population growthon the environment. The third sec-tion, on nation, gently explores so-ciological issues related to U.S. pop-ulation, such as immigration, socialsecurity, and economics, with lots ofreal-life examples to enliven the sta-tistics. The final section, on self, ex-amines ethical aspects of populationlimitation and gives a historical over-view of Judeo-Christian attitudes to-ward birth control.
McKibben’s concern about rearingan only child spurred him to writethe book, and he convincingly demol-ishes the belief that only children arelonely and maladjusted. Yet it seemsillogical to begin with a stamp of ap-proval for single-child families with-out first thoroughly explaining whywe should consider having them. Per-haps the section on environmentalimpacts should have come first and
might have been broadened. As is, ex-amples such as global warming andoverfishing are discussed primarily interms of their impact on humans, andbiodiversity loss is mentioned only inpassing. A human-centered approachmay be a wise strategy for targeting ageneral audience, but the threat ofbiodiversity loss seems severe enoughto merit more attention.
McKibben treats religious objec-tions to population control seriouslybut without kid gloves; he discovers attheir root an ethic that favors childrenas a means of avoiding selfishness andattaining maturity. McKibben suggestsdevotion to various social and environ-mental causes as alternative paths tomaturity for people with few or nochildren. His otherwise thoughtful dis-cussion skirts the topic of abortion,perhaps because he wants a conversa-tion and not a shouting match, but itsabsence is conspicuous.
Maybe One
is an engaging book,and accessible to a wide audience.Its confessional tone would likelystimulate lively discussions on hu-man population issues in conserva-tion biology or sociology classes andin churches or synagogues, local en-vironmental orgnizations, or othercommunity-based groups.
Pamela R. Garrettson
School of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, Louisi-ana Agricultural Experiment Station, LouisianaState University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge,LA 70803, U.S.A., email [email protected]
Conservation for Planners
Planning for Biodiversity: Issuesand Examples.
Peck, S. 1998. Is-land Press, Washington, D.C. 256pp. $27.50. ISBN 1-55963-401-4.
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Book Reviews
Conservation BiologyVolume 13, No. 4, August 1999
The growth of conservation biology asan organized, synthesized disciplinehas been dramatic in the past two de-cades. Although the need for interdis-ciplinary and multidisciplinary per-spectives was well recognized in theearly 1980s, a series of new booksabout the subject, written primarilyfor people from other disciplines, hasbecome available recently. Peck’s
Planning for Biodiversity: Issuesand Examples
is one such volume.Written mostly for urban and regionalplanners, it is meant as a practicalguide to incorporating conservationthinking into the perspectives and ac-tivities of people well outside themainstream of the field.
The book opens with an argumentfor finding the nexus between plan-ning and ecology, including the needfor attention being paid to the com-ponents, patterns, and processes ofecological systems in planning en-deavors. The basic framework forbiodiversity introduced in chapter 1follows Noss (1991;
ConservationBiology
4:
355–364) and includes inthe hierarchy the now familiar ge-netic-to-landscape scales. Basic issuesof temporal and spatial scales arealso elucidated. Chapter 2 flows fromthe general framework with infor-mation on how to develop conser-vation priorities at each scale in or-der to better develop a coherentfocus for planning. This is followedby a well-written chapter (Chapter3) on change and disturbance andtheir importance in ecological sys-tems. The author considers compre-hensively both long- and short-termchanges and natural and human dis-turbance regimes while introducinga good dose of modern, nonequilib-rium ecological theory.
The four remaining chapters con-sider practical aspects of conserva-tion planning across space. Chapter4 addresses the many issues inherentto area and connectivity as they re-late to population size and move-ment patterns, and Chapter 5 consid-ers reserve design. In addition to thegeneral issues of location, size, andshape, Peck also includes a good sec-
tion on the landscape matrix withinwhich reserves are located and sev-eral general design models. Chapter6 is an important inclusion for plan-ners. In it, Peck provides some gen-eral yet useful guidelines on collect-ing baseline data, including how tomake preliminary decisions and theparticulars of information needs atthe four major scales. A chapter ap-pendix provides a quick list of thetypes of planning resources avail-able from federal agencies. Aspectsof monitoring and adaptive manage-ment are considered in some detailin Chapter 7, which concludes themain part of the volume.
