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Conservation ofAustralia's Forest Fauna (Second Edition) Daniel Lunney (editor) Royal Zoological Society ofNew SouthWales PO Box 20, MosmanNSW 2088 RRP $75.00 (plus $8.80 postage inAustralia) Order form canbe found at www.rzsnsw.org.au The first thing anyone will notice about what is NP&WS today?). I have always, as an editor, this book is its size; 1070 pages weighing in at 3.36 been very suspicious of any manuscript submitted kilograms. I have been a bit tardy and more than a that contained more than four acronyms. There is little hesitant to write a review of this book, since one essay here, which I shall kindly not name, that I have always made it a strict point to only write a manages four in one sentence. review ifI had read the entire publication. With this H. Pamaby and E. Hamilton-Smith manage book, in some cases I didnot getbeyondthe abstract. to encapsulate in one sentence, without a single Like mostpeople approaching amulti-authorvolume acronym, the point of several entire essays that ofwide scope, I first read those papers dealing with follow. They write: " ... conservation ofAustralia's my own speciality (mammals), then looked for forestbatshas everythingtodowithcultural,political reviews of broader areas and finally at papers with and corporate influences, and very little to do with catchy titles (of which there are an extraordinary biological 'facts'". Theygo onto describe the strange niomber in this book). Some of those titles can be phenomenon ofthe "Adaptable bat". a bit misleading. I went straight to "Echidnas and Other highlights in the section include a archaeology: understanding the Aboriginal values of discussion of"predictorsets" ofinvertebratesbyR.L. NSW" A forests in only to find the echidna got only a Kitching. very different type of research to that briefmention. Most ofthe essay was concerned with employed by most biologists is used by S.M. Legg, exploring"...recentdevelopments inthemanagement who examined 19,000 newspaper items in order to of Aboriginal values in (forests of NSW)". That determine how wildlife was portrayed in Victoria doesn'treallymakemuchsense,nordoesaconcluding 1839-1948. observation that "Research and planning cannot be Surprisingly, my personal award for the divorced fi-om the reality ofpeople's strong feelings most interesting, andperhaps the most significant for about social justice". WI think I prefer Lord Kelvin's conservation, essay in this section goes to a lawyer. remark (as quoted by Braithwaite on p. 524) that I am sure J. Prest is a lawyer because the essay uses "Ifyou can't measure it, it's not science". footnotes instead of the usual Harvard system of Many ofthe accounts are essays rather than citation. And in true legal style they often take up 'papers' in the research sense. I suspect the editor halfthe page. However the topic is vital in regard to probably encouraged a less formal approach, which the 87% ofNSW native vegetation that is on private can lead, especially in reviews, to a much more land and to the lack of control of deforestation on readable work. private landas opposedto crownland. This isthebest The book is divided into five sections, and I coverage of the legislation (and lack of legislation) will deal with them in sequence. relatingtoprivatenativeforestryIhaveseen.Thevital point is made that environmental laws remain mere IDENTIFYING THE ISSUES. wordsonpaperwithoutsufficientimplementationand M. CalverandG. Wardell-Johnsonprobably enforcement. Certainly in western NSW, what little identify the underlying issue apparent throughoutthe legislation that is applicable is rarely applied to rural book in one sentence - "ESFM cannot be achieved landholders. Many rural landholders can of course ... without a ... will to assert long-term sustainable make effective use ofpublic and political avenues of practice in the face of short-term goals" ESFM resistance to anything that seems to endanger their A NSW is, by the way. Ecologically Sustainable Forest short-term interest. good example in is the Management. This section ofthe book contains many reaction to the NativeVeg. Act. acronyms, arising no doubt firom the fact that many Harry Recher, for example, has long argued ofthe authors are working in governmental units of that wildlife management and conservation must ever-changing acronyms (does DNR= DPNIR and be extended to private land, an important aspect of BOOK REVIEW: FOREST FAUNA forest conservation that is examined in severalplaces DanLunneyclosesthebookwithasiimmary in this book. There is, by the way, a very interesting entitled 'The fixture of Australia's forest fauna contribution by H. Recher at the start ofthis section revisited" in which he states the aim of this second (on eucalypt forestbirds). editionistoenhancetheopportunitiestocommimicate. The book has achieved that aim admirably and the LOOKINGACROSS THE LANDSCAPE credit forthatmust go to the editor. The title of this section doesn't really tell I strongly recommend this book to whatitcontains,whichisprobablyreasonableasitisa conservationists, biologists and especially forest A verymixedbag. lotofinformationabouttechniques and fauna managers. After all, it is only $25 a kilo can be found herein. For example, RC. Catling and including postage; I've paid more than that for N.C. Coops give examples of the use of airborne cheese. videography in forest management. C.R Catterall et al. dealwithquantification, includingdesignissues,of M.L. Augee the biodiversity values ofreforestation. D. Milledge Sydney suggests an innovative approach to conservation 20 December 2005 plaiming in forests based on large owl territories. This section also includes a really good review of the role of nutrition in conservation of marsupial folivores by B.D. Moore et al. SINGLE SPECIES STUDIES The papers in this section are mostly reports of the kind of studies familiar to field biologists. Species covered are koalas (of course), tiger quoUs, brush-tailed phascogales, western ringtail possums, squirrel gliders and swift parrots. Subsequent papers don't really deal with single species but with larger groups. Individual papers deal with 26 species offeathered fi-uit-eaters, two fi-ogs (southern barred and giant burrowing), a small mammal community of nine species, two gliders (yellow-bellied and mahogany) and the entire mammal fauna in SE forests. Apaper on bats in state forests isprobablyoutofplacehere since itdealswith management and reallybelongs in the next section. MANAGING FOREST FAUNA Having found some of the essays related to management in the first two sections ofthe book heavy going, I approached this final section with considerable trepidation. However, many of the papers in this section contain an amazing amount of information and are oriented more towards the data on which management should be based rather than the management process itself. Two very interesting sets of data concern the effects of Phytophthora dieback on forest fauna (M.J. Gerkaldis et al.) and the effects of fire on fiangus species which are an important component of the diet of many forest animals (A.W. Claridge and J.M. Trappe). The latter is very much a management issue in that an assumed beneficial effect offiiel-reductionbums on fimgi has, in my own experience, been used as ajustification of the practice. 258 Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 127, 2006