Extending from west Africa to Madagascar, from the vast lowland Congo Basin to the archipelago of forest islands on its eastern rim, the African rain forest is surpassed in size only by the Amazon. This book sheds light on the current efforts to understand and conserve the African rain forest, an area in need of urgent action to save its biological wealth, cultural heritage, and economic potential.
Written by conservation scientists and practitioners based in the African rain forest, the book offers a multidisciplinary perspective that integrates many biological and social sciences. Early...

When Bill Weber and Amy Vedder arrived in Rwanda to study mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey, the gorilla population was teetering toward extinction. Poaching was rampant, but it was loss of habitat that most endangered the gorillas. Weber and Vedder realized that the gorillas were doomed unless something was done to save their forest home. Over Fossey's objections, they helped found the Mountain Gorilla Project, which would inform Rwandans about the gorillas and the importance of conservation, while at the same time establishing an ecotourism project -- one of the first anywhere in a...