BIODIVERSITY WEBSITES:

BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEMS NETWORK (BENE):
The Biodiversity and Ecosystems Network, BENE , "is designed to foster enhanced communications and collaborations among those interested in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem protection, restoration, and management." It is a collaborative effort of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Community Environmental Protection Team, National Performance Review (NPR) network initiatives (whatever that is), the Smithsonian Institution and the W.M. Keck Center for Genome Informatics. It is an extensive site and contains a search function.
 
 

CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY:
an unofficial clearing house of information presented by the International Institute for Sustainable Development. It contains detailed summaries of international negotiations on biodiversity and a variety of related subjects.
 
 

ENDANGERED SPECIES:
lists of U.S. endangered species by region. There are lots of links here, including some to periodicals that publish on the web (such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services "Endangered Species Update." Other interesting iems include the full text of full text of the Endangered Species Act, CITES, and other goodies. An interesting-looking link on this site was for the 1994 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals, which is described as follows: "From the World Conservation Monitoring Center, this is a searchable database of all threatened species world-wide." EE-Link is maintained by the National Consortium for Environmental Education and Training, a partner in the Environmental Education and Training Partnership.
 
 

ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES AND RESOURCE INDICATORS (ENTRI):
ENTRI is a service that provides online searching of a database that integrates information about environmental treaties with national resource indicators. The contents of the ENTRI system address a set of core issues of recognized importance to understanding the human dimensions of global change. As you will see when you explore the system, they use these nine specific "issue areas" to provide a framework for organizingu your interactions with the data. The ENTRI system provides convenient, comprehensive lookup services for information about the status of treaties and for values of indicators that illustrate the current state of a nation's socioeconomic, environmental, and natural resources.
 

NATURAL HERITAGE NETWORK:
Sponsored by The Nature Conservancy, this site documents the Natural Heritage programs which exist throughout much of the Western Hemisphere. Collectively, they represent the largest ongoing effort to gather standardized data on endangered plants, animals and ecosystems.
Included is an extensive selection of links to other biodiversity servers:

• The Natural Heritage Network Servers
• The National Biological Information Infrastructure
• Government Relevant Agencies, Other Governments, Multi-Government Agencies
• Botany Sites (Vascular & Non-Vascular Plants)
• Zoology Sites (Higher Animals & Invertebrates)
• Community Ecology Sites
• Natural History Museums
• Miscellaneous University-Based Biodiversity Resources
• Other Biodiversity-Related Biological Sites
• Selected Biological Professional Societies
• Non-Profit Biodiversity Conservation Organizations
• Ecological Stewardship and Protected Areas
• Environmental Networks and Resources
• Other General Sites of Interest
• Search Engines/Directories for the Web
• UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME, CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY:

The Convention on Biological Diversity was signed by over 150 governments at the Rio "Earth Summit" in 1992. It entered into force on 29 December 1993 and has become the centre-piece of international efforts to conserve the planet's biological diversity, ensure the sustainable use of its components, and promote the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.

Included is an extensive selection of links to other biodiversity servers:

WORLD CONSERVATION NETWORK: Some interesting links, including the IUCN (which in turn has lots of other links) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE: Featuring information on the diversity of biological resources, ecosystems, and bioregional management. This site is the first in several WRI theme sites to be posted which will present selections from WRI reports. The sections include links to brief WRI articles which provide an overview, policy options and recommendations, and facts and figures related to the topic.

WORLDWIDE FUND FOR NATURE (WWF): Includes "Global Network Expert Directory" in which you can search for experts on a given subject by topic. Also an extensive list of links to other organizations concerned with wildlife and endangered species.

BIODIVERSITY BOOKS:

International Council for Bird Preservation. 1992. Putting Biodiversity on the Map: Priority Areas for Global Conservation. ICBP, Cambridge, UK.
As the title suggests, this program is directed at determining priority areas for conservation of global biodiversity. Birds can make a unique contribution to this effort because they have dispersed to all areas of the world, they occur in virtually all habitat types, and avian taxonomy and distribution has been sufficiently documented to permit comprehensive global review and analysis. Areas with high concentrations of endemic species have been identified, since these unique areas support the most vulnerable component of global biodiversity.

McNeely, J.A. 1990. Conserving The World's Biological Diversity. IUCN, Washington, DC.
An effort commissioned by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, World Resources Institute, Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund-US, and the World Bank. The subject is biological diversity conservation.

McNeely, J.A. 1988. Economics And Biological Diversity : Developing And Using Economic Incentives To Conserve Biological Resources. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland .
Subjects include the economic aspects of biological diversity conservation and government policy in biological diversity conservation.
 

McNeely , J.A., ed. 1995. Expanding Partnerships In Conservation. Island Press, Covelo, CA.
Commissioned by the ICUN, the World Conservation Union in Washington, D.C., this volume is based on papers presented at the IVth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas, held in Caracas, Venezuela, Feb. 10-21, 1992. Subjects include planning and citizen participation in nature conservation.
 

Meffe, G.K. and R.C. Carroll. 1994. Principles of Conservation Biology. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
An encyclopedia of the relatively new science of conservation biology in large format, this is an edited volume. Geared toward students, this book will aid students to understand the principles underyling conservation biology as well as the inherent difficulties of applying those principles in real-life situations.
 

Munasinghe M. and J.A. McNeely, eds. 1994. Protected Area Economics And Policy : Linking Conservation And Sustainable Development. IUCN, Washington, D.C.
The papers in this volume originated from the Workshop on the Economics of Protected Areas at the IUNC-World Conservation Union Fourth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas, held in Caracas, Venezuela, during February 10-21, 1992. Subjects include sustainable development, conservation of natural resources, and ecotourism case studies.
 

Wilson, E.O. 1992. The Diversity of Life. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
A winner of two Pullitzer Prizes, this book is a remarkable account of how the living world became diverse and how humans are destroying that diversity. It is a tightly reasoned call for a spirit of stewardship over the world's biological wealth which maintains that the forces for preservation and economic development can and must be integrated.

BIODIVERSITY JOURNALS AND PERIODICALS:

BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION
Published bimonthly since 1992 by Chapman and Hall. The subject of this journal is biological diversity conservation.
 

BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
Published since 1968 by Elsevier Applied Science Publishers. The subjects include conservation of natural resources, nature conservation, ecology, and environmental pollution.
 

COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCE DIGEST
Published bimonthly since 1986 by the University of Minnesota's Center for Natural Resource Policy and Management. Subjects are public lands and natural resources.
 

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY
Published since 1987 by Blackwell Scientific Publications. Subjects include plant and nature conservation as well as conservation of natural resources. This is arguably the most important technical journal of conservation biology.
 

CULTURAL SURVIVAL QUARTERLY
Pulished quarterly since 1981 by Cultural Survival, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Subjects include social change, indigineous poeples, and culture.
 

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
Published by Elsevier Sequoia in Lausanne, Switzerland. This international journal is devoted to maintaining global viability through exposing and countering environmental deterioration resulting from human population pressure and unwise technology.
 

PARKS
Published quarterly since 1976 by Northwood in London, England. Subjects include natural areas, natural parks and reserves, and historic sites.
 

PEOPLE AND THE PLANET
Published quarterly since 1992 by IPPF in London, England. Subjects include population control, environmental health, ecology, human ecology, and the environmental aspects of population.