Noted with Interest

Abstract

These 3 books are uniquely excellent, each in its own right. Individually, they reveal a view of nature, the problem of biodiversity loss, and a response to this problem. Collectively, they contribute to our understanding of this multifaceted conservation challenge. They also provide insight, indirectly at least, into the effectiveness of our academic and applied work and what to do about both the challenge and our responses. These 3 books give us the assignment, should we choose to accept it, to take stock of our field and its foundational assumptions, better grasp the challenge confronting us as professionals and society, and find pragmatic alternatives to address them effectively.Although the goals are similar, the books are quite different in content and scope. In this review we describe the content of each book and then comment on them altogether given the aspirations of their editors and authors. Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 is edited by Macdonald and Willis and authored by some 93 contributors from diverse fields and experiences. The book is divided into 5 parts, starting with a preface (4 pp.), which lays out the impetus for the book, some stocktaking statistics of global change since the publication of Key Topics in Conservation Biology 1, and the questions they seek to address. The preface begins with a quotation, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" by Charles Dickens and ends with another quotation, "With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed" by Abraham Lincoln, which serve as bookends that harken to the times we live in and the most fundamental pragmatics of problem solving. At its heart, the book seeks to create a more effective "framework" for understanding ourselves, our work, and its context and to provide a formula for addressing the biodiversity crisis. In part I, "The Framework"