Book Review: Nalini M. Nadkarni and Nathaniel T. Wheelwright, eds., Monteverde: Ecology and Conservation of a Tropical Cloud Forest

The book has three main sections or themes. The first section includes the basics of assessing biodiversity, beginning with the work of early naturalists and ending with the work of the state natural heritage programs. This section pays careful attention to the issues of spatial scale, geopolitical boundaries, ecological classification, and data standardization. While counting and mapping "elements of natural diversity" may seem relatively straightforward, the authors demonstrate that assessing biodiversity over large areas is far from simple: a lesson in and of itself for conservationists in other parts of the world.