From Library Journal
Jukofsky is director of the Conservation Media Center for the Rainforest Alliance in Costa Rica, an organization dedicated to the promotion of the rainforest as a renewable resource. She devotes a large portion of this text to concise descriptions of those rainforest plants and animals now facing extinction, drawing on articles she has previously collected and field guides like Louise H. Emmons's Neotropical Rainforest Mammals and Doris M. Cochran's Living Amphibians of the World. In this reviewer's area primates the author has skimmed the surface, providing size and color, with one or two facts about behavior or anatomy for about 25 of the 250 primate species, with slightly longer write-ups for the apes. The listings are accurate but fall short of the elaborate information available in field guides. Nevertheless, the text as a whole, which also includes sections on peoples, noted naturalists, and conservation efforts, as well as an extensive bibliography, provides a fine introduction to the world of the rainforest and would be appreciated by any high school/undergraduate library. For academic and larger collections, John Kricher's A Neotropical Companion (Princeton Univ., 1997) serves as an introduction to plants and animals, and Thomas T. Struksaker's Ecology of an African Rain Forest (Univ. Pr. of Florida, 1997) offers an in-depth perspective on rainforest conservation. (Photos not seen.) Raymond Hamel, Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Ctr. Lib., Madison
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On a topic that often calls forth large, lush books, here is a tightly produced volume teeming with short descriptions, definitions, and facts. Some entries are dictionary-like in their brevity, and others are up to a page long. The volume is divided into five main parts along with a preface and introductory essay accompanied by two maps and a table of the changes in the world's tropical rain forests. The introductory essay is exactly what it should be--an introduction to tropical rain forest locations, occupants, and ecology along with a statement of their value.
The first part, "Tropical Forest Wildlife," is arranged alphabetically by animal class, order, family, and species, while the second part, "Tropical Forest Plants," includes descriptions of 261 plant families and species. "People and Tropical Forests" has brief descriptions of indigenous groups living in rain forests and biographical information on 54 naturalists, explorers, scientists, and activists important to rain forest conservation. "Saving Tropical Rainforests" has 27 entries on issues related to deforestation, from Agriculture to Wildlife research management.
The last part, "Rainforest Resources," offers more than 50 pages of reference publications, periodicals, videos, and postal and e-mail addresses for government agencies and organizations. The reference publications are grouped to match the organization of the rest of the volume and include URLs if the information is available electronically. The book's organization makes the detailed index imperative. It is only by using the index that one can locate animals and plants by their common names, because they are listed by their scientific names in the text. With a few exceptions, illustrations are confined to a 16-page section of color plates.
The major value of this book is that it collects and organizes some of the significant rain forest species, people, and resources in one volume and then points the way to finding more information. It should be considered by academic and large public libraries. For school libraries, Marshall Cavendish's lavishly illustrated 11-volume Rain Forests of the World [RBB Ap 15 02] will have more appeal. RBB
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