Customer Reviews

Hotspots Revisited: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It isn't often that a sumptuous coffee table book is both visually appealing and scientifically packed with well-researched data. Hotspots Revisited hits the mark on both scores. This updated revision of the 1999 edition of Hotspots expands the number of planetary hotspots to 35. This is an information-packed compendium on those areas of our planet that are species-rich and home to the highest levels of species endemism. The book acknowledges that all biodiversity is important and that all nations and communities must do everything possible to protect our planet's rich biological heritage. Life, however, is not evenly distributed around the world and because of this fact, this volume presents a convincing and forceful rationale for adopting the hotspot strategy for prioritizing areas for biological conservation. This is done by summarizing the distributions of plants and vertebrate animals in a way that is both comprehensive and intelligible to even the lay reader who does not have an extensive background in the biological sciences. This volume is both a visual feast and a celebration of life. It is hard to set it aside once you have opened it. Without a doubt, it is one of the best bargains of any book offered by Amazon.com and should be required reading for all governmental and private organizations charged with saving our natural resources at a time when the fabric of life on planet Earth is being threatened by overexploitation, environmental destruction, violent conflict, and countless other factors. Buy it, read it thoroughly, learn more stunning facts about planetary geography and biodiversity than you have probably ever been exposed to at one sitting, and by all means loan it to a friend once you have immersed yourself in this model expose of our planet's extraordinary biodiversity.

This is a massive book. It is really much too large to easily read unless you sit down with it and prop it on a table. The weight and size make it a bit uncomfortable to read and that is a shame as it has such good content and is a very important and timely book about the earth's biodiversity crisis.

Hotspots are areas of the earth that harbor unusually high concentrations of plants, birds, mammals, fish and other species out of proportion to their small area. Examples are the cloud forests of the Andes and the Atlantic Rain Forest of Brazil. Most of these areas are threatened by logging or other development and biologists are racing to catalog and describe all that is there as the conservationists struggle to protect portions of the areas. This book shows with gorgeous images the beauty of these rare places and helps to explain their immense value through the text, tables and charts for each region.

There is much to learn from the pages of this book and to appreciate from the images taken across the world. I too would recommend sharing this book with friends but would recommend a weight lifting program before hauling this off to your reading room.

Excellent book...great resource and testament about how beautiful our World is and potentially reminder what we are slowly but surely ruining around us!