Biodiversity and Conservation
Gabriel Melchias
ISBN 978-1-57808-146-2; 2001; 250 Pages, pb; US $ 44.20      Buy Now

"... there has been no other book so thoroughly surveying biodiversity and conservation in so short a space, or that identifies so many potential or existing problems with current or posed policies."

Contents:
BIODIVERSITY: AN OUTLINE
. Introduction
. Why is Biodiversity Important?
. Plant Diversity
. Animal Diversity
. Marine Biodiversity
. Human Diversity-The Indigenous Peoples
. Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity

GENETIC RESOURCES
. Crop Genetic Diversity
. Uniformity vs. Diversity
. Agricultural Biodiversity
. Green Revolution: The Cost and Remedy
. Who Controls Genetic Diversity?
. Animal Genetic Resources
. Erosion of Animal Genetic Diversity
. Aquatic Diversity
. Is Aquaculture the Solution?
. Human Genetic Diversity
. The Convention on Biological Diversity
. The North and South: Need for Shared Responsibility

BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIODIVERSITY
. The Techniques
. The Dream and the Nightmare
. The Cases
. Release of GMOs into the Environment
. Biosafety

BIODIVERSITY PROSPECTING
. The Problems
. The Mechanisms and the Economics
. Human Diversity Prospecting?
. Prospecting or Bargaining?
. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
. The Tangled Genes: Invention or Discovery?
. Why Patents should not be Extended to Plants and Animals?

CONSERVATION
. The Principles and the Rationale
. Parks Versus People
. Conservation Outside Protected Areas
. Ex Situ Conservation
. Ex Situ: UN FAO's State of the World Report
. Conservation of Animal Biodiversity
. Fish Conservation
. Conservation of Marine Biodiversity
. Wild: The Hidden Harvest
. Global Programmes of Conservation - FAO, NGOs and the CGIAR