Understanding Biodiversity comes as a wake-up call at a time when the predatory practices of our 'modern' civilization have transformed nature into an exploitable resource, opened up our plant and animal life to endless expropriation and eroded the biodiversity that has made our life on earth possible. This tract forces us to confront basic issues: the need to conserve biodiversity, the conservation of wildlife and wildlife habitats, our protectionist policies which have more often endange...

We live in a world of abundance and prosperity. Technology has brought us closer and keeps us more connected than ever before. Medical advances protect and heal us. And yet, so many of us trudge through life feeling heavy, empty, stressed, and alone.The answer to this paradox can be found in the evolutionary biology of our brains, which are hardwired for fear. Over millions of years, our brains have evolved to keep our bodies safe and secure, continuously scanning the environment f...

The collaborative orco-management of natural resources - whether between states and local communities or amongst and within communities themselves - is a process of collective understanding and actions to bring about negotiated agreements on roles, rights and responsibilities for decentralized governance of natural resources. At heart, co-management is about sharing power, one of the most difficult but rewarding experiences in personal and social life.The book is designed for profe...

This book introduces advanced and hybrid compression techniques specifically used for medical images. The book discusses conventional compression and compressive sensing (CS) theory based approaches that are designed and implemented using various image transforms, such as: Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and greedy based recovery algorithm. The authors show how these techniques provi...

This handbook, produced by world renowned experts from the World Conservation Union (IUCN), spans the full terrain of protected area management and is the international benchmark for the field. The book employs dozens of detailed international cases studies, hundreds of concise topical snapshots, maps, tables, illustrations and a colour plate section, as well as evaluation tools, checklists and numerous appendices to cover all aspects of park management from biodiversity to natural heritag...

The Full Value of Parks is the first comprehensive look at the values associated with parks and other kinds of protected areas. Much has been written about the importance of parks to the tourism industry, yet the reasons why people care deeply about them usually have little or nothing to do with money. Instead, people value parks as sacred sanctuaries and places of spiritual self-discovery, as settings of breathtaking beauty, as venues of scientific inquiry, as destinations for much-needed...

Would you like to be able to choose to be happier?Did you know that scientists and researchers have discovered:Why some people are much happier than others?Happier people are more successful, resilient, creative, productive, kind and energetic, plus they have better health and relationships?We all have a happiness set point (a level of happiness that we keep returning to)?That this set po...

Aristotle said 'you are what you repeatedly do'. Most of us have no idea that what we repeatedly do creates our lives, we think our future is shaped by big events, the decisions we make, the thoughts we have but, this book will show you that it is your daily actions that are the key. Over the last few decades neuroscientists and psychologists have discovered that there is more power in 'I do' than 'I think'. However, if an action is repeated enough times it becomes habit but habits lack th...

Australia and Canada have been at the forefront of efforts to operationalize integrated oceans and coastal management. Throughout the 1990s both countries devoted considerable effort to developing strategies to give effect to international ocean management obligations.This key book focuses on principles of marine environmental conservation and management, maritime regulation and enforcement, and regional maritime planning and implementation. With contributions from respected schola...

Positive ThinkingFinding it hard to overcome the inevitable setbacks that life throws at you? Going through a difficult set of personal challenges or changes in your life? Starting a new job and feeling nervous and anxious? Feeling miserable and unmotivated in life?By changing how we think, we change how we feel, as our feelings follow on from our thoughts. It is these renewed feelings of hope, confidence and motivation that then change our lives. These mor...

Environmental Change in South-East Asia brings together scholars, journalists, consultants and NGO activists to explore the interaction of people, politics and ecology. Ostensibly "green" activities - plantation forestry, eco-tourism, hydro-electricity - are revealed as guises used by elites to promote their own political and economic interests.Highlighting fatal flaws in presently exclusive economic and ecological approaches, the authors stress that neither the quest for s...

A Radical but Reverent Paraphrasing of Dogen’s Treasury of the True Dharma EyeEven if the whole universe is nothing but a bunch of jerks doing all kinds of jerk-type things, there is still liberation in simply not being a jerk.” - Eihei Dogen (12001253 CE)The Shobogenzo (The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) is a revered eight-hundred-year-old Zen Buddhism classic written by the Japanese monk Eihei Dogen. Despite the timeless wisd...