Falk Huettmann

Samuel A. Cushman

As Earth faces the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years, the present is a moment of tremendous foment and emergence in ecological science. With leaps in advances in ecological research and the technical tools available, scientists face the critical task of challenging policymakers and the public to recognize the urgency of our global crisis. This book focuses directly on the interplay between theory, data, and analytical methodology in the rapidly evolving fields of animal ecology, conservation, and management. The mixture of topics of particular current relevance includes landscape ecology, remote sensing, spatial modeling, geostatistics, genomics, and ecological informatics. The greatest interest to the practicing scientist and graduate student will be the synthesis and integration of these topics to provide a composite view of the emerging field of spatial ecological informatics and its applications in research and management.

Spatial Complexity, Informatics, and Wildlife Conservation

Ganga Ram Regmi

This book describes the myriad components of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region. The contributors elaborate on challenges, failures, and successes in efforts to conserve the HKH, its indigenous plants and animals, and the watershed that runs from the very roof of the planet via world-rivers to marine estuaries, supporting a human population of some two billion people. Readers will learn how the landforms, animal species and humans of this globally fascinating region are connected, and understand why runoff from snow and ice in the world’s tallest mountains is vital to inhabitants far downstream. The book comprises forty-five chapters organized in five parts. The first section, Landscapes, introduces the mountainous watersheds of the HKH, its weather systems, forests, and the 18 major rivers whose headwaters are here. The second part explores concepts, cultures, and religions, including ethnobiology and indigenous regimes, two thousand years of religious tradition, and the history of scientific and research expeditions. Part Three discusses policy, wildlife conservation management, habitat and biodiversity data, as well as the interaction of animals and humans. The fourth part examines the consequences of development and globalization, from hydrodams, to roads and railroads, to poaching and illegal wildlife trade. This section includes studies of animal species including river dolphins, woodpeckers and hornbills, langurs, snow leopards and more. The concluding section offers perspectives and templates for conservation, sustainability and stability in the HKH, including citizen-science projects and a future challenged by climate change, growing human population, and global conservation decay. A large assemblage of field and landscape photos, combined with eye-witness accounts, presents a 50-year local and wider perspective on the HKH. Also included are advanced digital topics: data sharing, open access, metadata, web portal databases, geographic information systems (GIS) software and machine learning, and data mining concepts all relevant to a modern scientific understanding and sustainable management of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region. This work is written for scholars, landscape ecologists, naturalists and researchers alike, and it can be especially well-suited for those readers who want to learn in a more holistic fashion about the latest conservation issues.

Hindu Kush-Himalaya Watersheds Downhill: Landscape Ecology and Conservation Perspectives

The Arctic, the Antarctic, and the Hindu Kush-Himalayas form a trio of terrains sometimes called “the three poles”. Mainly composed of rock, snow, and ice, these precious regions, which are home to many unique species such as the polar bear, the emperor penguin, and the snow leopard, contain the primary water resource of this planet and directly shape our climate. This book presents a first-ever global assessment and progressive review of the three poles and demonstrates the urgent need for their protection. Sins of the past have irrevocably harmed and threatened many of the unique qualities of these regions, and the future looks bleak with the global population forecast to reach 9 billion by 2060, and with climate change on the rise. Presented here is a wide-reaching and coherent overview of the three poles’ biodiversity, habitats, and ongoing destruction. Failed protection and social targets set by the United Nations and other bodies are exposed while economic growth, unconstrained or inappropriate development, and urban sprawl are promoted unabated. Polar regions play a major role in the global agenda as they are rich in oil and other resources, marking them for contamination, overfishing, and further degradation. Tourism in the Antarctic has benefited from enlightened self-regulation, but there are signs that this is changing, too. The chapters of this book are written by experts in their fields, and their evidence leaves no doubt that we already live beyond our carrying capacity on a finite but decaying space. A global protection role model and several outlook scenarios are proposed to help set in motion polar protection priorities that are actually valid. Humanity has demonstrated through international treaties such as the Antarctic Treaty and the Madrid Protocol that we can put the interests of the planet as a whole first. This must become the norm, not the exception.

Falk Huettmann

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