An accessible and comprehensive guide to all things acoustic bat detection. This highly illustrated handbook provides an in-depth understanding of acoustic detection principles, study planning, data handling, properties of bat calls, manual identification of species, automatic species recognition, analysis of results, quality assurance and the background physics of sound. No other method of detecting bats is so popular and widespread in the context of environmental assessment and voluntary work as acoustic detection, and its increased use has driven the development of a large number of sophisticated devices and analytical methods. Acoustic detection has become a standard approach for establishing the presence of bats, carrying out species identification and monitoring levels of activity. The resolution, accuracy and scale with which these tasks can be done has risen dramatically with the availability of automated real-time recording. But anyone interested in acoustic recording will quickly recognise that there are still quite a few open questions about the limits and possibilities of acoustic detection. Clear definitions of how to handle the data are usually missing, for example, and there are no clearly described activity indices. In response to the lack of thorough information on the underlying science of acoustic detection, the authors present this handbook.

This book investigates the introduction of invasive species and their behavior in oceanic islands. How can we define invasive species? What is their history? How did they come to dominate and transform ecosystems? These are relevant questions when trying to understand the behavior of invasive species-primarily in fragile ecosystems such as islands-and to understand the biological, ecological, social and economic impacts of invasions. We chose the Galapagos Islands, a place well-known to be unique in the study of evolution, as a laboratory to analyze the interactions between invasive and endemic species, to understand the makeup of the ecosystems emerging after invasions have occurred, to describe the relationships of invasives with the people that live in these islands, and to try to develop comprehensive analyses on this topic from multi-scalar and multi-disciplinary points of view. For a long time, the discussion has been about how proper management of the species could achieve two main goals: the eradication of the species to recover affected ecosystems and the conservation of endemic species. The discussion has taken on other nuances, including the suggestion that an invasive species, when it is already adapted to an ecosystem, forms an integral part of it, and thus eradication would in itself go against conservation. On the other hand, some invasive species are not only part of the biological compound of the island ecosystems, but they also form part of the social and cultural history of the inhabited islands. Some of these identified by the local inhabitants are species of real or potential economic value.

Problems of insect enumeration and assessment of needs are addressed in the contexts of rapid and substantial losses and changes to all key Australian terrestrial and freshwater environments and promoting awarenesss of the importance of insects. Further definition of the insect fauna and its peculiarities can aid threat alleviation and practical management to protect and conserve this unique and largely endemic biodiversity. Written for the many environmental managers and naturalists who are not primarily entomologists, the ten chapters expand from considerations of insect decline and diversity to the unique features of the Australian fauna and its characterisation. Cases and examples from throughout the world illustrate the major needs, approaches and priorities to sustaining a poorly known, diverse and ecologically varied insect heritage of global significance.

This book considers the challenges and opportunities of the Anthropocene Age from the perspective of pastoral theology/care. The fundamental question and concern with regard to the Anthropocene Age for human beings and other species is, how are we to dwell together on this one earth. Care, LaMothe argues, is the central concept in answering this question. Effective care requires pastoral theologians to make use of multiple interpretive frameworks (e.g., theology, philosophy, human sciences, etc.) in the analytic pursuit of understanding and responding effectively to the realities of climate change. At the same time, it is also important for pastoral theologians to examine critically the theologies and philosophies that give rise to and impede pastoral interventions and, in the case of the Anthropocene Age, to be clear about how theologies and philosophies have contributed to ideologies that undergird both exploitation of the earth and other-than-human beings, while also contributing to climate change and obstructing climate action. These are necessary steps in developing pastoral responses aimed at caring for persons, communities, and other-than-human beings in need of a viable dwelling.

Published by Sinauer Associates, an imprint of Oxford University Press. Conservation biology relies not only on the general concepts, but on the specific methods, of population ecology to both understand and predict the viability of rare and endangered species and to determine how best to manage these populations. The need to conduct quantitative analyses of viability and management has spawned the field of "population viability analysis," or PVA, which, in turn, has driven much of the recent development of useful and realistic population analysis and modeling in ecology in general. However, despite calls for the increased use of PVA in real-world settings-developing recovery plans for endangered species, for example-a misperception remains among field-oriented conservation biologists that PVA models can only be constructed and understood by a select group of mathematical population ecologists. Part of the reason for the ongoing gap between conservation practitioners and population modelers has been the lack of an easy-to-understand introduction to PVA for conservation biologists with little prior exposure to mathematical modeling as well as in-depth coverage of the underlying theory and its applications. Quantitative Conservation Biology fills this void through a unified presentation of the three major areas of PVA: count-based, demographic, and multi-site, or metapopulation, models. The authors first present general concepts and approaches to viability assessment. Then, in sections addressing each of the three fields of PVA, they guide the reader from considerations for collection and analysis of data to model construction, analysis, and interpretation, progressing from simple to complex approaches to answering PVA questions. Detailed case studies use data from real endangered species, and computer programs to perform all described analyses accompany the text. The goal of this book is to provide practical, intelligible, and intuitive explanations of population modeling to empirical ecologists and conservation biologists. Modeling methods that do not require large amounts of data (typically unavailable for endangered species) are emphasized. As such, the book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students interested in quantitative conservation biology, managers charged with preserving endangered species, and, in short, for any conservation biologist or ecologist seeking to better understand the analysis and modeling of population data.

