Book Reviews

645

Conservation BiologyVolume 17, No. 2, April 2003

accelerated agricultural movement,pushing the outer edge of the enve-lope for crop yields and rapid repro-duction and growth rates in animalproduction. By the 1960s the field ofanimal husbandry became animal sci-ence and in the last decade hasevolved into animal biotechnology.The elimination of animal husbandryas a distinct profession was a precur-sor to the extinction of hundreds ofdomestic animal breeds, not only inthe United States but also in the de-veloped nations that were U.S. alliesin World War II.

Animal science employed an in-creased use of chemicals, growthstimulants, and the feeding of antibi-otics, anthelmintics, and other medi-cations believed to enhance the abil-ity to meet increased demands foranimal products for food and fiberneeds. As animal production becamemore industrialized, however, itbrought about significant reductionsin animal diversity and the variety oflivestock and poultry breeds in theUnited States. One by one, historicbreeds of livestock with uniquetraits and adaptive characteristicswere determined obsolete in favorof more efficient, fast-growing, ge-netically conforming breeds and geno-types for meat, milk, and egg pro-duction.

In 1974, in response to the loss ofhistoric breeds, the Rare Breeds Sur-vival Trust (RBST) was establishedin Great Britain. With help from theRBST, the movement crossed the At-lantic to become the American MinorBreeds Conservancy (AMBC) in 1977,whose name was later changed to theAmerican Livestock Breeds Conser-vancy (ALBC). These groups, alarmedby the rapid decline of hundreds ofbreeds of livestock and poultry,stepped forward to halt the trend ofdiminishing numbers of domesticbreeds and genotypes. Yet until theappearance of the

Encyclopedia ofHistoric and Endangered Livestockand Poultry Breeds

in 2002, therewas no single source available foranyone interested in this type of in-formation. Dohner’s well researched

and comprehensive publication wassorely needed and is one of the beston the market.

The organization of the text flowssystematically by species and geno-type. Livestock and poultry consideredhistoric and endangered in the UnitedStates, Canada, and Great Britain arecovered in outstanding historic and bi-ological detail. One valuable asset ofthis publication is a population statusreport on each breed within the coun-tries in which it is found. Another itemof interest is the listing of organizationsof domestic animal conservationistsand living historical farms and muse-ums. Animal-breeding terminology andspecies references are presented in ev-eryday language, and their meaningsare thoroughly discussed. These side-bars, with both contemporary and his-toric plates, enhance the usefulness ofthis book to researchers, teachers, stu-dents, and breeders of rare farm ani-mals. Dohner provides adequate infor-mation about on which organizationscan dispense additional assistance.

The book does not offer any sam-ple strategic plans for a novice orprofessional to become involved inthe rare-breed conservation move-ment, but that is not the format of anencyclopedia, and the detailed infor-mation offered outweighs the omis-sion of strategic breeding plans.

The author also makes a strongcase for the nonindustrial values ofthe endangered and rare breeds offarm animals. She directs the readerto consider the cultural and spiritualvalues animals have provided in thepast and could provide to the twenty-first century. Her abbreviated butsufficient articulation of domestica-tion is more than adequate. The cru-cial purpose for such a publicationis to enunciate why the variousbreeds, varieties, and landraces weredeliberately developed by human in-tervention.

Dohner stresses the intrinsic ge-netic values and the merits for thefuture of animal agriculture. She pro-vides excellent explanations of con-temporary animal industries andtheir emphasis on production traits

that result in negative survival skillsoutside modern intensive animalproduction systems. She makes agood case for the return to extensiveanimal production systems thatwould also add support to the utili-zation of rare and endangered breeds.The animal-species format of the book,including natural history, domestica-tion, husbandry, and breed profilesmakes reading such an “encyclope-dia” stimulating and pleasurable. Thespecies’ formats flow nicely and en-hance the overall logic of such a de-tailed publication.

Regardless of the word “encyclo-pedia” in the title, this book hasbroad appeal, particularly to anyonewith an interest in the history of do-mestic animals or the conservationof today’s rare and endangered do-mestic animal and poultry breeds.Dohner’s book is a highly valuable re-source. It is most comprehensivelyresearched and will without a doubtremain a benchmark for domestic ani-mal conservationists for many years.

Lyle G. McNeal

Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sci-ences, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322–4815, U.S.A., email sheepman@cc.usu.edu

Companies Partnering with Communities

Company-Community ForestryPartnerships: from Raw Deals toMutual Gains?

Mayers, J., and S. Ver-meulen. 2002. International Institutefor Environment and Development(IIED), London. 154 pp. $22.50 (pa-perback). ISBN 1–899825–94–0. (Printor view the full text on the IIEDwebsite http://www.iied.org/psf/publications_def.html#partnerships.)

