Stability of Tropical Rainforest Margins

Stability of Tropical Rainforest Margins PDF

Author: Teja Tscharntke

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-04-26

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 3540302905

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Tropical rainforests are disappearing at an alarming rate, causing unprecedented losses in biodiversity and ecosystem services. This book contributes to an improved understanding of the processes that have destabilizing effects on ecological and socio-economic systems of tropical rain forest margins, as well as striving to integrate environmental, technological and socio-economic issues in their solution.

Changes and Disturbance in Tropical Rainforest in South-East Asia

Changes and Disturbance in Tropical Rainforest in South-East Asia PDF

Author: D. M. Newbery

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1860942431

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Views on the dynamics of tropical forests are changing rapidly with the recognition that their environment is variable on the decadal to century scale. Fluctuating climatic conditions partly determine tropical forest structure, species composition and dynamics. Tropical communities are also highly contingent in space and time with respect to site and historical factors. Tropical forests have experienced to some degree this disturbance regime in the past, but climatologists are now predicting increasingly frequent extreme events in the new century. The combination of increasing deforestation and land-use conversion by man plus an increasingly variable environment means a situation that could be very difficult to manage.

Environmental Change in South-East Asia

Environmental Change in South-East Asia PDF

Author: Mike Parnwell

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 9780415129336

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Environmental Change in South-East Asia brings together scholars, journalists, consultants and NGO activists to explore the interaction of people, politics and ecology. Ostensibly "green" activities - plantation forestry, eco-tourism, hydro-electricity - are revealed as guises used by elites to promote their own political and economic interests. Highlighting fatal flaws in presently exclusive economic and ecological approaches, the authors stress that neither the quest for sustainable development nor the process of environmental change itself can be understood without reference to political processes.

Land Use, Nature Conservation and the Stability of Rainforest Margins in Southeast Asia

Land Use, Nature Conservation and the Stability of Rainforest Margins in Southeast Asia PDF

Author: Gerhard Gerold

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 3662082373

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Southeast Asia constitutes one of the world's most extended rainforest regions. It is characterized by a high degree of biodiversity and contains a large variety of endemic species. Moreover, these forests provide a number of important and sin gular ecosystem services, like erosion protection and provision of high quality wa ter, which cannot be replaced by alternative ecosystems. However, various forms of encroachment, mostly those made by human interventions, seriously threaten the continuance of rainforests in this area. There is ample evidence that the rainforest resources, apart from large scale commercial logging, are exposed to danger particularly from its margin areas. These areas, which are characterized by intensive man-nature interaction, have been identified as extremely fragile systems. The dynamic equilibrium that bal ances human needs and interventions on the one hand, and natural regeneration capacity on the other, is at stake. The decrease of rainforest resources is, to a sub stantial degree, connected with the destabilization of these systems. Accordingly, the search for measures and processes, which prevent destabilization and promote stability is regarded as imperative. This refers to both the human and the natural part of the forest margin ecosystem.

Forests and Human Health

Forests and Human Health PDF

Author: Carol J. Pierce Colfer

Publisher: CIFOR

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 9792446486

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This study has two central concerns: the state of human health in forests, and the causal links between forests and human health. Within this framework, we consider four issues related to tropical forests and human health. First, we discuss forest foods, emphasizing the forest as a food-producing habitat, human dependence on forest foods, the nutritional contributions of such foods, and nutrition-related problems that affect forest peoples. Our second topic is disease and other health problems. In addition to the major problems—HIV/AIDS, malaria, Ebola and mercury poisoning—we address some 20 other tropical diseases and health problems related to forests. The third topic is medicinal products. We review the biophysical properties of medicinal species and consider related indigenous knowledge, human uses of medicinal forest products, the serious threats to forest sustainability, and the roles of traditional healers, with a discussion of the benefits of forest medicines and conflicts over their distribution. Our fourth and final topic is the cultural interpretations of human health found among forest peoples, including holistic world views that impinge on health and indigenous knowledge. The Occasional Paper concludes with some observations about the current state of our knowledge, its utility and shortcomings, and our suggestions for future research.

Modern Crises and Traditional Strategies

Modern Crises and Traditional Strategies PDF

Author: R. F. Ellen

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9781845453121

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The 1990s have seen a growing interest in the role of local ecological knowledge in the context of sustainable development, and particularly in providing a set of responses to which populations may resort in times of political, economic and environmental instability. The period 1996-2003 in island southeast Asia represents a critical test case for understanding how this might work. The key issues explored in this book are the creation, erosion and transmission of ecological knowledge, and hybridization between traditional and scientifically-based knowledge, amongst populations facing environmental stress (e.g. 1997 El Niño), political conflict and economic hazards. The book will also evaluate positive examples of how traditional knowledge has enabled local populations to cope with these kinds of insecurity.

Lepidoptera and Conservation

Lepidoptera and Conservation PDF

Author: T. R. New

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1118409256

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The third in a trilogy of global overviews of conservation of diverse and ecologically important insect groups. The first two were Beetles in Conservation (2010) and Hymenoptera and Conservation (2012). Each has different priorities and emphases that collectively summarise much of the progress and purpose of invertebrate conservation. Much of the foundation of insect conservation has been built on concerns for Lepidoptera, particularly butterflies as the most popular and best studied of all insect groups. The long-accepted worth of butterflies for conservation has led to elucidation of much of the current rationale of insect species conservation, and to definition and management of their critical resources, with attention to the intensively documented British fauna ‘leading the world’ in this endeavour. In Lepidoptera and Conservation, various themes are treated through relevant examples and case histories, and sufficient background given to enable non-specialist access. Intended for not only entomologists but conservation managers and naturalists due to its readable approach to the subject.

Forests, Water and People in the Humid Tropics

Forests, Water and People in the Humid Tropics PDF

Author: M. Bonell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-12-17

Total Pages: 970

ISBN-13: 9781139443845

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Forests, Water and People in the Humid Tropics is a comprehensive review of the hydrological and physiological functioning of tropical rain forests, the environmental impacts of their disturbance and conversion to other land uses, and optimum strategies for managing them. The book brings together leading specialists in such diverse fields as tropical anthropology and human geography, environmental economics, climatology and meteorology, hydrology, geomorphology, plant and aquatic ecology, forestry and conservation agronomy. The editors have supplemented the individual contributions with invaluable overviews of the main sections and provide key pointers for future research. Specialists will find authenticated detail in chapters written by experts on a whole range of people-water-land use issues, managers and practitioners will learn more about the implications of ongoing and planned forest conversion, while scientists and students will appreciate a unique review of the literature.