Professor Fikret Berkes provides a unique introduction to the social and interdisciplinary dimensions of biodiversity conservation. Examining a range of approaches, new ideas, controversies and debates, he demonstrates that biodiversity loss is not primarily a technical issue, but a social problem that operates in an economic, political and cultural context. Berkes concludes that conservation must be democratized in order to broaden its support base and build more inclusive constituencies for conservation.

Providing a concise overview of resilience in the context of unprecedented global environmental change, this Advanced Introduction addresses the intertwined systems of people and nature. It explores ecological resilience, incorporating social science approaches and concepts, and identifies and discusses innovative ways of planning for an increasingly unpredictable future.

Both realism and justice demand that efforts to conserve biological diversity address human needs as well. The most promising hope of accomplishing such a goal lies in locally based conservation efforts -- an approach that seeks ways to make local communities the beneficiaries and custodians of conservation efforts. Natural Connections focuses on rural societies and the conservation of biodiversity in rural areas. It represents the first systematic analysis of locally based efforts, and includes a comprehensive examination of cases from around the world where the community-based approach is used. The book provides: an overview of community-based conservation in the context of the debate over sustainable development, poverty, and environmental decline case studies from the developed and developing worlds -- Indonesia, Peru, Australia, Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom -- that present detailed examples of the locally based approach to conservation a review of the principal issues arising from community-based programs an agenda for future action

Drawing on historical, normative, theoretical, and economic methodologies, Pier Giuseppe Monateri offers a fresh critical analysis of various dimensions of comparative law methods. Comprehensive and engaging with a multidisciplinary approach, this Advanced Introduction spans the fields of comparative legal studies, law and finance and global law.

Written by Neil M. Coe, this Advanced Introduction provides a comprehensive guide to the vibrant and expanding global production network (GPN) approach, through deftly exploring its antecedents, theoretical underpinnings, and debates and controversies in the field. The author argues overall that, during a time of profound on-going challenges within the global economic system, the need for a GPN framework has never been more pressing.

Written by esteemed legal scholar Michael L. Perlin, this indispensable Advanced Introduction examines the long-standing but ever-dynamic relationship between law and mental health. The author discusses and contextualises how the law, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, treats mental health, intellectual disabilities, and mental incapacity, giving examples of how issues such as the rights of patients, the death penalty and the insanity defense permeate constitutional, civil, and criminal matters, and indeed the general practice of law.

This book presents a case study of Island Marble Butterfly (IMB) conservation from an environmental sociological perspective. Using qualitative methods, the study explicates various social components of a collaboration of stakeholders working together to protect the species from extinction. Rediscovered in 1998 after being presumed extinct for nearly a century, the IMB persists exclusively among the San Juan Islands, WA, where the efforts of scientists, local conservationists, government employees, and non-profit organizations have sustained the species, even achieving a listing under the Endangered Species Act. For these reasons and many others, the IMB presents a case in some ways fascinating for its idiosyncrasies and in other ways indicative of broader trends in conservation work in an era of rapid global biodiversity loss. From the study emerges a call for increased sociological research that contributes knowledge beneficial to conservation practice, or what the book calls “conservation sociology.” The book reviews existing literature in this space and provides a framework for constructing research, theory, and application in conservation sociology. As the social components of IMB conservation are explored, so too are components of conservation sociology. The book describes competing norms and beliefs among IMB stakeholders, demonstrating the capacity of conservation sociology to describe and interpret social phenomena in conservation work; explores power dynamics in the collaboration, using sociological theory to interpret significant events in IMB conservation; and analyzes the significance of time in IMB conservation while providing suggestions for applied conservation work based in sociological perspectives. The book accomplishes three main goals. First, it provides an account of details and events in Island Marble Butterfly conservation. Second, it defines, positions, and develops conservation sociology. Third, it demonstrates original research in conservation sociology, resulting in a deep look at the complexities of the social components of species conservation.