From the tropics to the borealzones, indigenous groups and vari-ous other rural communities nowown or otherwise control more than200 million ha of forest ( White &Martin 2002). Although devolutionof authority over forests to forest-

646

Book Reviews

Conservation BiologyVolume 17, No. 2, April 2003

based communities is applauded aslong-awaited social justice, helpingthese forests to work for both pov-erty alleviation and biodiversity con-servation remains extremely chal-lenging. Partnerships with the forestindustries that have the requiredbusiness skills and technical capaci-ties could overcome some of thesechallenges, but the pitfalls along theway to functional partnerships arelegion. In this slim and accessibe vol-ume, Mayers and Vermeulen analyzea variety of community-companypartnerships, focusing on what hasworked and what has not, therebyproviding guidance for anyone tryingto create a useful partnership. Thispublication is less strong on issues re-lated to biodiversity management andstresses plantations more than natu-ral-forest management; nevertheless,it captures and communicates thewisdom derived from scores of at-tempts at cooperation between ruralcommunities and forest industries.

The word

partnership

denotes aclose relationship between equals. Iactually wrote this definition on thecover of my copy of this book to re-mind me that it does not describethe litany of ways that companiestake advantage of forest-rich but oth-erwise poor communities, an unsa-vory subject that awaits treatment. Iwas impressed by the variety of in-novative approaches to forging ef-fective community-company forestrypartnerships. Detailed case studiesare presented for outgrower pulpschemes in India, taungya-based ven-ture partnerships in Indonesia, tim-ber leases in Papua New Guinea, socialresponsibility agreements in Ghana,and First-Nation joint ventures in Can-ada. The authors explain how, from theperspectives of communities, com-panies, and forest ecosystems, these

relationships have truly ranged fromraw deals to mutual gains.

Anyone who supports efforts atmaking community-company part-nerships work will find this volumeuseful. The authors provide summa-ries of the constraints on function-ing partnerships and the innova-tions that were used to overcomethem. They provide principles forbetter company-community part-nerships and review the conditionsunder which companies, communi-ties, and landscapes win and losewith different sorts of deals. Theirsuggestions about how to reducethe often considerable transactioncosts of working with rural commu-nities should save forestry compa-nies substantial sums of money anda lot of time. Overall, their insightsinto the workings of partnershipswere enlightening, even though Iexpect to be directly involved onlyin issues related to community gov-ernance during my next life, in ret-ribution for errors made in this one.

Although I am new to the field, I havebeen made aware of a substantial body

of knowledge about other sorts of part-nerships (e.g., Fosler & Berger 1982;Brooks et al. 1984), some of whichcan be accessed through the NationalCouncil for Public-Private Partnerships

website (http://www.ncppp.org). May-ers and Vermeulen would haveserved their readers well by notingother sources of insights on partner-ships, even if the studies pertainmore to urban renewal than to ruralpeople and their forests, given thatmany of the challenges and opportu-nities are similar.

Although a few diehard protec-tionists continue to show disdain forattempts at rendering forest manage-ment compatible with conserva-tion, and although social welfare

seems to have disappeared from theagendas of several international con-servation organizations, this volumedemonstrates some steps toward theadmittedly elusive goal of maintain-ing forests while reducing poverty.It is full of substance, not hype, aboutcommunity-based forestry. It was notwritten by starry-eyed social welfareadvocates. Readers may find the rev-elations about the lack of democracyor any semblance of egalitarianismin many rural communities disheart-ening, the costs of doing businesswith communities with weak insti-tutions economically unattractive, andthe multitude of ways community-company forestry partnerships canfail distressing, but for many impov-erished rural communities and formany forestry companies in need oftimber and a better public image,working together is perhaps theonly available option. With the pub-lication of this important volume,we can only hope that some of thepitfalls the authors describe will beavoided.

Francis E. Putz

Department of Botany, University of Florida,Gainesville, FL 32611–8526, U.S.A., email fep@botany.ufl.edu

Literature Cited

Brooks, H., L. Liebman, and C. S. Schelling.1984. Public-private partnerships: new op-portunities for meeting social needs. Ball-inger, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Fosler, R. S., and R. A. Berger, editors. 1982.Public-private partnership in American cit-ies: seven case studies. Lexington Books,Lexington, Massachusetts.

White, A., and A. Martin. 2002. Who owns theworld’s forests? Forest tenure and publicforests in transition. Forest Trends, Wash-ington, D.C. (available from http://www.forest-trends.org).