Ecology and Land Management in Amazonia

The Amazon Region is the focus of worldwide environmental concern but there is a dearth of scientific information about the nature and functioning of this complex and fragile ecosystem. Michael Eden has spent a quarter of a century researching the environment of the Amazonian Lowlands and the result is this scholarly and authoritative analysis of the ecology of the area and how resource exploration systems both indigenous and introduced affect its survival.;The book begins by considering the Tropical Rainforest as a global resource and its vital importance in sustaining the planet life. The competing pressures for conservation and development in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and the Guianas are assessed and debated. Subsequent chapters present detailed portraits of Amazonian climate, geology, hydrology, soils, biota and ecosystems and the various histories and current impact of human intervention in the Rainforest from the traditional resource systems of the native peoples to the destructive clearances associated with contemporary colonization. The last third of the book provides a detailed and provocative account of how the Amazon rainforest can be conserved, including the role of National Parks and Integrated Land Management at the Regional level.;This book shows how scientific knowledge can be mobilized into effective measures in the largest and most vital of the globe's threatened environments.