This book offers valuable climate policy and climate assessment lessons, depicting what it takes to build a sustained climate assessment process. It explores the third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA3) report as compared with previous US national climate assessments, from both a process and content perspective. The U.S. Global Change Research Program is required by law to produce a National Climate Assessment report every four years, and these reports provide a comprehensive evaluation of climate science as well as observed and projected climate impacts on a variety of sectors. As the book describes, a key contribution of the NCA3 approach is a far more deliberate interdisciplinary process, as well as an engagement strategy that brought hundreds of public and private sector stakeholders into the assessment community. Among its most important conceptual contributions was an explicit focus on building the infrastructure to conduct better assessments over time and an experimental approach to analysis of the impacts of climate on cross-sectoral systems and inter-locking and cascading effects across sectors. Readers may explore innovations such as the development of regional climatologies and projections for every region of the US, as well as the development of the Global Change Information System. The book also highlights the need for decision-makers to be part of the assessment process, in order for assessment findings to be truly useful from a decision-maker's perspective. Many lessons have been learned by the NCA3 authors that can be useful in future assessments and adaptation processes, both within the US and internationally. This book passes on such lessons and includes an evaluation of the role of state climate assessments in ongoing national assessment processes.

The human use of nature is a polarizing topic in India and across the globe, often perceived as contradictory to traditional exclusionary conservation. However, India's natural landscapes serve as important sources of biological resources for many communities. This collection of case studies on sustainable use practices throughout India aims to identify the policies, management strategies, and knowledge contexts that contribute to resource use without damaging biological diversity. Through a diverse array of personal accounts, stories and photographs from the field, and ongoing research studies across biogeographic zones, readers will connect with academics, practitioners, managers, and policy analysts who challenge us to rethink the conservation paradigm. These chapters provide a reflection on the history of conservation and sustainable use in India and illuminate a path towards a local and global future in which biodiversity and human well-being go hand in hand. The wide variety of authors in this book reflects the broad audience this book will be of interest to, from students studying environmental conservation and sustainability to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who work in the field and seek to learn about successful sustainable use systems and resulting lessons that have widespread application. This book will appeal to readers interested in the areas of environment sciences, biodiversity management, sustainable development, developmental studies, forestry, wildlife and protected area management, public policy, environmental policy, and governance.

This volume explores major wetland ecosystem services, such as climate cooling and water quality improvement, and discusses the recent wetland conservation and restoration activities in China and neighboring countries. The role of wetlands in either cooling or warming the climate is analyzed as the net balance between carbon sequestration and emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. Wetlands start off having a net warming effect on the climate but in time switch to net cooling. Further, they remove 40% of the N and P from run-off and groundwater flow in agricultural areas, but wetlands need to amount to 10% of the total catchment area to make a difference. Reflecting on the recent large investment in wetland ecological studies in China and neighboring countries, the book addresses invasive species in coastal wetlands as well as the protection and wise use of tidal flats around the Yellow Sea. It also presents promising regional case studies on wetland restoration. The book is intended for academics, students and practitioners in the field of wetland ecology, management and restoration, as well as consultants and professionals working in conservation, wise use and environmental policy.

The Freshwaters of Patagonia adopts a socioecological approach, in which experts from across Patagonia review recent, scientifically rigorous literature and data of their own, thus synthesizing the current knowledge directly relevant to understand the present state and future trends of icefields, freshwater and wetland ecosystems in this region. The book's organization into three parts provides a studied and comprehensive view on the patterns and processes of the various ecosystems in Patagonia, and describes the sociological aspects of freshwater ecosystems, as well as characterizes the conservation of the freshwater and wetland ecosystems, in Patagonia. The chapters offer a broad, state-of-the-art overview of the current status of glaciers, freshwater and wetland ecosystems of this region, as well as studies of both local and large scale biodiversity patterns, and study cases of extreme and naturally polluted environments.The volume concludes with the current status of Patagonian freshwaters, and discusses the scientific, legal and administrative tools aimed at their sustainable management within the framework of the UNEP Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda. A broad audience of students, scientists, engineers, environmental managers, and policy makers will be interested in this volume.

