The Tropical Rain Forest: An Ecological Study

Abstract

This long-awaited book would seem to mark the end of classical tropical botany and phytogeography as subjects for scholarly pursuits. Since the middle of the century, when the first edition of The Tropical Rain Forest appeared, the wet tropical lowlands of the world have become an industrial battleground and, today at the end of the "Second Millennium", the future of the remaining rainforests that have evolved over millions of years looks bleak. Indeed, the book may well become "a record of what the rainforest was like in the twentieth century", as stated on its first page. This elegiac declaration not only reflects world concern about its pending extinction, but also Professor Richards' increasingly personal involvement with rainforest conservation in his later years.