The United Nations has declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity: “a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives.” Its goal is to raise global awareness of the rich variety of life on Earth, the complex relations among living things and their environments, and the role biodiversity plays in sustaining the systems upon which all life, including humanity, depends. Biodiversity plays a crucial role in services including purifying air and water, detoxifying waste, stabilizing climate, moderating floods, renewing soil fertility, and ensuring that life has the ability to adapt to change. This complex combination of life forms and their interactions with each other and the environment makes Earth a uniquely habitable place. But human activity, especially the destruction of habitats resulting from the expansion of populations and development, is causing diversity to be lost at an accelerated rate. Estimates are that species are becoming extinct at a thousand times the natural rate, and once gone, such losses are irreversible. The International Year of Biodiversity is an opportunity to highlight the achievements that have been made in conserving biodiversity and to focus on the urgency of the problem.
Part of the challenge is that biodiversity is a complex, scientific subject. Different definitions exist, and new knowledge is added to our understanding of the concept every day. People are also constantly testing new strategies to conserve diversity. Here are some books from the library collection that are useful introductions, and we have others if you really want to dig into the science and the practices of conservation. While complex, at heart, biodiversity is about the amazing and sometimes surprising connections between you and the world around you.
E.O. Wilson. The Future of Life. (2002)
Harvard biologist and Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Wilson draws on two decades of research on biological diversity to describe vividly the richness of our biosphere and the damage humankind has caused and increasingly continues to cause to it. Emphasizing the need to understand fully the biodiversity of our planet and the value of the ecosystem services it supports, as well as making the case to adopt a global land ethic, he proposes a variety of strategies that seek common ground between economic progress and conservation. Although the challenges are large, he is ultimately optimistic that Earth's living history can be preserved.
Yvonne Baskin. The Work of Nature: How the Diversity of Life Sustains Us. (1997)
“How many species can be lost before the ecological systems that nurture life begin to break down?” While not always readily obvious, the complex relationships of biodiversity are crucial to maintaining the basic life support systems of our planet in the ways they provide clean air, pure water, and fertile soils, among other things. Science journalist Yvonne Basking surveys the work of leading ecologists and explains clearly the practical consequences of biodiversity loss for the health, stability, and functioning of ecosystems, as well as the extraordinary challenges involved in ecological restoration.
Niles Eldredge. Life in the Balance: Humanity and the Biodiversity Crisis. (1998)
Paleontologist and Curator in the Department of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, Niles Eldredge brings an evolutionary perspective to the present-day biodiversity crisis in which the yearly loss of species is approaching the scale of the mass global extinctions of the distant past. Written for a general audience, he focuses on four questions: “What is biodiversity?”, “Why should we care about biodiversity?”, “What threatens biodiversity?”, and “What can we do?” An appendix listing animal species that have become extinct since 1600 is a sobering indicator of how human activity had radically transformed the ecosystems of the planet.
E.O. Wilson & Frances M. Peter, eds. Biodiversity. (1988)
This book collects papers from the National Forum on BioDiverstiy, held in Washington, D.C., on September 21-24, 1986, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and Smithsonian Institution. The forum featured over 60 leading biologists, economists, agricultural experts, philosophers, representatives of assistance and lending agencies, and other professionals, and it did much to popularize the concept. It is a comprehensive overview of the science, still relevant today, and an urgent warning about the rapid alteration and destruction of the environments that have fostered the diversity of life forms on the planet for more than a billion years.
Bruce A. Stein, Lynn S. Kutner, & Jonathan S. Adams, eds. Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States. (2000)
This work is a joint project of The Nature Conservancy, the Association for Biodiversity Information, and natural heritage programs in all fifty states, collecting together for the first time ever over twenty-five years of research and information gathered by state biodiversity inventories. With over 200,000 species of animals, plants, and microbes, the United States is biologically rich and has the most diverse flora and fauna of any largely temperate zone nation. However, up to one-third of these species are at risk and more than 500 have already disappeared, largely as a result of habitat destruction. To address these threats, the authors review the fundamental strategies underlying most biodiversity conservation efforts and suggest a blueprint for the future.
Jack Ahearn, Elizabeth Leduc, and Mary Lee York. Biodiversity Planning and Design: Sustainable Practices. (2006)
This work explores the role of landscape architects and planners in influencing land use decisions for the promotion of biodiversity conservation, particularly with regard to minimizing habitat loss and degradation. Drawing on a wide range of case studies from around the United States, the authors examine the issues, concepts, and methods involved, and illustrate how an interdisciplinary approach led by planners and designers working with conservation biologists, restoration ecologists, and natural and social scientists can advance sustainable practices.
