Conserving Living Natural Resources. - In the context of a changing world

Conserving Living Natural Resources provides students, managers, and general readers with an introduction to the principles of managing biological resources. It presents the historical and conceptual contexts of three seminal approaches to the management of living natural resources: utilitarian management for harvest of featured species and control of unwanted species, protection and restoration of populations and habitats to maintain biodiversity, and management of complex ecosystems to sustain both productivity and biodiversity. The book shows how the first two approaches were grounded in the belief that nature is "in balance" and that people are outsiders, and then goes on to show how the "flux-of-nature" viewpoint suggests new strategies for conservation grounded in a view of nature as dynamic, and people as participants in the natural world. Rather than endorsing a single approach as the only correct one, this book investigates the historical and philosophical contexts, conceptual frameworks, principal techniques, and limitations of each approach.