Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is exceptionally biodiverse. It contains about half of the world’s remaining tropical forests, nearly one-fifth of its coastal habitats, and some of its most productive agricultural and marine areas. But agriculture, fishing and other human activities linked to rapid population and economic growth increasingly threaten that biodiversity. Moreover, poverty, weak regulatory capacity, and limited political will hamper conservation. Given this dilemma, it is critically important to design conservation strategies on the basis of the best available information about both biodiversity and the track records of the various policies that have been used to protect it. This rigorously researched book has three key aims. It describes the status of biodiversity in LAC, the main threats to this biodiversity, and the drivers of these threats. It identifies the main policies being used to conserve biodiversity and assesses their effectiveness and potential for further implementation. It proposes five specific lines of practical action for conserving LAC biodiversity, based on: green agriculture; strengthening terrestrial protected areas and co-management; improving environmental governance; strengthening coastal and marine resource management; and improving biodiversity data and policy evaluation.

A Practitioner's Guide to Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation brings together knowledge and experience from conservation practitioners and experts around the world to help readers understand the global challenge of conserving biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems. More importantly, it offers specific strategies and suggestions for managers to use in establishing new conservation initiatives or improving the effectiveness of existing initiatives. The book: offers an understanding of fundamental issues by explaining how ecosystems are structured and how they support biodiversity; provides specific information and approaches for identifying areas most in need of protection; examines promising strategies that can help reduce biodiversity loss; and describes design considerations and methods for measuring success within an adaptive management framework. The book draws on experience and knowledge gained during a five-year project of The Nature Conservancy known as the Freshwater Initiative, which brought together a range of practitioners to create a learning laboratory for testing ideas, approaches, tools, strategies, and methods. For professionals involved with land or water management-including state and federal agency staff, scientists and researchers working with conservation organizations, students and faculty involved with freshwater issues or biodiversity conservation, and policymakers concerned with environmental issues-the book represents an important new source of information, ideas, and approaches.

Life began in the sea, and even today most of the deep diversity of the planet is marine. This is often forgotten, especially in tropical countries like Costa Rica, renowned for their rain forests and the multitude of life forms found therein. Thus this book focusing on marine diversity of Costa Rica is particularly welcome. How many marine species are there in Costa Rica? The authors report a total of 6,777 species, or 3. 5% of the world’s total. Yet the vast majority of marine species have yet to be formally described. Recent estimates of the numbers of species on coral reefs range from 1–9 million, so that the true number of marine species in Costa Rica is certainly far higher. In some groups the numbers are likely to be vastly higher because to date they have been so little studied. Only one species of nematode is reported, despite the fact that it has been said that nematodes are the most diverse of all marine groups. In better studied groups such as mollusks and crustaceans, reported numbers are in the thousands, but even in these groups many species remain to be described. Indeed the task of describing marine species is daunting – if there really are about 9 million marine species and Costa Rica has 3. 5% of them, then the total number would be over 300,000. Clearly, so much remains to be done that new approaches are needed. Genetic methods have en- mous promise in this regard.

Growing human populations and higher demands for water impose increasing impacts and stresses upon freshwater biodiversity. Their combined effects have made these animals more endangered than their terrestrial and marine counterparts. Overuse and contamination of water, overexploitation and overfishing, introduction of alien species, and alteration of natural flow regimes have led to a 'great thinning' and declines in abundance of freshwater animals, a 'great shrinking' in body size with reductions in large species, and a 'great mixing' whereby the spread of introduced species has tended to homogenize previously dissimilar communities in different parts of the world. Climate change and warming temperatures will alter global water availability, and exacerbate the other threat factors. What conservation action is needed to halt or reverse these trends, and preserve freshwater biodiversity in a rapidly changing world? This book offers the tools and approaches that can be deployed to help conserve freshwater biodiversity.

This volume looks at recent scientific knowledge and innovative techniques concerning environmental matters. The proceedings focus on topics such as hydraulic protection of territory and defence, utilization of water resources, architecture and planning of fluival/coastal landscape and much more.