People, Plants and protected areas: a guide to in situ management
John Tuxill and Gary Paul Nabhan.
First published 1998; re-issued 2001, Earthscan, London.
People, Plants and Protected Areas is the third in a series of practical manuals in plant conservation sponsored by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), UNESCO and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
The conservation of plant resources has sometimes been directed disproportionally towards seed banks and botanical gardens. However, a comprehensive conservation strategy should seek to complement this off-site approach with the in situ management of plant resources in their natural habitats. With the dual aims of facilitating better management of protected areas and illustrating innovative approaches to the conservation of plant resources within their original landscapes, the emphasis of People, Plants and Protected Areas is firmly on the practical conservation of plant biodiversity based on collaboration between conservation professionals and local communities. Drawing on concepts and methods from ecology, forestry, conservation biology, agricultural sciences, anthropology and ethnobiology, this book will be an invaluable practical aid to natural resource managers, environmental policy-makers and conservation biologists.
John Tuxill is a Research Fellow with the Worldwatch Institute. He is part of the joint Program in Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Garden and Yale University.
Gary Paul Nabhan is Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University.
Review quote:
"...It is an important addition to the People and Plants series and strongly complements other books in the series, yet stands alone quite well. The book is an invaluable resource for a wide range of people involved with conservation of biological resources and cultural knowledge. The authors do a fine job of presenting different techniques and methods for participatory conservation in a simple yet thorough manner. Even those familiar with the techniques described in the book would do well to read it because the authors' own field experiences are interwoven throughout the book, and illustrate the methods nicely...
The Tuxill and Nabhan volume is only 247 pages yet contains more information than most books three times its length. Go out and buy two copies of this book: one for the reference shelf and one to take into the field where you will be sure to use it."
John R. Stepp
Laboratories of Ethnobiology
Department of Anthropology
Baldwin Hall
University of Georgia
Athens, GA USA 30602-1619
Economic Botany 55(2) pp. 330-338. 2001
