Customer Reviews

Continental Conservation: Scientific Foundations Of Regional Reserve Networks

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This book, supported by The Wildlands Project, examines the scientific questions associated with preserving lands at the very large scale. They wish to shift the focus of conservation efforts from regional problems - - the Sonora Desert, say - - to truly continental problems such as the Yellowstone-to-Yukon system. The ambition is admirable.

The authors are knowledgeable and present the information well, so there is quite a bit to learn here. The chapters also make clear that there is much to be learned.

This edited book reviews the issues, such as the issue of scale, the role of top carnivores, and strategies such as core areas and buffer zones. Most chapters have too many authors (up to 15), and as a result several of the interior chapters read more like literature reviews than conceptual reworkings or real visions for conservation. Perhaps these scientists are too closely tied to existing research to be able to grasp a wider vision.

Another weakness is that the contributors don't necessarily stay on their assigned topics. The reasons are understandable. Most research on nature preserves, wildlife corridors, buffer zones between preserves and developed areas, and other topics have focused on a scale no larger than, say, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It's clear not only that the research is lacking for those who want to think at a continental scale, but the conceptual categories themselves do not yet exist.

Of course, the editors of this book are trying to spark just that kind of shift in vision. They clearly weren't able to force all their contributors into line, though. Even so, the editors' introduction and conclusion make clear that they understand the task before them, at least from the standpoint of biology. But that won't be enough.

Large-scale conservation projects inevitably come into conflict with humans and their uses of the landscape for agriculture, resource development, and the like. As a result, it would have been appropriate for the authors to include social scientists as well as natural scientists, who (presumably) have some scientifically-grounded knowledge that would be relevant to the problem. An economist, for example, might have helped this book consider the economic costs and consequences of different types of conservation such as large preserved areas or smaller areas connected with corridors. It's unfortunate that such an ambitious conservation vision has not yet become a multidisciplinary one. It will take a broader, and more visionary approach to achieve the lofty goals that Soule and Terborgh have set before us.