Navjot S. Sodhi & Luke Gibson 
Conservation Biology [PDF ebook] 
Voices from the Tropics

Navjot Sodhi (1962-2011): Based at the National
University of Singapore, Navjot was one of the great minds of
conservation biology. A native of the Punjab, India, he graduated
from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and then moved to an
incredible fruitful 15 years documenting rain forest loss and
degradation in Southeast Asia and its effects on populations of
animals and plants. He was best known as a conservationist, someone
who cared passionately about these rich lands and the people who
live in the region, and striving, with a large group of colleagues
and students, to devise ways to improve the sustainability of the
area while pressures on the forest mounted rapidly. Navjot
suggested the idea of this book to Peter Raven because he was so
keenly aware of the differences between attitudes and actions in
conservation that predominate in rich and poor countries. He
intended to share the lessons that conservation practitioners were
learning in the countries where they live with the world.
Shortly before Navjot died, he asked his student Luke Gibson to
step up and share the editorial responsibility with Peter Raven,
and this book is the result. We believe that he would have liked
this book with its varied contents very much – he always
placed application in front of theory, deeply wanting to preserve
the world’s biological richness and to support the very poor
among us. We miss him greatly, and are pleased to present
here his last efforts in a wonderfully productive life.
Luke Gibson: At the National University of Singapore,
Luke Gibson is studying tropical forest loss in Southeast Asia and
its impact on biodiversity. For his Ph D, he is recording
extinctions of small mammal species from small forest fragments in
Chiew Larn reservoir, Thailand, and the persistence – or
decline – of other mammalian ungulates and carnivores in the
lowland dipterocarp forest surrounding the reservoir. Before moving
to Southeast Asia, he received his Bachelor’s degree from
Princeton University and his Master’s degree from the
University of California, San Diego.
Peter Raven: Over the past 50 years, Peter Raven has
become an influential voice in systematics, ecology and evolution
worldwide. He served as President of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science and other organizations, Home Secretary
of the US National Academy of Sciences, and is a member of a number
of other academies worldwide. During his 39-year tenure as
President of the Missouri Botanical Garden he guided the Garden to
a position of global leadership in conservation, with centers of
activity in the tropics of Latin America, Africa and Asia. He is
co-author of the leading textbook in botany, The Biology of
Plants, and has coauthored leading texts in biology and the
environment. With Paul Ehrlich, he originated the important concept
of coevolution.