An intriguing aspect of this vol-ume is the inclusion in every chapterof one to three case studies fromaround the country in which particu-lar topical issues are addressed withinbroader conservation planning pro-grams. Peck describes, for example, acase of highway design in South Flor-ida to reduce mammal mortality(Chapter 4, Area and Connectivity)and a case in which volunteers moni-tor wildlife in Vermont (Chapter 7,Monitoring and Adaptive Manage-ment). The inclusion of these conciseand interesting case studies makesthe book enjoyable to read and moreuseful to wider audiences. Teachersof conservation biology or policy, forexample, will find good source mate-rials for sections of their syllabi. Fi-nally, Peck includes a useful generalappendix on planning guidelines anda glossary of many biological terms.
For its purposes and intended audi-ence, this is a useful and importantbook. It also provides a good generaloverview of modern conservation sci-ence for nonspecialists. The fact that itexists at all indicates a growing andmore central role for conservation biol-ogy in other areas of professional en-deavor, and the book should proveuseful to planners and natural resourcemanagers for some time to come.
Joel T. Heinen
Department of Environmental Studies, Florida In-ternational University, Miami, FL 33199, U.S.A.,email [email protected]
Restoration: Becoming a Science
Habitat Creation and Repair.
Gil-bert, O. L., and P. Anderson. 1998. Ox-ford University Press, New York. 288pp. $35.00. ISBN 0–19–854966–0.
When the term is used in its broadestsense, restoration ecology includeshabitat creation, habitat repair, habi-tat restoration, habitat management,and more. Gilbert and Anderson in-troduce their book as a “practicalguide to habitat creation.” The bookopens with a description of habitatcreation in the United Kingdom andEurope. This description is comparedwith restoration ecology as it hasevolved in North America. By the au-thors’ definition, habitat creation oc-curs on bare earth, whereas habitatrestoration and habitat managementoccur when a site already is occu-pied by semi-natural vegetation. Thecontrast is well scripted and impor-tant in understanding the frameworkof the case studies presented in laterchapters. The terminology is not yetstandardized in this young and rap-idly changing discipline, so it is im-perative that all authors devote somediscussion to defining and defendingtheir terminology.
This is a well-written, readable re-view of current knowledge of habitatcreation. It is a description of the artof habitat creation as understood bythe authors; it is not a technical or re-search-oriented textbook. The pre-sentation is representative of the re-ality that habitat creation is currentlymore like the art of gardening thanthe science of ecology. The tone,scope, and vocabulary assume thatthe reader has a basic understandingof ecology and biology. A two-pageglossary includes most of the abbre-viations of regional institution andprogram names as well as selectedtechnical terms.
The structure of the book is logicaland convenient. It begins with a gen-eral introduction to the field and togeneral principles. The role of natu-ral processes, especially succession,is discussed in general and then in
Book Reviews
947
Conservation BiologyVolume 13, No. 4, August 1999
the specific context of major habitattypes (e.g., grasslands, woodlands,and wetlands). The seven chapterson habitat types include manage-ment issues, typical problems, andcase studies. Most of the case studiesin the book are from the United King-dom; selected examples are drawnfrom The Netherlands and NorthAmerica. The emphasis is on the vari-ability of approaches, solutions, andproblems. It is evident that Gilbertand Anderson have a wealth of practi-cal experience from which to draw.The authors emphasize the processof developing habitat creation plansrather than pretending that a recipebook of solutions is possible. Theybravely include examples of habitatcreations gone wrong along withmany success stories. In my opinionthe last chapter, “Getting It Right,”should be read by anyone embarkingon any project related to ecologicaldesign or restoration. It details com-mon problems and describes the im-portance of long-term monitoringand management.
One set of problems integral to thistype of work involves invasive spe-cies. Invasive species may not havedriven habitat creation and repair inGreat Britain, but they have certainlyaffected the options and successesin projects on which I have workedin eastern North America. Althoughweeds and invasive species are notaddressed thoroughly by Gilbert andAnderson, they effectively discussmany practices that encourage colo-nization and dominance of invasivespecies. For example, problems asso-ciated with excessive use of fertilizerare pointed out several times. In addi-tion, there is a good discussion re-garding the use of local native or nat-uralized seed stock and follow-upmonitoring for genetic biodiversity.
This book is a significant contribu-tion to the broad discipline of resto-ration ecology. Over the 20 yearsthat I have been involved in thisfield, I have watched it grow slowlyfrom “ecological gardening” to a sci-entific discipline of applied commu-nity and ecosystems ecology. There
is still much room for growth, butthis book is an example of the matur-ing of the field. It thoughtfully delin-eates case studies. It discusses dataand trends. It calls for the conscien-tious documentation and experimen-tation of each habitat creation. It out-lines research needs and providesideas for developing the science.
