Biodiversity Conservation in Transboundary Protected Areas [Paperback]

Office of Central Europe and Eurasia (Author), National Research Council (Author), Alicja Breymeyer (Editor), Reginald Noble (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0309055768 | ISBN-13: 978-0309055765

Recognizing the increasing rate of species loss on a global scale and that neither pollution nor ecosystems respects political boundaries, cooperation on many different levels is required to conserve biodiversity. This volume uses four protected areas that Poland shares with its neighbors as case studies to explore opportunities to integrate science and management in transboundary protected areas in Central Europe for the conservation of biodiversity. Specific topics include biodiversity conservation theories and strategies, problems of wildlife management, and impacts of tourism and recreational use on protected areas.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Recognizing the increasing rate of species loss on a global scale and that neither pollution nor ecosystems respects political boundaries, cooperation on many different levels is required to conserve biodiversity. This volume uses four protected areas that Poland shares with its neighbors as case studies to explore opportunities to integrate science and management in transboundary protected areas in Central Europe for the conservation of biodiversity. Specific topics include biodiversity conservation theories and strategies, problems of wildlife management, and impacts of tourism and recreational use on protected areas.

About the Author

Alicja Breymeyer and Reginald Noble, Editors; Office of Central Europe and Eurasia, National Research Council

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: National Academies Press (September 27, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0309055768
• ISBN-13: 978-0309055765
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,602,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Though contributors are biologists, now useful mostly as a document of intellectual history, August 6, 2007

By 

Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Biodiversity Conservation in Transboundary Protected Areas (Paperback)

This book, now quite dated, consists of the proceeds from a conference in those heady post-Communist days of the early 1990s. It consists of US and East European biologists discussing problems of transboundary protected areas in Eastern Europe. The obvious subtext to the conference was a bit of scientific and policy imperialism, to inform post-Communist public land managers of the state of the art in the West.

Judged by this book, that altruistic motive seems pretty well justified. The first part of the book consists of American experts discussing US experience, while the rest consists of East Europeans doing the same for their experience. It's painfully clear from a comparison of the two parts just how far many East European land managers fell behind international standards under Communism. The apparent exception is Polish scientists and land managers, who clearly remained part of the international community. Their chapters tend to be the strongest, comparable in quality to the US chapters. Several chapters provide good information about Bialowieza Primeval Forest on the Polish-Belorussian border, for example.

The rest of the book is painfully descriptive and boring. If you want facts and figures about protected areas in Eastern Europe, this is a good source - - but you can probably find the same information on the Internet now. There isn't much to learn about biology or environmental policy in this book because of the huge gap in quality. However, it might make interesting fodder for anyone studying the intellectual history of environmentalism in Eastern Europe, or the spread of western ideas to the East in the early 1990s.