In 1912, a Congressional committee met to investigate allegations that the Secretary of Agriculture had suppressed a report by J. O. Wright on drainage in the Florida Everglades. The following seven months of committee hearings uncovered a veritable horror-show of corruption, self-dealing, misuse of government personnel and property for private gain, the tarring of reputations in order to protect high-level officials, and outright blackmail within the Department of Agriculture and the state governments of Florida and North Carolina. The "Wright Report Incident" is most commonly understood in its connection to the Everglades, and few histories have included its effects on the North Carolina Pocosin wetland and other coastal plain swamps. This book seeks fills that gap. It details the timeline, intricate politics, and webs of corruption that make up the story of the Wright Incident and, specifically, its connection to land management practices in coastal North Carolina that continue to impact the industries of the state almost 100 years later.

The staggering rate of environmental pollution and animal abuse despite constant efforts to educate the public and raise awareness challenges the prevailing belief that the absence of serious action is a consequence of a poorly informed public. In recent decades alternative explanations of social and political inaction have emerged, including denialism. Challenging the information-deficit model, denialism proposes that people actively avoid unpleasant information that threatens their established worldviews, lifestyles, and identities. Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze analyzes how people avoid awareness of climate change, environmental pollution, animal abuse, and the animal industrial complex. The contributors examine the theory of denialism in regards to environmental pollution and animal abuse through a range of disciplines, including social psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, cultural history and law.

This book explores the fascinating and complex lives of the honey badger, the African jackals (black-backed and side-striped), African golden wolves, and Eurasian golden jackals. In recent years, interest in these creatures has grown exponentially, through wildlife documentaries and media clips showing the aggressive, fearless, and tenacious behaviour of the honey badger, with jackals often presented in a supporting role. Written by renowned journalist and educator Keith Somerville, this accessible volume includes historical narratives, folklore, and contemporary accounts of human-wildlife relationships and conflicts. It traces the evolution of the species; their foraging and diet; the development of their relationships with humans; and their commensal, kleptocratic, and symbiotic relationships with other carnivores, raptors and birds. It also charts the recent expansion in European jackal numbers and ranges, now including as far west as the Netherlands and as far north as Finland. Blending historical observations by non-scientists, colonial officials, administrators, and early conservationists with contemporary scientific accounts, it presents a new multidisciplinary approach that will interest researchers, scientists, and students in wildlife conservation, human-wildlife relations, zoology, biology, and environmental science.

Embodied Memories, Embedded Healing critically engages with the major East Asian cultural knowledge, beliefs, and practices that influence environmental consciousness in the twenty-first century. This volume examines key thinkers and aspects of Daoist, Confucianist, Buddhist, indigenous, animistic, and neo-Confucianist thought. With a particular focus on animistic perspectives on environmental healing and environmental consciousness, the contributors also engage with media studies (eco-cinema), food studies, critical animal studies, biotechnology, and the material sciences.

Hot, parched summers, water restrictions, sprinkler bans: how can we maintain our beloved gardens in such adverse conditions? Drought has become a serious issue, but with a little planning, gardeners can ease the problem and still achieve a fabulous display of color, form, and fragrance. These tips for the water-saving garden offer a variety of great ways to choose and use plants that thrive in an arid environment. Filled with magnificent illustrations, it details design ideas, soil-enhancing possibilities, and hints on watering wisely. Find out how to have an efficient container or kitchen garden, and which trees, shrubs, and border plants work especially well when it's dry. A large A-to-Z of low-water plants offers all the possibilities any gardener could want.

Techniques for Desert Reclamation Edited by Andrew S. Goudie School of Geography, University of Oxford Major world environmental issues, such as the degradation of deserts and their margins, are covered in this book. Unlike many volumes which merely analyse the causes and consequences of desertification, this book concentrates on the methods that are available to contend with some of the main symptoms of desert degradation. These symptoms include soil erosion by wind, soil erosion by water, salinization, loss of tree and shrub cover, the loss of animal resources, and the depletion of water resources. If the utility, stability and diversity of arid environments is to be maintained, then the techniques described in this book will need to be employed. The book is global in perspective and is written by academics and consultants with long-continued and diverse experience of desert environments. It attempts to present techniques for desert reclamation in a concise, comprehensive and accessible way, and assumes no technical expertise in the reader.

contributes to the return to nature movement that is very much in vogue in contemporary European societies, by examining the place of food and eating in the rewilding process. focuses on the ways in which the hunter-gatherer livelihood has been transformed into a resilient, simpler and ecological way of life. shows how some practices which aim to reconnect with natural processes are developing within a market economy. will be of great interest to students and scholars of food studies, human-nature relationships, food culture and the anthropology of consumption and sustainable diets.

Environmental Sociology: Risk and Sustainability in Modernity examines the encounter between sociology and contemporary environmental issues. It presents the proposal for an environmental sociology considering the dilemmas surrounding sustainable development, ecological modernization, and risk society. In this book, Cristiano Luis Lenzi critically examines these concepts, aiming to show how controversial environmental sociology still is. The book offers a nuanced interpretation of some of the issues and disputes that arise in the debate over these approaches in the sociological literature.

