The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Vol. 2: Conserving Biodiversity in Human-Dominated Landscapes (Volume 2)

A companion volume to The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Renewing the Conservation Promise, published by Island Press in fall 2005, this new book examines the key policy tools available for protecting biodiversity in the United States by revisiting some basic questions in conservation: What are we trying to protect and why? What are the limits of species-based conservation? Can we develop new conservation strategies that are more ecologically and economically viable than past approaches? The Endangered Species Act at Thirty is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of issues surrounding the Endangered Species Act, with a specific focus on the act's actual implementation record over the past thirty years. The result of a unique, multi-year collaboration among stakeholder groups from across the political spectrum, the two volumes offer a dispassionate consideration of a highly polarized topic. Renewing the Conservation Promise, Volume 1, puts the reader in a better position to make informed decisions about future directions in biodiversity conservation by elevating the policy debate from its current state of divisive polemics to a more-constructive analysis. It helps the reader understand how the Endangered Species Act has been implemented, the consequences of that implementation, and how the act could be changed to better serve the needs of both the species it is designed to protect and the people who must live within its mandates. Volume 2 examines philosophical, biological, and economic dimensions of the act in greater detail Conserving Biodiversity in Human-Dominated Landscapes examines the key policy tools available for protecting biodiversity in the United States by revisiting some basic questions in What are we trying to protect and why? What are the limits of species-based conservation? Can we develop new conservation strategies that are more ecologically and economically viable than past approaches?