Readers interested in keeping up on the story of the first Americans and the last mammoths will enjoy subscribing to a quarterly newspaper, Mammoth Trumpet, obtainable from the Center for the Study of the First Americans, 495 College Avenue, Orono, Maine 04473. Chapter 19: The Second Cloud
Species-by-species accounts of extinct and endangered species are contained in the Red Data Books published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (abbreviated IUCN).
There are separate books for various groups of plants and animals, and separate books are also now appearing for different continents. Corresponding books for birds have been prepared by the International Council for Bird Preservation (abbreviated ICBP): Warren B. King, editor, Endangered Birds of the World: The ICBP Red Data Book (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1981); and N.J. Collar and P. Andrew, Birds to Watch: The ICBP World Checklist of Threatened Birds (ICBP, Cambridge, 1988).
A summary and analysis of modern and Ice-Age extinction waves and their mechanisms are provided by my article 'Historic extinctions: a Rosetta Stone for understanding prehistoric extinctions', pp. 824-62 in Quaternary Extinctions by Martin and Klein, cited under Chapter Seventeen. The problem of overlooked species extinctions is discussed in my article 'Extant unless proven extinct? Or extinct unless proven extant? in Conservation Biology 1, pp. 77–79 (1987). Terry Erwin estimates the total number of living species in a paper 'Tropical forests: their richness in Coleoptera and other arthropod species', The Cole-opterists' Bulletin 36, pp. 74–75 (1982). Further readings on Pleistocene and Early Recent cases of extinction are given under Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen. In addition, Storrs Olson reviews the extinction of island birds in an article 'Extinction on islands: man as a catastrophe', pp. 50–53 of Conservation for the Twenty-first Century, edited by David Western and Mary Pearl (Oxford University Press, New York, 1989). lan Atkinson's article on pp. 54–75 of the same book, 'Introduced animals and extinctions', summarizes the havoc wrought by rats and other pests. Epilogue Nothing Learned, and Everything Forgotten?
Many excellent books discuss the present and future of the extinction crisis and the other crises now facing humanity, their causes, and what to do about them. Among them are the following: John J. Berger, Restoring the Earth: How Americans are Working to Renew our Damaged Environment (Knopf, New York, 1985); editor, Environmental Restoration: Science and Strategies for Restoring the Earth (Island Press, Washington DC, 1990). John Cairns, Jnr, Rehabilitating Damaged Ecosystems (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 1988); with K.L. Dickson and E.E. Herricks, Recovery and Restoration of Damaged Ecosystems (University Press of Virginia, Charlottes ville, 1977).
Anne and Paul Ehrlich, Extinction (Random House, New York, 1981); Earth (Franklin Watts, New York, 1987); The Population Explosion (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1990); Healing Earth (Addison Wesley, New York, 1991). Paul Ehrlich et al, The Cold and the Dark (Norton, New York, 1984). D. Furguson and N. Furguson, Sacred Cows at the Public Trough (Maverick Publications, Bend, Oregon, 1983).
Suzanne Head and Robert Heinzman, editors, Lessons of the Rainforest (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990).
Jeffrey A. McNeely, Economics and Biological Diversity (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, 1988); Jeffrey A. McNeely et al, Conserving the World's Biological Diversity (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, 1990). Norman Myers, Conversion of Tropical Moist Forests (National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 1980); Gaia: an Atlas of Planet Management (Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1984); The Primary Source (Norton, New York, 1985).
Michael Oppenheimer and Robert Boyle, Dead Heat: the Race against the Greenhouse Effect (Basic Books, New York, 1990).
Walter V. Reid and Kenton R. Miller, Keeping Options Alive: the Scientific Basis for Conserving Biodiversity (World Resources Institute, Washington DC, 1989).
Sharon L. Roan, Ozone Crisis: the Fifteen-Year Evolution of a Sudden Global Emergency (Wiley, New York, 1989).
Robin Russell Jones and Tom Wigley, editors, Ozone Depletion: Health and Environmental Consequences (Wiley, New York, 1989).
Steven H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? second edition (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990).
Michael E. Soule, editor, Conservation Biology: the Science of Scarcity and Diversity (Sinauer, Sunderland, Massachusetts, 1986).
John Terborgh, Where Have All the Birds Gone? (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990). E.O. Wilson, Biophilia (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984); editor, Biodiversity (National Academy Press, Washington DC, 1988).
Finally, readers interested enough to want to pursue further readings may also want suggestions about what to do to reduce the risk that our children's generation will become extinct. As I explain in the text, the average citizen can do a good deal, both by being active politically and by giving even modest amounts of money to conservation organizations. Here are the names and addresses of a few of the best-known and largest such organizations, among the many that are worthy of support:
World Wide Fund for Nature, Panda House, Weyside Park, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 1XR, UK.
Greenpeace, 30-1 Islington Green, London, Nl 8XE, UK.
International Council for Bird Preservation, 32 Cambridge Road, Girton, Cambridge, CB3 OPJ,
UK.
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Avenue du Mont-Blanc,
CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland.
Friends of the Earth, 26–28 Underwood Street, London, Nl 7JQ, UK.
Conservation Foundation, Lowther Lodge, 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR, UK.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure for me to acknowledge the contributions of many people to this book. My parents and my teachers at Roxbury Latin School taught me how to pursue interests along many lines simultaneously. My debt to my many New Guinean friends will be obvious from the frequency with which I cite their experiences. I owe an equal debt to my many scientist friends and professional colleagues, who patiently explained the subtleties of their subjects and read my drafts. Earlier versions of most of the chapters appeared as articles in Discover magazine and in Natural History magazine. I have been fortunate to have as my editors Leon Jaroff, Fred Golden, Gil Rogin, Paul Hoffman, and Marc Zabludoff at Discover, Alan Ternes and Ellen Goldensohn at Natural History, Thomas Miller at HarperCollins Publishers, Neil Belton at Hutchinson Radius Publishers, and my wife Marie Cohen.
JARED M. DIAMOND
Los Angeles January 1991