This book systematically deconstructs the pervasive and counter-productive discourse surrounding environmental policy. The authors argue that environmental policy problems are always framed such that conflict is inevitable-a particular project or policy must be accepted versus a specific environmental asset that must be protected. Over the course of 12 chapters, the authors demonstrate that confident yet contradictory assertions by contending interests preclude necessary deliberation and reason giving. They argue that deliberation is an important social process of reflecting upon the reasons for doing something. Their innovative approach allows discourse and collaboration to continue, until-after honest and informed deliberation-the better way forward is arrived at. This approach to environmental policy illustrates just how very constructive and enabling the quest for the reasonable can be.

In Breathing Aesthetics Jean-Thomas Tremblay argues that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing contamination, weaponization, and monetization of air. Tremblay shows how biopolitical and necropolitical forces tied to the continuation of extractive capitalism, imperialism, and structural racism are embodied and experienced through respiration. They identify responses to the crisis in breathing in aesthetic practices ranging from the film work of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta to the disability diaries of Bob Flanagan, to the Black queer speculative fiction of Renee Gladman. In readings of these and other minoritarian works of experimental film, endurance performance, ecopoetics, and cinema-verite, Tremblay contends that articulations of survival now depend on the management and dispersal of respiratory hazards. In so doing, they reveal how an aesthetic attention to breathing generates historically, culturally, and environmentally situated tactics and strategies for living under precarity.

This book offers a global perspective on the state of Earth's natural systems and the reflective analysis that is too often lost in day-to-day conservation efforts. It establishes the rationale and the need for a vigorous international effort to preserve and protect natural areas and ecosystems.

Williams examines the efforts of public agencies to better incorporate citizen participation in the administrative process. He focuses on the effort of the Department of Energy to use citizen advisory boards composed of stakeholders--persons who stand to gain or lose from policy implementation--in its economic transition, waste management, and environmental restoration programs.

The Department's efforts to deal with hazardous and toxic wastes stemming from uranium fuel for the U.S. nuclear weapons program are examined in detail. The case study shows that the stakeholder model was effective: the advisory board was expeditiously organized, reached consensus on critical issues, and accomplished its primary mission. The board's performance was such that the Clinton administration considered it a major example of how federal agencies could be reinvented to produce a government that works better and costs less. Of particular interest to policy makers and researchers involved with US environmental issues and public policy.

How did a random batch of chimpanzees come to populate a small island in Tanzania where apes had never lived before? Combining information gathered from fieldwork, laboratory and archival research, this book tells the unique story of chimpanzee babies taken from their forest homes in West-Central Africa and sold to European zoos and circuses, to then be shipped to Lake Victoria and set free on Rubondo Island. These founder animals learnt what to eat, how to build nests, to breed and raise young - ultimately forming a chimpanzee-typical fission-fusion society that today is thriving. The authors compare the ecology, behaviour and genetics of the Rubondo population with communities of wild chimpanzees, providing exciting insights into how our closest relatives adjust to changing environments. At the same time, a reconstruction of the historical context of the Rubondo experiment reflects on its chequered colonial heritage, and the introduction is viewed against current threats to the survival of apes in their natural habitats. The book will be of interest to scholars and professionals working in primatology, animal behaviour, conservation biology and postcolonial studies.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) has been off-limits to human habitation for nearly seventy years, and in that time, biodiverse forms of life have flourished in and around the DMZ as beneficiaries of an unresolved war. In Making Peace with Nature Eleana J. Kim shows how a closer examination of the DMZ in South Korea reveals that the area's biodiversity is inseparable from scientific practices and geopolitical, capitalist, and ecological dynamics. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with ecologists, scientists, and local residents, Kim focuses on irrigation ponds, migratory bird flyways, and land mines in the South Korean DMZ area, demonstrating how human and nonhuman ecologies interact and transform in spaces defined by war and militarization. In so doing, Kim reframes peace away from a human-oriented political or economic peace and toward a more-than-human, biological peace. Such a peace recognizes the reality of war while pointing to potential forms of human and nonhuman relations.

Although there are some biological processes that are supported by UV radiation, most organisms are stressed by it in various ways, e.g. through DNA damage.Top international experts present an integrated overview of UV radiation and its effects on terrestrial, freshwater and marine Arctic biota. Increased stratospheric ozone depletion and the corresponding increase in ground levels of UV radiation as well as ambient, "natural" UV radiation as a key ecological factor in the Arctic spring and summer are discussed in detail. Additionally, basic information on Arctic ecosystems is given. The volume provides not only an excellent account of present-day knowledge of the subject, but also describes the state of the art on which future research can be built.