Field observations in the Scottish Highlands over decades - ptarmigan, red grouse, golden plover, dotterel, bird counts.The author documents hatch-dates of ptarmigan and red grouse in relation to blaeberry growth and climate. He collates field observations on golden plover, involving proportions of dark-plumaged summering birds, breeding success, population density within and amongst areas, and declines since the late 1970s. Another chapter reviews evidence on dotterel abundance. The author criticises a paper claiming benefits of game-keeping for moorland birds and a report on effects of predation on birds.

National forests are required to take significant steps to incorporate climate change in management and planning, including the development of options that facilitate adaptation of natural resources to potentially deleterious effects of an altered climate. Despite uncertainties about the timing and magnitude of climate change effects, sufficient information exists to begin the adaptation process, a form of risk management. This book provides a guidebook for developing adaptation options in responding to climate change in national forests and discusses a climate project tool as an aid for climate change adaptation.

During the Middle Sican period (C.E. 950-1050) on the North Coast of Peru, artisans developed a sophisticated tradition of ceramic and metalworking production amidst dry coastal forests of the region. Organic fuel resources, specifically wood, clearly played a vital role in the manufacture of these objects; however, this component of production has been largely overlooked. Thus, a major gap in our understanding of the relationship between Sican period production and the local landscape has developed. The Sican Archaeological Project (SAP) suggests that the production of metal and ceramics during this period likely placed the local fuel resources under considerable stress. Yet, an evaluation of the archaeological data is essential to assess the degree of overexploitation, identifying the fuels used, their contexts for use, and their role in local ecology. This study interprets how Middle Sican artisans met their fuel-wood requirements for production in light of easily endangered forest resources. An examination of the archaeological charcoal from Middle Sican period kilns, hearths, and metal furnaces permits the reconstruction of fuel use and the ecological setting of production. This unique site demonstrates the concurrent production of metal and ceramics, as well as the presence of domestic activity. Using wood anatomy of fuels recovered from archaeological features, the author identified the fuel materials of different use contexts.

A study of how encounters between forestry bureaucrats and indigenous forest managers in Mexico produced official knowledge about forests and the state. Greater knowledge and transparency are often promoted as the keys to solving a wide array of governance problems. In Instituting Nature, Andrew Mathews describes Mexico's efforts over the past hundred years to manage its forests through forestry science and biodiversity conservation. He shows that transparent knowledge was produced not by official declarations or scientists' expertise but by encounters between the relatively weak forestry bureaucracy and the indigenous people who manage and own the pine forests of Mexico. Mathews charts the performances, collusions, complicities, and evasions that characterize the forestry bureaucracy. He shows that the authority of forestry officials is undermined by the tension between local realities and national policy; officials must juggle sweeping knowledge claims and mundane concealments, ambitious regulations and routine rule breaking. Moving from government offices in Mexico City to forests in the state of Oaxaca, Mathews describes how the science of forestry and bureaucratic practices came to Oaxaca in the 1930s and how local environmental and political contexts set the stage for local resistance. He tells how the indigenous Zapotec people learned the theory and practice of industrial forestry as employees and then put these skills to use when they become the owners and managers of the area's pine forests-eventually incorporating forestry into their successful claims for autonomy from the state. Despite the apparently small scale and local contexts of this balancing act between the power of forestry regulations and the resistance of indigenous communities, Mathews shows that it has large implications-for how we understand the modern state, scientific knowledge, and power and for the global carbon markets for which Mexican forests might become valuable.

An overview of tropical rainforests for kids. Rainforests describes tropical rainforests, why they are important, and what is happening to them. Rainforests is based on the award-winning mongabay.com web site. "Rainforests" includes discussion of topics including conservation and protected areas, biodiversity and ecology, environmental activism, sustainable development, consumption, and economics.

The Red Hills region of south Georgia and north Florida contains one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in North America, with longleaf pine trees that are up to four hundred years old and an understory of unparalleled plant life. At first glance, the longleaf woodlands at plantations like Greenwood, outside Thomasville, Georgia, seem undisturbed by market economics and human activity, but Albert G. Way contends that this environment was socially produced and that its story adds nuance to the broader narrative of American conservation.

The Red Hills woodlands were thought of primarily as a healthful refuge for northern industrialists in the early twentieth century. When notable wildlife biologist Herbert Stoddard arrived in 1924, he began to recognize the area's ecological value. Stoddard was with the federal government, but he drew on local knowledge to craft his land management practices, to the point where a distinctly southern, agrarian form of ecological conservation emerged. This set of practices was in many respects progressive, particularly in its approach to fire management and species diversity, and much of it remains in effect today.

Using Stoddard as a window into this unique conservation landscape, "Conserving Southern Longleaf" positions the Red Hills as a valuable center for research into and understanding of wildlife biology, fire ecology, and the environmental appreciation of a region once dubbed simply the "pine barrens."

An overview of tropical rainforests for kids. Rainforests describes tropical rainforests, why they are important, and what is happening to them. Based on the award-winning mongabay.com web site. Includes photos, charts, and maps. Note: this version is black and white; there is also a color version.

Rain forests represent the world's richest repository of terrestrial biodiversity, and play a major role in regulating the global climate. They support the livelihoods of a substantial proportion of the world's population and are the source of many internationally traded commodities. They remain (despite decades of conservation attention) increasingly vulnerable to degradation and clearance, with profound though often uncertain future costs to global society. Understanding the ecology of these diverse biomes, and peoples' dependencies on them, is fundamental to their future management and conservation.
Tropical Rain Forest Ecology, Diversity, and Conservation introduces and explores what rain forests are, how they arose, what they contain, how they function, and how humans use and impact them. The book starts by introducing the variety of rain forest plants, fungi, microorganisms, and animals, emphasising the spectacular diversity that is the motivation for their conservation. The central chapters describe the origins of rain forest communities, the variety of rain forest formations, and their ecology and dynamics. The challenge of explaining the species richness of rain forest communities lies at the heart of ecological theory, and forms a common theme throughout. The book's final section considers historical and current interactions of humans and rain forests. It explores biodiversity conservation as well as livelihood security for the many communities that are dependent on rain forests - inextricable issues that represent urgent priorities for scientists, conservationists, and policy makers.

Forests cover approximately 30% of total land area and function as habitats for organisms, hydrologic flow modulators, and soil conservers, constituting one of the most important aspects of the Earth's biosphere. The canopy is one of the uppermost levels of a forest, below the emergent layer, formed by the tree crowns. The canopy is home to unique flora and fauna not found in other layers of a forest. Trees in the canopy are able to photosynthesise very rapidly thanks to the large amount of light, so it supports the widest diversity of plant as well as animal life in most rainforests. This book presents a wide variety of topics on the ecosystem in forest canopies. Included is a study on light distribution patterns and how it effects the daily photosynthesis of herbaceous vegetation. Recent progress, concerns, and future directions in simulations of vegetation processes are presented as well, in the terrestrial biosphere model that is coupled to a climate system model.