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Year: 2002
Author: Richard Mackay
Publisher: Earthscan Publications, London, UK
ISBN: 1-85383-874-8
Pages: 128pp (softback)
Price: £11.99 GBP
To order: <http://www.earthscan.co.uk/>

The back cover of this little book describes itself as, "a fully illustrated and comprehensive guide to the world's endangered plants and animals." Quite a tall order for 128 small pages, but it manages to touch on a great deal of topics nevertheless. However, marine turtles don't feature, which is ironic given how much debate and importance is given to their status and conservation within our community of marine turtle biologists/conservationists/managers!

This publication is an unusual hybrid of atlas, popular science and coffee-table picture book. It has an educational leaflet feel. There is little text but many colour rich figures, maps and photographs which are appealing to browse through, may be a useful teaching resource/reference school teachers and environmental educators of other sorts but it is not a true reference book. It covers so much in its few pages that nothing is covered in any detail. Topics covered include overviews of: I extinction and evolution; II sensitive ecosytems; III fragile regions; IV endangered plants and animals (with a couple of pages on each of primates, cats, pachyderms, bears, rodents, bats, cetaceans, reptiles and amphibians, invertebrates, fish and plants); V endangered birds; and VI Issues of conservation. How reliable/accurate/up to date the information will be is hard to tell, as sources of information are scant and dominated by other overviews and URL's.

Undoubtedly books like this have a place, perhaps as an educational tool or as a gift to an interested young person. Its place, however, is not likely to be in the scientific libraries of individuals and institutions.

Reviewer: Brendan J. Godley, Co-editor Marine Turtle Newsletter