Protecting Biodiversity

Protecting Biodiversity PDF Author: International Development Research Centre (Canada)
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 0889369003
Category : Biodiversity conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
Within the countries of South and North America are found some of the most diverse collections of flora and fauna in the world. Colombia alone carries over 50 thousand different plant species. This precious resource, however, is quickly dwindling. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are tapping America's genetic resources at an ever-increasing rate, and habitat destruction has pushed many species to extinction or to the brink of extinction. "Protecting Biodiversity" addresses one of the most fundamental aspects of this important issue: the lack of adequate national laws regulating access to, and compensation for, the use of local genetic resources. This book is the first to compare such laws and policies across a range of countries in both the industrialized and developing worlds, including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States. It also presents legal viewpoints, conclusions, and solid recommendations for future action. "Protecting Biodiversity" is the newest reference book in the rapidly emerging legal field that combines environmental, intellectual property, contract, and administrative law.

Protecting Biodiversity

Protecting Biodiversity PDF Author: International Development Research Centre (Canada)
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 0889369003
Category : Biodiversity conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 121

Get Book Here

Book Description
Within the countries of South and North America are found some of the most diverse collections of flora and fauna in the world. Colombia alone carries over 50 thousand different plant species. This precious resource, however, is quickly dwindling. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are tapping America's genetic resources at an ever-increasing rate, and habitat destruction has pushed many species to extinction or to the brink of extinction. "Protecting Biodiversity" addresses one of the most fundamental aspects of this important issue: the lack of adequate national laws regulating access to, and compensation for, the use of local genetic resources. This book is the first to compare such laws and policies across a range of countries in both the industrialized and developing worlds, including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States. It also presents legal viewpoints, conclusions, and solid recommendations for future action. "Protecting Biodiversity" is the newest reference book in the rapidly emerging legal field that combines environmental, intellectual property, contract, and administrative law.

Biodiversity II

Biodiversity II PDF Author: A Joseph Henry Press book
Publisher: Joseph Henry Press
ISBN: 0309176565
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
"The book before you...carries the urgent warning that we are rapidly altering and destroying the environments that have fostered the diversity of life forms for more than a billion years." With those words, Edward O. Wilson opened the landmark volume Biodiversity (National Academy Press, 1988). Despite this and other such alarms, species continue to vanish at a rapid rate, taking with them their genetic legacy and potential benefits. Many disappear before they can even be identified. Biodiversity II is a renewed call for urgency. This volume updates readers on how much we already know and how much remains to be identified scientifically. It explores new strategies for quantifying, understanding, and protecting biodiversity, including: New approaches to the integration of electronic data, including a proposal for a U.S. National Biodiversity Information Center. Application of techniques developed in the human genome project to species identification and classification. The Gap Analysis Program of the National Biological Survey, which uses layered satellite, climatic, and biological data to assess distribution and better manage biodiversity. The significant contribution of museum collections to identifying and categorizing species, which is essential for understanding ecological function and for targeting organisms and regions at risk. The book describes our growing understanding of how megacenters of diversity (e.g., rainforest insects, coral reefs) are formed, maintained, and lost; what can be learned from mounting bird extinctions; and how conservation efforts for neotropical primates have fared. It also explores ecosystem restoration, sustainable development, and agricultural impact. Biodiversity II reinforces the idea that the conservation of our biological resources is within reach as long as we pool resources; better coordinate the efforts of existing institutionsâ€"museums, universities, and government agenciesâ€"already dedicated to this goal; and enhance support for research, collections, and training. This volume will be important to environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, educators, students, and concerned individuals.

Technologies to maintain biological diversity.

Technologies to maintain biological diversity. PDF Author: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 142892289X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description


Conserving Biodiversity

Conserving Biodiversity PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309046831
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
The loss of the earth's biological diversity is widely recognized as a critical environmental problem. That loss is most severe in developing countries, where the conditions of human existence are most difficult. Conserving Biodiversity presents an agenda for research that can provide information to formulate policy and design conservation programs in the Third World. The book includes discussions of research needs in the biological sciences as well as economics and anthropology, areas of critical importance to conservation and sustainable development. Although specifically directed toward development agencies, non-governmental organizations, and decisionmakers in developing nations, this volume should be of interest to all who are involved in the conservation of biological diversity.

From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity

From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity PDF Author: Elena Casetta
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030109917
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so?The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’ refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous.

Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity

Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity PDF Author: Justina Ray
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597266094
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity brings together more than thirty leading scientists and conservation practitioners to consider a key question in environmental conservation: Is the conservation of large carnivores in ecosystems that evolved with their presence equivalent to the conservation of biological diversity within those systems? Building their discussions from empirical, long-term data sets, contributors including James A. Estes, David S. Maehr, Tim McClanahan, Andrès J. Novaro, John Terborgh, and Rosie Woodroffe explore a variety of issues surrounding the link between predation and biodiversity: What is the evidence for or against the link? Is it stronger in marine systems? What are the implications for conservation strategies? Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity is the first detailed, broad-scale examination of the empirical evidence regarding the role of large carnivores in biodiversity conservation in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems. It contributes to a much more precise and global understanding of when, where, and whether protecting and restoring top predators will directly contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Everyone concerned with ecology, biodiversity, or large carnivores will find this volume a unique and thought-provoking analysis and synthesis.

