Biological Conservation in the 21st Century

This edited book, composed of chapters written by scholars of the environmental and biological sciences, examines selected topics from the vast field of conservation biology, with a focus on some of the issues that dominate the current discourses and practices on the conservation biology of large wildlife. The first chapter examines the history and status of conservation biology and examines the status of large wildlife in conservation biology research. The second chapter examines the issues related to urban forestry and conservation, justified by the vast expansion of urban landcover into the habitats of large wildlife and the consequences for people and animals. Chapters Three and Four focus on big cats in the Americas and apply ideas from the theory of conservation biology to assess their conservation possibilities. Chapter Five examines the land cover conflicts that occur between people and animals when transportation networks intrude on habitats. Chapter Six looks at the nuances of governance and the impact on conservation policy. Chapter Seven describes the value of integrated research and geomatics in the applications to protected management. Chapter Eight takes a novel, total ecosystem approach by examining micro- and meso-fauna and their function in ecosystems inclusive of macro-fauna. Chapter Nine takes a case study of vultures, which are the most important scavengers in the world, and examines the impacts of recent diseases that severely decimated their numbers. Chapter Ten takes a case study of a unique savanna area on the forested West African coast, and investigates the ecology of the area and the factors for the extinction of large wildlife.