Role of Biodiversity Conservation in the Transition to Rural Sustainability

The context in which the workshop met was the need to protect the relatively healthy rural environment of recently socialist countries of eastern and central Europe from the type of capitalist development that has devastated the rural environment of western Europe and North America. The 22 papers cover the importance of dealing with biodiversity in new ways, theoretical contributions to the conservation of biodiversity on rural landscapes, how biodiversity is being integrated in practice into rural sustainability efforts, and next steps to take. Among the topics are a new agricultural policy for the US, promoting sustainable development at a regional level as an economic driver, and a model for sustainable development at the former border between East and West Germany. Only authors are indexed. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR