WINNER OF THE JOHN AVERY AWARD AT THE ANDRE SIMON AWARDS If we can save the salmon, we can save the world Over the centuries, salmon have been a vital resource, a dietary staple and an irresistible catch. But there is so much more to this extraordinary fish. As international bestseller Mark Kurlansky reveals, salmon persist as a barometer for the health of our planet. Centuries of our greatest assaults on nature can be seen in their harrowing yet awe-inspiring life cycle. Full of all Kurlansky's characteristic curiosity and insight, Salmon is a magisterial history of a wondrous creature. 'An epic, environmental tragedy' Spectator 'These creatures have nurtured our imagination as surely as our bodies. This book does them justice!' Bill McKibben

By reimagining how we design and use our gardens, we can all do our bit to support local wildlife, improve our health and help tackle the climate crisis. If we all take positive steps in our gardens, no matter how small, we can all really make a difference in the world. This book focuses on the activities and planting suitable for a Scottish climate but also contains lots of useful information relevant for gardeners throughout the UK. Practical information on planning is followed by expert guidance on: Planting for wildlife in nectar-rich borders, wildflower meadows, hedgerows, trees and shrubs Building for wildlife with bird boxes, bug boxes, feeders and ponds Green gardening approaches with fruit and veg production, rain gardens, green roofs, compost making and creating new plants through propagation Attracting birds, bees, butterflies and other insects, aquatic life and nightlife

Insects are the major component of the world's biodiversity. By their vast numbers of both species and individuals, they are vital determinants of the terrestrial ecological processes. Quantitatively, insects are important pointers for the species-rich geographical areas. Qualitatively, they are also important, whether the subjects of conservation themselves or as tools for identifying biotic areas with high endemism. "Insect Conservation Biology" covers a wide range of topics from single species to landscape conservation, and from rare butterflies to the benefits-and-risks of biocontrol agents. The approach is both positive and realistic, with insects being discussed in the contexts of sustainable development, agroecology and monitoring environmental change. Ethical issues surrounding insects are also considered as well as preservation technology and restoration ecology. Conservation circles have given too little attention to the ecological significance of insects, while entomologists have been employed mostly to control a tiny minority of species of insect pests. The realms of conservationist and entomologist are brought together in this book. This book should be of interest to conservation managers/biologists, entomologists, ecologists, and environmental scientists interested in biological diversity.

Winner of the Marsh Book of the Year Award (2015) Throughout British history rivers have been of profound economic, social and cultural importance - yet as we see with increasing frequency they have the potential to wreak great destruction. This book describes the natural and not-so-natural changes that have affected British rivers since the last ice age and looks at the many plants and animals that live along, above and within them. Detailed case studies of the Meon, Dee and Endrick illustrate the incredibly varied nature of our river ecosystems, and the natural and human factors that make each one different. Written by two widely respected river ecologists, the book looks not only at rivers as they were and are but also at how they can be managed and cared for. Full of interesting facts and stunning images, Rivers is essential reading for anyone professionally involved in rivers and for the naturalist, conservationist and layman alike. It is the one book you need to understand this singularly important and often contentious feature of the British landscape.

This edited volume addresses a rising concern among natural resource scientists and management professionals about decline of the many plant and animal species associated with early-successional habitats, especially within the Central Hardwood Region of the USA. These open habitats, with herbaceous, shrub, or young forest cover, are disappearing as abandoned farmland, pastures, and cleared forest patches return to forest. There are many questions about "why, what, where, and how" to manage for early successional habitats. In this book, expert scientists and experienced land managers synthesize knowledge and original scientific work to address questions on such topics as wildlife, water, carbon sequestration, natural versus managed disturbance, future scenarios, and sustainable creation and management of early successional habitat in a landscape context.

THE SUNDAY TIMES' BESTSELLER AND SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT CONSERVATION AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE This is a book about abandoned places: ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man's lands and fortress islands - and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place. In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America's fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods. This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live - or survive in tiny, precarious numbers - to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind's impact on nature is forced to stop. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world - and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery. By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we're gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone? More praise for Islands of Abandonment 'Extraordinary ... Just when you thought there was nowhere left to explore, along comes an author with a new category of terrain ... Dazzling' SPECTATOR 'A haunting look at how nature fights back ... Beautiful, evocative' SUNDAY TIMES 'Flyn's brave, thorough book sets out to explore places where angels fear to tread ... The result is fascinating, eerie and strange ... There is some thrilling writing here' KATHLEEN JAMIE, NEW STATESMAN 'Wonderful' ADAM NICOLSON 'Exhilarating' DAILY TELEGRAPH

From Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas, this volume provides a snapshot of the most spectacular and important natural places in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. America's Natural Places: Rocky Mountains and Great Plains examines over 50 of the most spectacular and important areas of this region, with each entry describing the importance of the area, the flora and fauna that it supports, threats to the survival of the region, and what is being done to protect it. Organized by state within the volume, this work informs readers about the wide variety of natural areas across the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains and identifies places that may be near them that demonstrate the importance of preserving such regions.

This guide provides descriptions of when the bat species resident in Britain and Ireland use natural and human-made rock habitats, how they use them, and the environments each species occupies therein. For the first time it brings together findings from historical scientific investigations, useful photographic accounts and open-access biological records, along with a rich seam of new data – all in a practical and user-friendly structure. The book encompasses: ~ Descriptions of the features that a climber, caver or professional ecologist might encounter on and in rock habitats where bats roost. ~ Recording criteria for both the physical and environmental attributes of different features and situations. ~ Identification of suitability thresholds against which the recorded information can be compared to assess the likelihood that a specific feature might be exploited by a particular bat species. ~ Suggestions for how to avoid mistakes and difficulties when performing a survey. The intention is that using this book will help generate standardised biological records which can feed into the fully accessible online database at www.batrockhabitatkey.co.uk. These data will be analysed to search for patterns that can increase the confidence in the suitability thresholds and help build roost features that deliver the environment each species really needs. As well as offering many new insights, this book allows the reader to participate in cutting-edge research.

A unique and personal insight into the ecology and evolution of pollinators, their relationships with flowers, and their conservation in a rapidly changing world. The pollination of flowers by insects, birds and other animals is a fundamentally important ecological function that supports both the natural world and human society. Without pollinators to facilitate the sexual reproduction of plants, the world would be a biologically poorer place in which to live, there would be an impact on food security, and human health would suffer. Written by one of the world's leading pollination ecologists, this book provides an introduction to what pollinators are, how their interactions with flowers have evolved, and the fundamental ecology of these relationships. It explores the pollination of wild and agricultural plants in a variety of habitats and contexts, including urban, rural and agricultural environments. The author also provides practical advice on how individuals and organisations can study, and support, pollinators. As well as covering the natural history of pollinators and flowers, the author discusses their cultural importance, and the ways in which pollinator conservation has been portrayed from a political perspective. The book draws on field work experiences in South America, Africa, Australia, the Canary Islands and the UK. For over 30 years the author has spent his career researching how plants and pollinators evolve relationships, how these interactions function ecologically, their importance for society, and how we can conserve them in a rapidly changing world. This book offers a unique and personal insight into the science of pollinators and pollination, aimed at anyone who is interested in understanding these fascinating and crucial ecological interactions.

From Maine's Acadia National Park to Kentucky's Natural Bridge State Park Nature Preserve, this volume provides a snapshot of the most spectacular and important natural places in the East and Northeast. America's Natural Places: East and Northeast examines over 50 of the most spectacular and important areas of this region, with each entry describing the importance of the area, the flora and fauna that it supports, threats to the survival of the region, and what is being done to protect it. Organized by state within the volume, this work informs readers about the wide variety of natural areas across the east and northeast and identifies places that may be near them that demonstrate the importance of preserving such regions.

The world's oceans cover 70% of the earth's surface and are home to a myriad of amazing and beautiful creatures. However, the biodiversity of the oceans is incre- ingly coming under serious threat from many human activities including overfi- ing, use of destructive fishing methods, pollution and commercial aquaculture. In addition, climate change is already having an impact on some marine ecosystems. This book discusses some of the major threats facing marine ecosystems by cons- ering a range of topics, under chapters discussing biodiversity (Chapter 1), fisheries (Chapter 2), aquaculture (Chapter 3), pollution (Chapter 4) and the impacts of increasing greenhouse gas emissions (Chapter 5). It goes on to explore solutions to the problems by discussing equitable and sustainable management of the oceans (Chapter 6) and protecting marine ecosystems using marine reserves (Chapter 7). Presently, 76% of the oceans are fully or over-exploited with respect to fishing, and many species have been severely depleted. It is abundantly clear that, in general, current fisheries management regimes are to blame for much of the widespread degradation of the oceans. Many policy-makers and scientists now agree that we must adopt a radical new approach to managing the seas - one that is precautionary in nature and has protection of the whole marine ecosystem as its primary objective. This 'ecosystem-based approach' is vital if we are to ensure the health of our oceans for future generations.

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 brings together 45 years' worth of experience-derived information about more than 7,000 micro- and macro- species, which form the unique bio-diversity of the world's largest mangrove ecosystem, as it struggles against the natural and anthropogenic threats. Up to 1770, the estimated area of Sundarbans was around 36,000 km2, but has reduced over time to 25,000 km2, due to reclamation. This loss and the related degradation of habitats has caused historical species extinction and population decline. Whereas biodiversity conservation within and beyond the protected areas has been the watchword since the 1990s ("biodiversity, aesthetic values and integrity"), the initial two hundred years of imperial and post-colonial forest management focused primarily on revenue and production forestry, to the detriment of the ecology of the area. It will be of interest to researchers, in zoology, botany, ecology and conservation, as well as professionals, such as foresters, environmentalists, conservationists, resource managers, planners, government agencies, academic institutions, NGOs and naturalists.

For a sustainable urban future to be possible, a new botanical discipline is needed to deepen our understanding of the relations between people and plants. This discipline will link environmental management concerns with those of human welfare and wellbeing in a specifically urban context to achieve both ecological restorations and social redress. The Durban Botanic Gardens Trust has published The Durban Forest as an early effort to establish a manifesto for this much-needed new discipline, and provides both historical and forward-looking perspectives on the changing relations between natural areas and urban dwellers. These relations urgently await our exploration if we are to face the challenges of the accelerating urbanism and environmental change that are now upon us. The Durban forest will appeal to all those interested in people and the environment, culture and community, our past and our future. Most of all, it will speak to the Durban of tomorrow and suggest a new kind of botany that will help to build a future for all Durban’s residents that is environmentally, socially and economically more just and more secure. The Durban forest is the first in a series of publications planned by the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust. The series is to be entitled umKhuhlu, the African name for Trichilia dregeana, the forest mahogany and an iconic Durban tree. The series will draw on the garden’s reputation as Durban’s oldest, and one of its most treasured public institutions in order to encourage a new model of plant use. This model aspires to a specific urban, humanitarian and restorative focus that will support a just and resilient urbanism.

Pangolins: Science, Society and Conservation brings together experts from around the world to document the most up-to-date scientific knowledge on pangolins and their conservation. It chronicles threats facing the species, explores the current initiatives required to protect them, and looks ahead at the future of pangolin science and conservation efforts. Led by a team of editors with more than 20 years collective experience in pangolin conservation, this book includes accounts of the species' evolution, morphology, and systematics. It discusses the role of pangolins in historically symbolic, mythological, and ritualistic practices across Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as contemporary practices including international trafficking. Chapters in the latter portion of this book focus on conservation solutions, including law enforcement and international policy, behavior change, local community engagement, ex situ conservation, tourism, and other interventions needed to secure the future of the species. Pangolins: Science, Society and Conservation is the latest volume in Elsevier's species-specific series, Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and students in species conservation science, planning, and policymaking.

Many of the encounters between farming and wildlife, especially vertebrates, involve some level of conflict which can cause disadvantage to both the wildlife and the people involved. Through a series of WildCRU case-studies, this volume investigates the sources of the problems, and ultimately of the threats to conservation, discussing a variety of remedies and mitigations, and demonstrating the benefits of evidence-based, inter-disciplinary policy.

The Bahia Blanca Estuary is one of the largest coastal systems in Atlantic South America. This mesotidal estuary, situated in a sharp transition between humid subtropical and semiarid climates, has a unique combination of large interannual climatic variations. The estuarine area encompasses roughly 2300 square kilometers and is composed of wide expanses of intertidal flats, salt marshes, and emerged islands, which create intricate landscape patterns. Natural environments in the estuary sustain a high concentration of marine and terrestrial species, including endemic, threatened, and endangered fish and shorebirds. Puerto Cuatreros, in the inner zone of the estuary, hosts a permanent marine research station, whose records span more than 30 years of biophysical variables, and represent one of the largest time series of ecological data in South America. Beyond its ecological relevance, the Bahia Blanca Estuary is under increasing anthropogenic pressure from large urban settlements, industrial developments and harbors, raising the question of how to balance conservation and development. The Bahia Blanca Estuary: Ecology and Biodiversity offers a comprehensive review of life in the ecosystems of the estuary. The book is divided into five major sections, the first of which provides a description of the regional setting and covers key aspects of estuarine dynamics. The three following sections are dedicated to different habitat types and, within each section, the chapters are organized around major functional groups from pelagic and benthic environments. The fifth and final section covers issues related to management and conservation. Overall, the book provides essential and up-to-date reference material on the biodiversity and ecosystem processes of the Bahia Blanca Estuary, and will appeal to a broad international audience.

