Author Description

"In this book, entitled Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places, we focus on the world's terrestrial wilderness areas, building on the concept of major tropical wilderness areas first defined by Mittermeier in 1988." "The data presented here are the result of an analysis carried out over the past two years, mainly by Conservation International's Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) with support from its Global Conservation Fund (GCF), and involving nearly 200 specialists from all around the world, of which 125 are authors of the various chapters in this book. In addition, this volume is illustrated with over 400 beautiful photos by some of the world's most acclaimed natural photographers." "In the introduction to this book, we briefly review the history of the wilderness concept, discuss its legal definitions, describe the activities of a number of organizations involved in wilderness protection, and try to develop criteria for "wilderness" based mainly on intactness, size, and human population density. In the individual chapters that follow, we provide a detailed analysis of the 37 areas that qualified for wilderness status in this study, focusing on their biodiversity, their key flagship species, their human cultures, the threats to their survival, and what is being done to conserve them."--BOOK JACKET.