Monitoring Forest Biodiversity: Improving Conservation through Ecologically-Responsible Management (The Earthscan Forest Library) - Tapa dura

"The book provides a comprehensive synthesis of an extensive and diffuse literature, and is highly suitable and readable text for graduate courses and seminars. Gardner’s book sets a new and high standard for monitoring forest biodiversity. Putting this vision into practice presents many challenges, but will be well worth the effort." - Robin L. Chazdon, University of Connecticut, in International Forestry Review

"Many of the recommendations in the book are not limited to assessing biodiversity just in forest ecosystems. Indeed, many of these concepts can and should be applied to a diversity of ecosystems and regions facing similar perils in a changing world, making this book a 'must-have' for any manager, graduate student, or scientist interested in monitoring." - Benjamin Zuckerberg, Cornell University for Ecology

"This book provides a highly original review of one of the greatest challenges facing today's conservation and forestry professionals." - Jeffrey Sayer, Senior Scientific Adviser, Forest Conservation Programme, IUCN - International Union for Conservation of Nature. 

"Toby Gardner's excellent book contains many valuable lessons and recommendations on ways to improve forest monitoring, how to promote far better and more ecologically sustainable forest management, and approaches to significantly improve biodiversity conservation programs... Researchers, policy-makers, and forest managers need to read this book." - David Lindenmayer, Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University 

"Toby Gardner's timely, accessible and much needed book provides a constructive and common sense review of key problems and remedies regarding the future of forest biodiversity. His clear-headed proposals about monitoring and good practice offer a practical guide to improved forest management and conservation. I urge all those concerned with the fate of the world's forests to read and consider what this book has to say." - Douglas Sheil, Director, Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation, Uganda, and Senior Research Associate, Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia 

"Monitoring Forest Biodiversity is a must-read for any forest carbon practitioner who wishes to further develop our demanding field. It clearly explains how to affect large-scale, statistically significant impacts that positively influence biodiversity and the surrounding forest community based on real, repeatable, equitable, and verifiable forest carbon project management." - Ecosystem Marketplace

"The book provides an excellent overview of contemporary work by a distinguished list of authors and will be an important addition to the bookshelves of those engaged in forest landscape modelling." – Jeffrey Sayer and Jaboury Ghazoul in the International Forestry Review

"One would hope that Toby Gardner’s outstanding new contribution would not be restricted only to the attention of aficionados of forest management and ecology. The book is very readily translatable to monitoring and management of other major ecosystem types, such as marine and freshwater ecosystems, although a number of the middle chapters (e.g. Chapter 11) understandably are much focused on forest applications. A particular strength of Gardner’s book is a nice marriage between abstract principles and the unpacking necessary for implementation by practitioners." – Ralph MacNally in Austral Ecology

"The book aims to demonstrate the need for integrating monitoring and management in an operational system to enhance forest stewardship and biodiversity conservation; and to provide an operational framework for adaptive management to ensure the resilience of forest systems. Monitoring Forest Biodiversity meets these aims well ... The book avoids unnecessary terminology and semantics. This is an important feature, as it will likely become a key reference for conservation practitioners, resource managers, policy makers and auditors of forest certification." – Chris J. Kettle in Biotropica

"[...] Monitoring Forest Biodiversity is a highly useful text, containing valuable lessons and suggestions and sharp, thought-provoking critiques. It offers ways in which monitoring biodiversity can help achieve more responsible approaches to forest management. This will be a reference text that many ecologists, forest managers, government agencies and certification authorities will or should turn to." – Arne Baert, Ghent University, Belgium, in Economic Botany

The fate of much of the world's terrestrial biodiversity depends upon our ability to improve the management of forest ecosystems that have already been substantially modified by humans. Monitoring is an essential ingredient in meeting this challenge, allowing us to measure the impact of different human activities on biodiversity and identify more responsible ways of managing the environment. Nevertheless many biodiversity monitoring programs are criticised as being little more than 'tick the box' compliance exercises that waste precious resources and erode the credibility of science in the eyes of decision makers and conservation investors. The purpose of this book is to examine the factors that make biodiversity monitoring programs fail or succeed. 

The first two sections lay out the context and importance of biodiversity monitoring, and shed light on some of the key challenges that have confounded many efforts to date. The third and main section presents an operational framework for developing monitoring programs that have the potential to make a meaningful contribution to forest management. Discussion covers the scoping, design and implementation stages of a forest biodiversity monitoring program, including defining the purpose, goals and objectives of monitoring, indicator selection, and the process of data collection, analysis and interpretation. Underpinning the book is the belief that biodiversity monitoring should be viewed not as a stand-alone exercise in surveillance but rather as an explicit mechanism for learning about how to improve opportunities for conservation. To be successful in this task, monitoring needs to be grounded in clear goals and objectives, effective in generating reliable assessments of changes in biodiversity and realistic in light of real-world financial, logistical and social constraints.