A bibliography of plant conservation in the Pacific Islands: endangered species, habitat conversion, introduced biota

Abstract

Several large regions of the world are plagued by conservation problems shaped around a particular inherent set of geographical, biological and human conditions which have been operational for varying periods of time. Typical of situations facing Latin America are the progress of economic development in Amazonia with its attendant loss of rainforest biodiversity, and the Central American "hamburger connection" involving conversion of forests to grazing land to support the export of cheap beef to the United States. Characteristic of Africa is the struggle with desertification in the Sahel and the terminally desperate fuelwood crisis there. Europe has its centuries- long history of urbanization and the deforestation of Mediterranean lands to contend with, while the similarly industrialized North American continent must deal with large-scale wetland drainage, the effects of high- technology terrain vehicles (swamp buggies, dune buggies, snowmobiles, motorcycles) on the landscape, as well as protecting the endangered cacti indigenous to the deserts from overexploitative commerce.