Product Description

We live on an unexplored planet, ignorant of more than eighty percent of the species that share our world. In this fascinating and abundantly illustrated book, two eminent ecologists discuss the biological diversity of the Earth, showing how the natural systems that surround us play an essential role in protecting our basic life-support systems. Andrew Beattie and Paul Ehrlich tell us about the millions of species providing ecosystem services that maintain the quality of our air and water and the fertility of the soil, dispose of domestic, industrial, and agricultural waste, and protect crops from pests. The authors also describe how biological diversity opens the way for new medicines, pharmaceuticals, construction materials and designs, and manufactured goods. They point to innovative industries that harness species for the biological repair of damaged landscapes, biological mining, biological pest control, and biomonitoring of the environment. The organisms upon which these activities are founded - although often microscopic, obscure, or bizarre - provide natural capital that is worth infinitely more than anyone has previously guessed. The authors urge us to protect the biological wealth of our Earth and keep it from being destroyed by human activity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1309824 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
If there is an intelligence to the design of nature, an old question has it, then how could mosquitoes ever have come into being? In Wild Solutions, Andrew Beattie and Paul Ehrlich have an answer: adult mosquitoes are an important source of food for birds, while their larvae are a major part of the diet of many fish species. Moreover, mosquitoes pollinate certain orchid species, and even their role in the spread of certain diseases appears to have a function in nature. Though it poses an annoyance and a hazard, the mosquito has its place in the world, a world that is constantly impoverished by the destruction of species.

We humans, Beattie and Ehrlich suggest, are only beginning to understand how ecological health depends on the diversity of nature, a diversity that embraces mosquitoes. By way of illustration, they cite an experiment in which scientists created a sealed environment that was meant to approximate conditions in a self-supporting extra-terrestrial colony. It failed, in the end, because the scientists neglected to introduce easily overlooked but nonetheless critical micro-organisms. "We are dependent in the short term," they write, "on many more kinds of organisms than it would seem at first glance." And, they add, humans directly benefit from the services that millions of species provide, whether appreciated or not. To remove those species, they argue, is akin to squandering a carefully built and irreplaceable fortune, "our biological wealth, our biological capital." Their thoughtful essay offers many reasons for curbing this spending spree. --Gregory McNamee

Review
"A very innovative and wonderfully illustrated book about why biodiversity and ecosystem processes are important to the planet." Margaret Lowman, author of Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology "Wild Solutions brilliantly regales the reader with the ingenuity and diversity of Nature and with humanity's dependence on the fragile 'natural internet' of our littleknown planet... Must reading for everyone." Simon A. Levin, author of Fragile Dominion: Complexity and the Commons"

Simon A. Levin, author of Fragile Dominion: Complexity and the Commons
"Wild Solutions brilliantly regales the reader with the ingenuity and diversity of Nature and with humanity's dependence on the fragile 'natural internet' of our little-known planet ... Must reading for everyone."