Plant Identification Creating User-Friendly Field Guides for Biodiversity and Management

About this book

This excellent new volume in the 'People and Plants Conservation Series' fills a long-standing gap for a practical manual to create plant identification field guides in the tropics.

In order to manage, use and conserve plants, we need to improve communication of useful information about them. For this, accurate identification using field guides is important. This book provides potential authors of field guides with an understanding of the issues and methods suitable for producing user-friendly guides which help to identify plants for the purposes of conservation, sustainable use, participatory monitoring or greater appreciation of biodiversity.
The book draws on both scientific and participatory processes, supported by the experience of contributors from across the tropics. It presents a core process for producing a field guide, setting out key steps, options and techniques available to the authors of a guide and, through illustration, helps authors choose methods and media appropriate to their context.

Anna Lawrence leads the Human Ecology Research Programme, at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute.
William Hawthorne is a freelance tropical forest botanist and ecologist working for some of his time as a senior research associate in the Department of Plant Sciences, Oxford University.

Contents

Identifying Biodiversity: Why We Need Field Guides; Producing a Successful Guide: Principles, Purpose, People and Process; Planning and Budgeting; Plant Names and Botanical Publication; Diagnostic Keys and Other Access Methods; Plant Characters Suitable for Field Guides; Information: How to Get It and Present It; Illustration; Testing the Field Guide; Getting Your Guide Published.

Customer Reviews

Biography

William Hawthorne is a freelance tropical forest botanist and ecologist working for some of his time as a senior research associate in the Dept. Plant Sciences, Oxford university. Anna Lawrence leads the Human Ecology Research Programme, at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute.