Conservation Biology

Rating:
Summary: an adequate introduction for non-majors
Review: When will I learn? I ordered this book for my class on Conservation Biology on the advice of a colleague at a major West Coast University. The moment it arrived I realized that I had mde a major mistake. The book is far too elementary for anyone with a good grounding in field ecology or conservation policy. The pictures are nice (beware text-books that have reviews that keep stressing "beautifully illustrated" -all too often that is a nice way of saying "textually lacking"!) but the text is definitely "dumbed down" & my students squirmed in embarrassment when I forced them to read it. Margins are huge, graphics are of questionable value (when WILL folks stop using exploded 3-D pie charts for anything except confusing the board of directors?)and while the emphasis on the UK does give a sort of "international" flavour if you are teaching in the US it also means that you will need to do either a lot of explaining or give a lot of supplementary reading. my guess is that this book would fit in nicely with standard "environmental studies" curricula where the students were never going to come into contact with the original literature, didn't want to be pushed too hard, and wanted to be familiar with current buzz-words in onservation. beyond that? I don't think so.