Urban Ecology: An Introduction
Rating: Ian Douglas and Philip James. 2015. Urban Ecology – an introduction. Routledge. ISBN978 0 415 53895 4 It’s fairly clear that the human future is urban. We passed the half-way mark some time ago and now we are increasingly urbanised. Yet this urban future is not totally concrete. Cities have parks and other designated open spaces. Almost half of London can be considered as greenspace! It’s increasingly obvious, from bomb sites as havens of rare species to brownfield sites […]
Fynbos
Rating: Nicky Allsopp, Jonathon Colville and G Anthony Verboom (eds). 2014. Fynbos: ecology, evolution and conservation of a megadiverse region. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 0 19 967958 4 I first heard of the Fynbos from neighbours who had lived and travelled in South Africa years previously. It sounded dramatic but it wasn’t until later that I was aware of its biodiversity and uniqueness. From that point of view, I was pleased to see a text devoted to the topic […]
Vote Bird!
It’s surprising what you can find on the ‘net! I’d never really given this much thought before but, it’s true – we don’t have a national bird. You’ve got emus, bald eagles and even something quite exotic, like the Himalayan Monal. But before we all jump up and start looking for the nearest feathered creature to give the title to, perhaps we ought to stop and think. First of all, we don’t need to worry, a website has got it […]
An Environmental History of Wildlife in England 1650-1950
Rating: Tom Williamson. 2013. An Environmental History of Wildlife in England 1650-1950. Bloomsbury. ISBN978 1 4411 2486 9. It is probably fair to say that I was brought up to consider the English countryside as natural; as something that had always been there. Wildlife were the plants and animals that lived outside of towns and farms. All very simple really. And almost certainly completely wrong! I didn’t get it immediately. It took me some years to finally get to teach […]
Seed conservation and the doomsday vault
Ideas can come in many shapes and sizes. As I was contemplating a suitable blog topic, I was handed a copy of Life After People – a movie based on the simple notion of what would remain of our structures if we were to suddenly disappear. Around this time I was reading articles on seed conservation and so the two melded. I’m not so much concerned about what happens after us but what happens to us if anything else goes […]
Shark!
I think it would be safe to say there’s been something of a shark frenzy over here in Australia in the past few weeks. Headlines like this surface every now and again and are always worth a few column cm (or whatever the digital equivalent is). The trouble is, they lead on to a set of predictable responses, from both sides of the conservation fence, and I’m not sure that this actually helps understanding or safety. Let’s look at the […]
Wildlife and Countryside Link
Wildlife and Countryside Link is an umbrella organisation for 42 conservation groups. Founded over 30 years ago it seeks to put forward a more united voice for wildlife conservation. It’s recent report is 2013 Nature Check which describes, using a simple traffic light system, the advances, or not, in conservation over the year. Of most interest is its inclusion into the BES Blog for the month
Dictionary of Environment and Conservation
Rating: Chris Park and Michael Allaby. 2013. Oxford Dictionary of Environment and Conservation.2e. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 0 19 964166 6. This isn’t the first dictionary I’ve ever reviewed and I think it’s important that I continue because they need to be publicised, but there are certain inherent problems. Firstly, it’s a dictionary – what are you expecting? Normally, I can go through chapters, making points linking ideas and generally trying my best to highlight what I see as […]
Birdlife International
Birdlife International is a partnership of global bird conservation NGOs. The site has a range of useful material. Perhaps the best product is the ‘State of the World’s Birds‘ Report.
Vegetation Ecology
Rating: Eddy van der Maarel and Janet Franklin. eds. 2013. Vegetation Ecology. 2e. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978 1 4443 3889 8. Of course, the study of vegetation in ecology is one of the oldest parts of the discipline, as vegetation science is in many allied disciplines e.g. biogeography (although one of the first discrete texts was published only in 1974!). Nominally concerned with plant cover and the relationships with the environment, vegetation science has grown considerably as a discipline in recent […]
