No country on earth is entirely sheltered from the relentless press of forces that promise to roll over what is left of the natural world. Some would argue otherwise, pointing to institutions that have been created by humans to preserve nature for posterity. We call them parks.
Nature is safe in parks, or so it is presumed.
Like all parks, Manu is assumed to provide inviolate protection to nature. Yet even there, in one of the most remote corners of the planet, Terborgh has been witness to the relentless onslaught of civilization. In Requiem for Nature, he offers brutally honest answers to those difficult questions, and appraises the prospects for the future of tropical conservation. Terborgh examines current conservation strategies and considers the shortcomings of parks and protected areas both from ecological and institutional perspectives. Throughout, Terborgh argues that the greatest challenges of conservation are not scientific, but are social, economic, and political, and that success will require simultaneous progress on all fronts.