This book gives a start-to-finish overview of the whole Fish4Knowledge project, in 18 short chapters, each describing one aspect of the project. The Fish4Knowledge project explored the possibilities of big video data, in this case from undersea video. Recording and analyzing 90 thousand hours of video from ten camera locations, the project gives a 3 year view of fish abundance in several tropical coral reefs off the coast of Taiwan. The research system built a remote recording network, over 100 Tb of storage, supercomputer processing, video target detection and tracking, fish species recognition and analysis, a large SQL database to record the results and an efficient retrieval mechanism. Novel user interface mechanisms were developed to provide easy access for marine ecologists, who wanted to explore the dataset. The book is a useful resource for system builders, as it gives an overview of the many new methods that were created to build the Fish4Knowledge system in a manner that also allows readers to see how all the components fit together.

Savannah habitats comprise an ecologically important, but ultimately fragile, ecosystem. They constitute one of the largest biomes on Earth, covering almost 20% of the land surface, and can be simply described as tropical and subtropical grasslands with scattered bushes and trees. Most savannahs occur in Africa, although smaller areas can be found in South America, India, and Australia. They form a rich mosaic of diverse ecosystems, and this book offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to their ecology, biodiversity, and conservation. The Biology of African Savannahs describes the major plants (grasses, and trees such as Acacia) and animals (mainly large mammals) that live in this habitat, and examines the biological and ecological factors that influence their population size, interactions (such as predation), and community composition. Conservation issues such as climate change, hunting, and conflict between wildlife and domestic animals are also discussed. This new edition has been updated throughout with the latest research in the field, and contains new technique boxes which introduce readers to some of the analytical methods used to study African savannahs. This accessible text is suitable for both senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in savannah and tropical ecology as part of a wider ecology and/or conservation biology degree programme. It will also be of relevance and use to the many professional ecologists and conservation practitioners requiring a concise but authoritative overview of the topic.

Illustrated with 200 outstanding photographs, Dangerous Animals presents an in-depth look at the natural world's most deadly creatures, from poisonous spiders and sea snakes to aggressive lions and man-eating sharks. The selection spans a broad spectrum of wildlife, from large carnivores such as the grizzly bear and great white shark to smaller but equally deadly predators such as the black widow spider and puff adder. Each world habitat is covered, with examples carefully drawn from every region of the planet - from the majestic lion of the African plains and the polar bear of the arctic wastes, to the Komodo dragon of South-east Asia, whose saliva carries poisonous bacteria that can kill a person in hours. Featuring around 100 species, each photographic entry is supported with a fascinating caption, explaining how the animal manages to be so deadly. Beautifully presented, this accessible book is a wonderful introduction to some of the planet's fiercest - or just most poisonous - creatures.

Powerfully moving, Elephant Dawn is the complete, unforgettable story of one woman’s remarkable and life-changing association with the Presidential Elephants of Zimbabwe, a celebrated clan of wild, free-roaming giants. It comes at a time when elephants all around Africa face the very real threat of being poached to extinction for their ivory, and Zimbabwe continues to face tumultuous times. In 2001, Sharon Pincott traded her privileged life as a high-flying corporate executive to start a new one with the Presidential Elephants of Zimbabwe. She was unpaid, untrained, self-funded and arrived with the starry-eyed idealism of most foreigners during early encounters with Africa. For thirteen years – the worst in Zimbabwe’s volatile history – this intrepid Australian woman lived in the Hwange bush, fighting for the lives of these elephants, forming an extraordinary and life-changing bond with them. Now remote from Robert Mugabe’s rule, Sharon writes without restraint sequentially through the years, taking us on a truly unforgettable ride of hope and heartbreak, profound love and loss, adversity and new beginnings. This is the haunting, all-encompassing story we’ve been waiting for.