JeanMarie Hartman
Rutgers University, 93 Lipman Drive, New Brun-swick, NJ 08901–8524, U.S.A., email [email protected]
People and Parks
Parks in Peril: People, Politics,and Protected Areas.
Brandon, K.,K. H. Redford, and S. E. Sanderson,editors. 1998. The Nature Conser-vancy Press and Island Press, Wash-ington, D.C. 519 pp. $35.00 ISBN1–55963–609–4.
The editors of the 16-chapter
Parksin Peril: People, Politics, and Pro-tected Areas
crystallize their messagein the opening pages: “Protected ar-eas are extremely important for theprotection of biodiversity, yet requir-ing them to carry the entire burdenfor biodiversity conservation is a rec-ipe for ecological and social failure”(p. 2). During the past 15 years, someconservationists have downplayedthe protection role of parks in favorof sustainable use. Sustainable useproponents declare that conservationis best achieved when people wiselyuse and exploit resources, thus giv-ing them value. In its extreme form,this argument—variously known asgrassroots, community-based conser-vation; parks for people; or conser-vation for development—suggeststhat we eliminate strictly protectedareas altogether.
In this volume, the authors comedown squarely in defense of parks asa key component in conservation. Asbiodiversity faces expanding threatsduring coming decades—popula-tion growth, overconsumption, glo-bal warming—the benefits of parks
will be ever more valuable, they note.We downplay protection at the perilof expanded species loss. At thesame time, this book demonstratesthat parks can be protected only inthe context of their social and politi-cal environments. To ignore theselarger issues also risks the loss ofparks and the species they protect.
The editors flesh out these state-ments by noting that biodiversity pro-tection is inherently political, thatsustainable use has limitations as aprimary tool in conservation, and thateffective park protection requires anunderstanding of the social contextthat shapes conservation success orfailure. They specifically state thatidentifying and implementing solu-tions to the biodiversity crisis de-mands that we move beyond catchyslogans and stereotypes “to a new eraof conceptual clarity, analysis, and ac-tion.”
To illustrate these points, Brandon,Redford, and Sanderson, representingthe social, biological, and politicalperspectives, present nine case stud-ies from The Nature Conservancy’sambitious Parks in Peril program.The Conservancy began the programin 1990 in response to the creationof dozens of Latin American parkswithout effective management andwith serious threats to their survival.
After three introductory chaptersthat place the Parks in Peril programin its theoretical, geographical, andsocial context, the editors turn tothe Latin American and internationalconservationists who are trying tochange these paper parks into effi-ciently managed protected areas.Their case studies spread across LatinAmerica and the Caribbean, fromMexico’s Ría Celestún and Ría Lagar-tos Special Biosphere Reserves, tothe Dominican Republic’s Del EsteNational Park, to national parks inEcuador, Bolivia, and Peru.
Although more than a dozen au-thors speak through the case stud-ies, they follow a consistent format.Among the elements they examine:the how and why of the park’s cre-ation, land and resource tenure, link-
948
Book Reviews
Conservation BiologyVolume 13, No. 4, August 1999
ages between the park and buffer ar-eas, large-scale threats, indigenouspeoples and social change, trans-boundary challenges, and human re-settlement. As one of the benefits ofthis structure, readers can comparethe same issues in nine different pro-tected areas.
The editors, in fact, make this taskeasy in the book’s third and final sec-tion. Their last four chapters extractthe key findings of the case studies,discuss the social context of threatsto the parks, and analyze the politi-cal reality of modern park protec-tion. In closing the book, they ap-peal to conservationists to movebeyond rhetoric, opinion, and anec-dote to “case-based experiences androbust hypotheses.”
The editors point out in the finalchapter that this volume is aimed atreducing the tension between twogroups of conservationists. The firstgroup, well represented in conserva-tion literature and “often conten-tious in their tone,” are only remotelyconnected to on-the-ground imple-mentation (p. 455). The secondgroup, they say, is so intimately in-volved in trying to achieve park pro-tection that they are generally mutein the published literature and lit-tle aware of the debate on protec-tion versus sustainable use that swirlsaround them.
The book succeeds at bridgingthis gap, and at its other stated goalsas well. By presenting up-to-date, de-tailed information on specific sites ina range of ecosystems, the authorsdemonstrate that modern conserva-tion is a conundrum of politics, biol-ogy, and economics. They delineatethe need to view parks in regional,national, and international settings,and they make clear that we are mis-taken in seeing parks as the solesource of protection. Instead, as Sand-erson and Bird point out in Chapter15, we must focus attention outsideparks as well. They note that theParks in Peril program tells us thatfor parks to “win,” local organiza-tions must be strong, decision mak-ers must understand the dynamics of
ecosystems, and politicians mustavoid easy one-size-fits-all remedies.We must acknowledge, the editorsconclude, that parks are intended toprotect nature; the rest of conserva-tion must take place elsewhere—inbuffer zones, government offices,and board rooms.
This book is an excellent resourcefor university courses in tropical con-servation and park planning, and itwill edify conservationists in bothacademic and field settings as werefine our dialogue on the relativemerits of strict protection and sus-tainable use.
James D. Nations
Conservation International, 2501 M Street, N.W.,Washington, D.C. 20037, U.S.A., email [email protected]
Nature in Our Neighborhoods
Hungry Hollow.
Dewdney, A. K.1998. Copernicus, New York. 233pp. $26.00. ISBN 0–387–98415–1.
When science programs feature close-up footage of quetzals and lions, it isdifficult for many people to imaginegetting excited about a muddy littlecreek and a few trees. Although manyconservation biologists have foundtheir calling in the unassuming patchof woods near their childhood home,most people who live near woodslike these think of them as ordinaryand unimportant.
Hungry Hollow
reveals the extraordinary processesand creatures that inhabit our ordi-nary neighborhood natural areas. Itis an inspiring call to laypeople tolook around them and build a rela-tionship with the treasures in theirbackyards.
Dewdney creates a composite nat-ural area, a short stretch of river val-ley like many places in northeasternNorth America. He unfolds HungryHollow’s many layers for us, shiftingfocus from the life span of the dia-toms in Hungry Creek to the geolog-ical time scale in which the HungryHollow formation was born. Dewd-
ney has reason to understand thevalue of places like Hungry Hollowand to be acquainted with them on anumber of levels. He and his wifeare currently engaged in conductinga bio-inventory of a 100-acre com-plex of forests and ponds in Ontarioand have already logged more than1000 species. His book is an imagi-native inventory in itself, touchingon taxonomy, microorganisms, ani-mal behavior, and many other topics.Dewdney succeeds in communicat-ing a sense of wonder. His ambitiousagenda, however, touching on di-verse worlds within worlds, makes
Hungry Hollow
somewhat unfo-cused and thus less than successfulas an introduction to environmentalbiology.
One of the challenges of writing abroad natural history book is to tie to-gether diverse strands to make an in-telligible web. Dewdney’s strategy,apart from focusing on a single place,is to show us Hungry Hollow mostlythrough the eyes of two of its deni-zens. Although Dewdney does use ahuman guide, he also uses a nonhu-man one, a raccoon whom he refrainsfrom anthropormorphizing as muchas possible. This innovative techniquebrings us into Hungry Hollow withoutletting us forget how alien our life-style is to its inhabitants. As with all ofhis characters, he refers to the rac-coon by using part of his Latin name,
Lotor
; thus, he constantly reminds usof the taxonomic principles intro-duced at the outset while at the sametime personalizing the characters.
Our human guide is an unemployedmicrobiologist by the name of Di-anne Sapiens. We watch as, forcedfrom the narrow focus of her labora-tory research, Dianne begins to ex-plore the world of the Hollow. Onemagical day, she finds herself shrink-ing an order of magnitude at a time,introducing us to the worlds of in-sects, protists, bacteria, and viruses.Along the way, we learn how it mightfeel to be so small, how scale affectsvision and movement, among otherthings. Other characters appear morebriefly, including
Chelydra serpen-
Book Reviews
949
Conservation BiologyVolume 13, No. 4, August 1999
tina
, the snapping turtle, and Wassa-womin, shaman of a Shawnee bandthat once inhabited the area.
Despite these creative strategies,
Hungry Hollow
is somewhat lackingin focus. It deals evocatively withmany topics but does not connectthem strongly. Dewdney has been acolumnist for
Scientific American
for several years, so perhaps it’s nocoincidence that
Hungry Hollow
sometimes reads like a series of col-umns. Dewdney employs the time-honored strategy of teaching generalconcepts through specific exam-ples, but it can sometimes feel liketoo much too soon. We enter into adiscussion of canid evolution on pagetwo, and, elsewhere in the book, wemove in quick succession from soilecology to transpiration, from mete-orology to patterns of species abun-dance.
