Tropical Forests and Their Crops

Tropical Forests and Their Crops
Author: Nigel J. H. Smith
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 585
Release: 2018-05-31
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1501717944

The tropics are the source of many of our familiar fruits, vegetables, oils, and spice, as well as such commodities as rubber and wood. Moreover, other tropical fruits and vegetables are being introduced into our markets to offer variety to our diet. Now, as tropical forests are increasingly threatened, we face a double-fold crisis: not only the loss of the plants but also rich pools of potentially useful genes. Wild populations of crop plants harbor genes that can improve the productivity and disease resistance of cultivated crops, many of which are vital to developing economies and to global commerce. Eight chapters of this book are devoted to a variety of tropical crops—beverages, fruit, starch, oil, resins, fuelwood, fodder, spices, timber, and nuts—the history of their domestication, their uses today, and the known extent of their gene pools, both domesticated and wild. Drawing on broad research, the authors also consider conservation strategies such as parks and reserves, corporate holdings, gene banks and tissue culture collections, and debt-for-nature swaps. They stress the need for a sensitive balance between conservation and the economic well-being of local populations. If economic growth is part of the conservation effort, local populations and governments will be more strongly motivated to save their natural resources. Distinctly practical and soundly informative, this book provides insight into the overwhelming abundance of tropical forests, an unsettling sense of what we may lose if they are destroyed, and a deep appreciation for the delicate relationships between tropical forest plants and people around the world.

Managing the Wild

Managing the Wild
Author: Charles M. Peters
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 030022933X

Based on more than three decades of fieldwork in tropical forests around the globe, the stories in this absorbing book provide a look at how local communities subtly manage the forest resources on which they depend.

Insect Pests in Tropical Forestry

Insect Pests in Tropical Forestry
Author: F. R. Wylie
Publisher: CABI
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2012
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1845936361

"The management of tropical forest ecosystems is essential to the health of the planet. This book addresses forest insect pest problems across the world's tropics, addressing the pests' ecology, impact and possible approaches for their control. Fully updated, this second edition also includes discussions of new areas of interest including climate change, invasive species, forest health and plant clinics. This work is an indispensible resource for students, researchers and practitioners of forestry, ecology, pest management and entomology in tropical and subtropical countries."--pub. desc.

Why Forests? Why Now?

Why Forests? Why Now?
Author: Frances Seymour
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2016-12-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1933286865

Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.

Tropical Forests

Tropical Forests
Author: Peter D. Moore
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2009
Genre: Environmental sciences
ISBN: 1438118740

Explores the biodiversity of forests, from microbes to mammals, as well as the adaptations of organisms to their environment and to the other species surrounding them. This book examines the interactions between organisms and their physical surroundings and the processes that link the two into an integrated ecosystem.

Tropical Forests in Prehistory, History, and Modernity

Tropical Forests in Prehistory, History, and Modernity
Author: Patrick Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2019-01-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0192550551

In popular discourse, tropical forests are synonymous with 'nature' and 'wilderness'; battlegrounds between apparently pristine floral, faunal, and human communities, and the unrelenting industrial and urban powers of the modern world. It is rarely publicly understood that the extent of human adaptation to, and alteration of, tropical forest environments extends across archaeological, historical, and anthropological timescales. This book is the first attempt to bring together evidence for the nature of human interactions with tropical forests on a global scale, from the emergence of hominins in the tropical forests of Africa to modern conservation issues. Following a review of the natural history and variability of tropical forest ecosystems, this book takes a tour of human, and human ancestor, occupation and use of tropical forest environments through time. Far from being pristine, primordial ecosystems, this book illustrates how our species has inhabited and modified tropical forests from the earliest stages of its evolution. While agricultural strategies and vast urban networks emerged in tropical forests long prior to the arrival of European colonial powers and later industrialization, this should not be taken as justification for the massive deforestation and biodiversity threats imposed on tropical forest ecosystems in the 21st century. Rather, such a long-term perspective highlights the ongoing challenges of sustainability faced by forager, agricultural, and urban societies in these environments, setting the stage for more integrated approaches to conservation and policy-making, and the protection of millennia of ecological and cultural heritage bound up in these habitats.

Biodiversity and Agriculture

Biodiversity and Agriculture
Author: Jitendra Srivastava
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 44
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780821336168

Agriculture's vital role in biodiversity conservation and management. Definition of biodiversity. Biodiversity's links to agriculture. Biodiversity and agriculture: on a collision course?. Rationale for the World Bank's involvement in biodiversity management. Biodiversity in the Bank's agricultural and environmental portfolios. Towards a strategy for biodiversity conservation in harmony with agricultural development.

Jungle

Jungle
Author: Patrick Roberts
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2021-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0241990793

'A bold, ambitious and truly wonderful history of the world' Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees 'A fascinating story and a crucial revision of the momentous importance of tropical forests to human history' Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins _________________________ Jungle tells the remarkable story of the world's tropical forests, from the arrival of the first plants millions of years ago to the role of tropical forests in the evolution of the world's atmosphere, the dinosaurs, the first mammals and even our own species and ancestors. Highlighting provocative new evidence garnered from cutting-edge research, Dr Roberts shows, for example, that our view of humans as 'savannah specialists' is wildly wrong, and that the 'Anthropocene' began not with the Industrial Revolution, but potentially as early as 6,000 years ago in the tropics. We see that the relationship between humankind and 'jungles' is deep-rooted, that we are all connected to their destruction, and that we must all act to save them. Urgent, clear-sighted and original, Jungle challenges the way we think about the world - and ourselves. _________________________ 'Welcome to the "Jungle" - a breathtaking book' Mark Maslin, author of How to Save Our Planet 'Timely, readable and highly relevant' Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs 'Its revelations and stories will stir, rearrange and populate your mind for years to come' Paul Hawken, editor of Drawdown 'Brilliant ... it delivers a timely warning about our abuse of the environment' David Abulafia, author of The Great Sea 'Finally, a book on rainforests that does justice to their majesty and importance' Simon Lewis, co-author of The Human Planet

Biodiversity

Biodiversity
Author: National Academy of Sciences/Smithsonian Institution
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 535
Release: 1988-01-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309037395

This important book for scientists and nonscientists alike calls attention to a most urgent global problem: the rapidly accelerating loss of plant and animal species to increasing human population pressure and the demands of economic development. Based on a major conference sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution, Biodiversity creates a systematic framework for analyzing the problem and searching for possible solutions.

Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics

Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics
Author: Pedro A. Sanchez
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 685
Release: 2019-01-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107176050

Long-awaited second edition of classic textbook, brought completely up to date, for courses on tropical soils, and reference for scientists and professionals.