Book re6iew 534
sperm and eggs, and all the rest follows logically. The crux of the matter is not the theory itself, but to show that humans have a reproductive conflict of interest between males and females. Why Sex
Mattersfunctions as a catalogue of studies, many
of them conducted by the author, showing that males and females really do have conflicts of interest and that this has consequences for many aspects of human behavior and society. As the main thrust of the book unfolds, you find yourself immersed in a plethora of studies ranging from co-operation to war in societies as diverse as ancient Rome and the Yanomamo¨ of the Ama-zon. The variation of human societies seems with-out limit, and yet on closer inspection striking similarities unfold, which reflect general biological patterns as well as our species-specific evolution-ary past.
The book is thus a well-written case-in-point for evolutionary explanations of human behavior, and perhaps it is best viewed as a summary of a research field and a reference work for anyone the least bit interested in the rationales for human actions. As such, the book does great service.
Patrik Lindenfors, Birgitta S. Tullberg
Department of Zoology,
Uni6ersity of Stockholm, S-10691 Stockholm,
Sweden
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Agriculture and world trade liberalisation. Socio
-en7ironmental perspecti7es on the common agricul
-tural policy, Edited by M.R. Redclift, J.N. Lekakis and G.P. Zanias, CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK, 1999, 269 pp. ISBN 0-85199-297-8
Agriculture in the EU is facing a formidable set of challenges. At the same time as it has to adapt to the liberalisation of world trade called for by the major exporting countries, and to the enlarge-ment of the union to the East, domestically the environmental impact of intensive agriculture and the preservation of the landscape is being
high-lighted. Add to this the uncertainties related to the new biotechnologies, such as genetically modified crops, as well as to the future develop-ment of world demand for food, and you can imagine the difficulties faced by the CAP-reform-ers. For each farmer these pressures are creating a bifurcation between the role of a specialised pro-ducer for distant markets and the role of a local environmental manager. Trade liberalisation pushes him towards one role, while public con-cerns and willingness to pay subsidies drive him in another direction.
The contributions to Agriculture and World
Trade Liberalisation elucidate the problems, but
are themselves as schizophrenic. There is rough division between a liberalisation camp, which seems to have only minor worries about the envi-ronmental challenges, and a camp of environmen-talists who fear that liberalisation could undermine that biodiversity linked to agricultural activities, which has developed in Europe, but not in North America. The ‘free traders’ — mostly represented by the American contributors — ar-gue that both the environment and efficiency would gain from a less regulated and protected European agriculture. The ‘environmentalists’, represented by, e.g. two administrators from the European Commission, problematise the ‘double dividend’ thesis and are afraid that biologically valuable marginal lands would be abandoned and that the remaining agricultural lands could be used even more intensively if the European agri-culture was opened up to free global competition. The book can be used as a guide to several import issues. Karl W. Steininger treats the cur-rent trade framework and the discussions within the WTO on trade and environment, and Fiona Smith presents the impact of the WTO agreement on the CAP from a legal point of view. David E. Ervin and Clive Potter describe the ongoing agri-cultural policy liberalisation in the US and in the EU. Nikos Alexandratos and Jelle Bruinsma analyse the world requirements of food to 2030. The articles by Michael R. Redclift and Terry Marsden discourse on a more fundamental level on the role of agricultural policies in achieving ‘ecological modernisation’ or ‘sustainable mod er-nisation’.
Book re6iew 535 Although the articles were written before the
final agreement on Agenda 2000, they still reflect the impending problems related to CAP, the inter-national order and the environment.
Jan Otto Andersson
Reader in International Economics,
Abo Akademi Uni6ersity,
20500 Abo,
Finland
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Spatial Optimization for Managed Ecosystems, by John Hof and Michael Bevers. Columbia Univer-sity Press, New York, 1999, 258 pp. ISBN 0-231-10637-8 (paper), 0-231-10636-X (cloth)
This book examines optimisation of use and management of ecosystems, with a particular fo-cus on capturing spatial ecosystem relationships and processes in ecosystems. The book is based on material that has been previously published in journals, especially Forest Science. It contains dozens of examples and offers a useful glimpse of the spatial aspects of topics as varied as pestilence, diversity, recreation, and water runoff, mainly in forest ecosystems. This broad range of topics and detailed examples emphasises the im-portance of spatial considerations in management actions across the landscape within which an ecosystem functions.
The book can be divided into four parts that deal with the following issues: traditional natural resource optimisation approaches using linear programming; stochastic relationships and hence spatial autocorrelation; spatial processes that take place in forest ecosystems, primarily dynamic movement; and the inclusion of biodiversity and sustainability in ecosystem management objective functions. Each part opens with basic concepts and problems. Specific examples illuminate the various optimisation models.
The first part of the book discusses static, spa-tial relationships that reflect how distances, sizes and shapes of landscape elements, species (includ-ing human be(includ-ings) and vegetation affect each
other in a system across the landscape. Chapters 2 and 3 describe wildlife habitat examples and deal with degrees of connectivity, wildlife habitat size threshold for population viability, and the amount of edge between a mature stand of timber and a cutover area (the so-called edge effects). These two well-written chapters discuss the basic methods, using cellular — or raster — (chapter 2) and geometric — or vector — (chapter 3) formulations for capturing spatial relationships in an optimisation context. Chapter 4 is the only part of the book that emphasises an economic aspect, namely, efficiency. This chapter seems to be primarily written for economists. However, the approach is a little bit disappointing. A travel cost model of recreation demand is explored without giving any motivation. Furthermore, much of this chapter is based on an article that was published in 1983. As a consequence, the approach is mainly based on literature from the 1970s.
Managed ecosystems are expected to exhibit considerable random, or chaotic, behaviour. This randomness often includes a significant spatial component, or spatial autocorrelation, as many sources that disturb ecosystem behaviour are spa-tially defined. If the presence of some disturbance in a sampling unit makes its presence in neigh-bouring locations more or less likely, the distur-bance exhibits spatial autocorrelation. It implies a lack of spatial independence, as the proximity of sites indicates shared vulnerability of weather, fire, insect and disease outbreaks, and so forth. The second part of the book discusses the phe-nomenon of spatial autocorrelation. Chapters 5 and 6 are based on cellular and geometric formu-lations, respectively. In contrast to the first part of the book where linear programming took centre stage, non-linear methods and solution proce-dures are used in these two chapters. Chapter 7 describes some approaches to handling risk and uncertainty. It explores methods in case non-lin-ear approaches are not practical, for example, in situations where complexity is substantial.
Part 3 deals with another spatial aspect of managed ecosystems, namely, movement of wildlife populations. Chapter 8 addresses wildlife habitat connectivity or fragmentation by directly modelling wildlife population growth and disper