Although the meat of
Hungry Hol-low
does not focus on human threatsto the environment, these threats arean overarching theme, and a fewchapters are given over to the topicas well. As in most of the book,Dewdney uses imaginative scenarioslike a trial of our species by a Con-gress of Birds. Although each chap-ter of
Hungry Hollow
is an involvingexploration of a topic, one does geta little lost in all of the detail. In asense this is Dewdney’s point: onecould spend a lifetime exploring anyof these countless worlds of the Hol-low. Nevertheless, a more coherentframework might have helped read-ers put together the pieces to seethe big picture.
Despite this shortcoming,
Hun-gry Hollow
is a powerful descriptionof natural wonders that are practi-cally in our backyards. Dewdneyavoids the understandable but none-theless daunting negative focus ofmany environmental books but stillmanages to underscore the threat ofhabitat destruction. In an explana-tion of the reverse-
J
-shaped curve ofspecies abundance, he even imag-ines a species endemic to the Hol-low: the spiny leaf hopper,
Theliasolis
. Later he confronts Dianne and
the Hollow with an attack by hu-mans and their associates, the
Ole-uminidae
, or oil-driven machines.He has reminded us that even theloss of a humble natural area may re-sult in the loss of a species.
Hungry Hollow
is not the most ef-fective introduction to environmen-tal biology, nor is it as lyrical as An-nie Dillard’s writings on nature. Butit is an extremely imaginative andevocative reminder that there arespecial places all around us and that,unless we care about them, theymay disappear.
Joel Gerwein
Biology Department, University of Massachu-setts at Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston,MA 02125, U.S.A., email [email protected]
Highlighting Conservation Successes
Blaue Listen der erfolgreich er-haltenen oder geförderten Tier-und Pflanzenarten der Roten Lis-ten–Methodik und Anwendung inder nördlichen Schweiz.
(BlueLists of the Successfully Stabilized orPromoted Animal and Plant Species ofthe Red Lists: Methods and Applica-tion in Northern Switzerland.) Gigon,A., R. Langenauer, C. Meier, and B.Nievergelt. 1998. Veröffentlichungendes Geobotanischen Institutes der Eid-genössisch-Technischen Hochschule,Stiftung Rübel, Zürich, Switzerland.129: 1–137 + 180 pp. appendices.SFr. 75.00. ISSN 0254–9433.
In many countries the Red Lists ofspecies threatened with extinctionnationally or regionally are gettinglonger and longer and provide a de-pressing picture of the future ofbiodiversity. Nevertheless, the pic-ture is not completely bleak andthere are quite a few success storiesof species that have been rescuedfrom the brink. Conservationists, how-ever, tend to stress the bad news togain public support for conservation,
to illustrate the urgency of conserva-tion measures, and to justify de-mands for money. Gigon and his co-authors argue that this approach ispsychologically wrong because thepublic will become tired of bad news,people active in conservation willbecome discouraged, and politicianswill not forever provide money for alost cause.
To highlight the successes of con-servation, Gigon et al. propose a newinstrument to complement the RedLists: the Blue Lists. The purpose ofthese lists is to provide a systematicand comprehensive overview of thesuccesses of regional conservation ef-forts by listing those threatened spe-cies that have not declined further orhave even increased in abundance.The inclusion of species whose abun-dance has not changed reflects theconviction of the authors that, in to-day’s world, stabilization of popula-tions is itself a noteworthy conserva-tion success.
In the first part of the book, the ra-tionale for the proposed Blue Lists,the criteria for the inclusion of spe-cies, and the proposed categories areexplained in detail. The authors pro-pose three main categories for BlueLists: (1) species that have stronglyincreased in abundance and shouldactually be removed from the respec-tive Red List, (2) species that have in-creased in abundance, and (3) spe-cies whose abundance appears to bestable. These categories are furtherrefined to indicate whether the posi-tive or neutral trend in abundance isdue to conservation measures or hasother causes. To provide a completepicture, additional categories are de-fined that indicate whether specieshave declined, have become extinct,or could not be categorized due tolack of information. Other categoriesindicate whether conservation tech-niques (e.g., particular mowing re-gimes) are known that promote aspecies and whether these have beensuccessfully applied.
In Part B of the book, Blue Lists arepresented for a test region consistingof three cantons in northern Switzer-