Vandana Shiva has established herself as a leading independent thinker and voice for the South in that critically important nexus where questions of development strategy, the environment and the posititon of women in society coincide. In this new volume, she brings together her thinking on the protection of biodiversity, the implications of biotechnology, and the consequences for agriculture of the global pre-eminence of Western-style scientific knowledge. In lucid and accessible fashion, she examines the current threats to the planet's biodiversity and the environmental and human consequences of its erosion and replacement by monocultural production. She shows how the new Biodiversity Convention has been gravely undermined by a mixture of diplomatic dilution during the process of negotiation and Northern hi-tech interests making money out of the new biotechnologies. She explains what these technologies involve and gives examples of their impact in practice. She questions their claims to improving natural species for the good of all and highlights the ethical and environmental problems posed. Underlying her arguments is the view that the North's particular approach to scientific understanding has led to a system of monoculture in agriculture - a model that is not being foisted on the South, displacing its societies' ecologically sounder, indigenous and age-old experiences of truly sustainable food cultivation, forest management and animal husbandry. This rapidly accelerating process of technology and system transfer is impoverishing huge numbers of people, disrupting the social systems that provide them with security and dignity, and will ultimately result in a sterile planet in both North and South, In a policy intervention of potentially great significance, she calls instead for a halt, at international as well as local level, to the aid and market incentives to both large-scale destruction of habitats where biodiversity thrives and the introduction of centralised, homogenous systems of cultivation.

Collection of five papers which discuss the importance of biodiversity. Heffa Schucking and Patrick Anderson analyse the dominant paradigm of conservation and reflect on its lacunae. Andrew Gray describes his experiences with indigenous people of Latin America. Larry Lohmann reflects the conservation strategies of the peasant and forest dwelling communities in the case of Thailand. David Cooper provides a critique of the global biodiversity convention and suggest vital components needed for a meaningful agreement. Vandana Shiva attempts to show that production based on principles of uniformity is the biggest threat to biodiversity

Conservationist has been contemptuous of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge. As such, all the modern polices, acts and laws in biodiversity conservation intends to follow a “top down” approach, where decisions to be enacted upon the local people, their land, biodiversity, forest etc are done at the top level without the local peoples consent, which ultimately leads to conflict. As such, the author through this book advocates for the implementation of two pronged policy i.e., “bottom up and top down” approach for a practical and effective biodiversity conservation. While the conservationist, environmentalist and policy makers view the forested lands as the last resort for biodiversity conservation, to the local people it is their only source of livelihood. The author draws attention on the Naga indigenous knowledge system in the light of United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD), through which they were able to sustainable manage and conserve their biodiversity while obtaining their livelihood from the same. This book will help discover a deeper measure and value of the Naga indigenous knowledge system and will act as a resourceful material to students, researchers, activist and local people in their quest to comprehend the important dynamics of biodiversity conservation and indigenous knowledge. It will also serve as a valuable reference for indigenous peoples and policy makers all around the world who seeks to understand and implement indigenous knowledge systems in broader emerging biodiversity conservation policies and strategies.

Quantitative models are increasingly being used to assess the impact of socioeconomic development pathways on biodiversity and environmental services. Regardless of the scenario, the decline of biodiversity will continue throughout the 21st century. Land-use changes drive biodiversity changes in terrestrial systems, while overfishing drives changes in marine systems, and climate change affects all realms. The loss of habitats will lead to local population decreases, and global extinctions will occur at unpredictable rates due to the lag between environmental changes and their effects. To address this, we need to focus more on the relationship between the decline of ecosystem services and the position of species responsible for that function in the trophic hierarchy. Perspectives on Global Biodiversity Scenarios and Environmental Services in the 21st Century makes biodiversity scenarios understandable, relevant, and valuable to stakeholders by using effective language and focused communication techniques. Instead of merely showing the potential effects of global change on biodiversity, scenarios should consider the feedback connecting environmental forces. Biodiversity provides numerous essential environmental services crucial to human well-being both now and in the future. The climate is a critical component of ecosystem functioning and directly and indirectly affects human health. The target audience includes biology and environmental science students and faculty, scientists, social workers who generate and collaborate on biodiversity scenarios, policymakers, and corporations with a basic science understanding.

The loss of the earth's biological diversity is widely recognized as a critical environmental problem. That loss is most severe in developing countries, where the conditions of human existence are most difficult. Conserving Biodiversity presents an agenda for research that can provide information to formulate policy and design conservation programs in the Third World. The book includes discussions of research needs in the biological sciences as well as economics and anthropology, areas of critical importance to conservation and sustainable development. Although specifically directed toward development agencies, non-governmental organizations, and decisionmakers in developing nations, this volume should be of interest to all who are involved in the conservation of biological diversity.

Resource-management decisions, especially in the area of protecting and maintaining biodiversity, are usually incremental, limited in time by the ability to forecast conditions and human needs, and the result of tradeoffs between conservation and other management goals. The individual decisions may not have a major effect but can have a cumulative major effect. Perspectives on Biodiversity reviews current understanding of the value of biodiversity and the methods that are useful in assessing that value in particular circumstances. It recommends and details a list of components-including diversity of species, genetic variability within and among species, distribution of species across the ecosystem, the aesthetic satisfaction derived from diversity, and the duty to preserve and protect biodiversity. The book also recommends that more information about the role of biodiversity in sustaining natural resources be gathered and summarized in ways useful to managers. Acknowledging that decisions about biodiversity are necessarily qualitative and change over time because of the nonmarket nature of so many of the values, the committee recommends periodic reviews of management decisions.