Books in the Natural Resource Management Set series

The destruction of the tropical forest is one of the major problems of our time. This book provides a vision of hope: in Latin America, Africa, and South East Asia, growing numbers of people are developing techniques specifically designed to promote the wise use and preservation of remaining forest lands.

Plantations are playing an increasingly important part in the development and the economies of the South. This book examines their rationale and purpose, exposing the misconceptions and myths that have surrounded their role, and describing the contribution they can make to sustainable development.

Much of the world's tropical timber is supplied from natural forest. This book reviews the extent to which natural forests are already being sustainably managed for timber production, and looks at how these practices can be enlarged. It is intended for those working or interested in the subject of tropical forests.

The agriculture in the industrialised countries has undergone a revolution. That has dramatically increased yields, but it has also led to: extensive rural depopulation; widespread degradation of the environment; and, contamination of food with agrochemicals and bacteria. This work discusses the politics of Industrial Agriculture.

The need to produce food without the destructive chemical horrors of much modern farming, for an intelligent use of dwindling natural resources and for humane forms of production is universal, the practice is limited. This book presents an account of one, large, instance of success in practice.

There is not a coast in the world which is not dangerously polluted. Sewage, industrial effluents, radioactive waste have been added to ungoverned development, all of which are destroying inshore eco-systems. This book describes the situation in the Mediterranean, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the South-East Asian Seas and the Eastern Pacific.

Wild genetic resources - the heritable characteristics of wild plants and animals - are used increasingly to improve domesticated crops and livestock and as new sources of food and of raw materials. This book describes the growing contribution of wild genetic resources to the production of food and raw materials, and their characteristics.

Agriculture produces methane and the products of burning off, which add to the world's problems of acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer and global warming. Focusing on the UK, the USA and Third World countries, this book reviews the agriculture and pollution. It examines the facts and assesses the relative dangers of the pollution problems.

Genetic diversity is essential to the security of agriculture. Without the availability of a wide range of plant varieties and the genetic resources they contain, crops cannot adapt to combat the ever-changing threats of pests, diseases and climatic change. This book traces the decline of crop varieties in European farming.

'The Green Revolution' of the 60s and 70s produced immense gains in food cereal production in the Third World. But there are huge problems in the 'post-revolutionary' era. This book looks at the effects of international economic restraints and of national policies on the required development.

Tropical rain forest is being cleared so rapidly and on such a scale that it is a major global environmental problem, threatening the survival of half of the world's plant and animal species. This book offers an analysis of the causes of deforestation and presents a strategy for controlling it.

Behind the headlines about the loss of tropical forests in Latin America lies a complex and fascinating story of the social pressures which cause it. This book looks at the various groups, interests and conflicts involved, and explores the repercussions for forestry, the environment and the livelihoods of the rural and urban poor.

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Lands lost to desert may effectively be lost for ever, so desertification is humanity's most obvious despoliation to the planet. This book describes what is happening and where. It also discusses many of the myriad ways in which it is possible to arrest the progress of desertification.

Destruction is usually a poor trade-off: well-managed wetlands in Louisiana are producing fortunes in seafood and timber. This book examines the value of swamps and marshes, as well as the threats against them. It takes the reader to some of the world's most bizarre landscapes like the 'inland delta' of the Niger River in drought-stricken Mali.