Protection of Global Biodiversity

Protection of Global Biodiversity PDF Author: Lakshman D. Guruswamy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
The rate of extinction of biological species is greater today than at any time in the last 65 million years. Some predict that if this rate continues, two-thirds of all living species will disappear during the next century. Because reaching consensus on specific courses of action involves complex issues, any adequate response to this impending crisis must include coverage of many areas of inquiry and understanding. Protection of Global Biodiversity features essays by distinguished international experts who communicate with each other across disciplinary boundaries to address the challenge of formulating policies to protect biodiversity. Although the global community has recently adopted a Convention of Biological Diversity, the agreement sets forth only abstract goals. Contributors to this volume advance the Convention's initial steps by providing workable solutions that can be implemented regionally, nationally, and locally. The contributors--including natural, social, and political scientists; economists; lawyers; and environmentalists; and decisionmakers in business, agriculture, and government--have united to create a common discourse and to evaluate and propose strategies for halting this alarming loss of biodiversity. In recognizing the diverse aspects of this task--scientific, economic, institutional, moral, and legal--this book presents a new picture of emerging action. Contributors. S. James Anaya, Gregory Benford, Graciela Chichilnisky, S. Todd Crider, Yvonne Cripps, Robert T. Fraley, Anil K. Gupta, Lakshman D. Guruswamy, G. M. Heal, Brent Hendricks, Robert B. Horsch, Laura L. Jackson, Annie Lovejoy, Ariel E. Lugo, Jeffrey A. McNeely, Brian G. Norton, Elinor Ostrom, Peter H. Raven, John W. Reid, Walter V. Reid, Mark Sagoff, Roger A. Sedgo, R. David Simpson, Ana Sittenfeld, Christopher D. Stone, Gary H. Toenniessen

Conservation Biogeography

Conservation Biogeography PDF Author: Richard J. Ladle
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444390023
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
CONSERVATION BIOGEOGRAPHY The Earth’s ecosystems are in the midst of an unprecedented period of change as a result of human action. Many habitats have been completely destroyed or divided into tiny fragments, others have been transformed through the introduction of new species, or the extinction of native plants and animals, while anthropogenic climate change now threatens to completely redraw the geographic map of life on this planet. The urgent need to understand and prescribe solutions to this complicated and interlinked set of pressing conservation issues has lead to the transformation of the venerable academic discipline of biogeography – the study of the geographic distribution of animals and plants. The newly emerged sub-discipline of conservation biogeography uses the conceptual tools and methods of biogeography to address real world conservation problems and to provide predictions about the fate of key species and ecosystems over the next century. This book provides the first comprehensive review of the field in a series of closely interlinked chapters addressing the central issues within this exciting and important subject.

Understanding the Changing Planet

Understanding the Changing Planet PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309157234
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
From the oceans to continental heartlands, human activities have altered the physical characteristics of Earth's surface. With Earth's population projected to peak at 8 to 12 billion people by 2050 and the additional stress of climate change, it is more important than ever to understand how and where these changes are happening. Innovation in the geographical sciences has the potential to advance knowledge of place-based environmental change, sustainability, and the impacts of a rapidly changing economy and society. Understanding the Changing Planet outlines eleven strategic directions to focus research and leverage new technologies to harness the potential that the geographical sciences offer.

Concepts and Values in Biodiversity

Concepts and Values in Biodiversity PDF Author: Dirk Lanzerath
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135106282
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Biodiversity may refer to the diversity of genes, species or ecosystems in general. These varying concepts of biodiversity occasionally lead to conflicts among researchers and policy makers, as each of them require a customized type of protection strategy. This book addresses the questions surrounding the merits of conserving an existing situation, evolutionary development or the intentional substitution of one genome, species or ecosystem for another. Any practical steps towards the protection of biodiversity demand a definition of that which is to be protected and, in turn, the motivations for protecting biodiversity. Is biodiversity a necessary model which is also useful, or does it carry intrinsic value? Debates like this are particularly complex when interested parties address it from different conceptual and moral perspectives. Comprised of three parts, each complemented by a short introductory paragraph, this collection presents a variety of approaches to this challenge. The chapters cover the perspectives of environmental scientists with expertise in evolutionary, environmental biology, systematic zoology and botany, as well as those of researchers with expertise in philosophy, ethics, politics, law and economics. This combination facilitates a truly interdisciplinary debate by highlighting hitherto unacknowledged implications that inform current academic and political debates on biodiversity and its protection. The book should be of interest to students and researchers of environment studies, biodiversity, environmental philosophy, ethics and management.