This work updates a decade of environmental and political change. There is information on a wide range of issues that affect the well-being of the living planet, Gaia. A structured approach presents the problems, as well as what can be done towards prevention and a cure. "People as planet managers" is a new illlustrated chapter by OXFAM. It examines the environmental challenges faced by people in developing countries, and the efforts they are making to establish a sustainable future for themselves and their families. The chapters that follow on - "Land", "Ocean", "Elements", "Evolution", "Humankind", "Civilization" and "Management" are each introduced by a leading authority in their field. They highlight the book's global perspective and a holistic approach to planet health. This book sets out the agenda of the environmental movement to the year 2000 and beyond. This revised edition is published to coincide with the post-Rio Earth Summit "Global Forum" which took place in Manchester in June 1994. Dr Norman Myers is the author of "The Long African Day", "The Sinking Ark" and "The Gaia Atlas of Future Worlds". This work is published by Gaia Books and distributed throughout the UK by Oxfam.

 

This book is aimed at the following children: secondary school , university .

There are 150 pages in this book. This book was published 1994 by Octopus Publishing Group .

Gerald Durrell was born in 1925 at Jamshedpur, India. In 1928 his family returned to England and then went to live on the Continent. They settled on the island of Corfu, and during this time he made a special study of zoology and kept a large number of local wild animals as pets. In 1945 he joined the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper and in 1947 he financed, organized and led his first animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. He undertook numerous further expeditions, visiting Paraguay, Argentina, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Mauritius, Assam and Madagascar. His first television programme, 'Two in the Bush', was made in 1962 when he and his first wife travelled to New Zealand, Australia and Malaya. He went on to make seventy programmes out of his trips around the world. In 1959 he founded the Jersey Zoological Park, of which he was Director, and in 1964 he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. He was awarded the OBE in 1982. As a self-described 'champion of small uglies', Durrell dedicated his life to the preservation of wildlife, and it is through his efforts that creatures such as the Mauritius pink pigeon and the Rodrigues fruit bat have avoided extinction. Encouraged to write about his life's work by his novelist brother Lawrence, Durrell published his first book, The Overloaded Ark, in 1953. It soon became a bestseller and he went on to write thirty-six other titles, including My Family and Other Animals, The Bafut Beagles, Encounters with Animals, The Drunken Forest, A Zoo in My Luggage, The Whispering Land, Menagerie Manor, The Amateur Naturalist, The Aye-Aye and I and, with Lee Durrell, Durrell in Russia. Gerald Durrell died in 1995. Speaking about him to the Times Charles Secrett, Director of Friends of the Earth, said 'He was one of the first people to wake the world up to what was happening to the environment. His books and programmes helped a whole new generation of environmentalists come into being. '

This book has the following chapters: People as planet managers; land - forests, agriculture, croplands, pastoral lands, food stocks, desertification, famine; ocean - fish stocks, polar zones, pollution, international law; elements - energy reserves, climate, water, minerals, nuclear power and weapons, alternative energy, pollution; evolution - endangered species, conservation, laws; humankind - labour, unemployment, literacy, health, gender, refugees; civilization - technology, trade, communications, the media, urbanization.