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Pick up a traditional atlas and you'll find ample information on political boundaries and common landforms such as mountains and deserts. National capitals are easy enough to find.
But try to locate the salt marsh capital of the world?
Find the epicenters of bird diversity?
Identify the largest intact grasslands?
For the purposes of conservation, the atlas holds few answers.
But this has changed since The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and University of California Press published The Atlas of Global Conservation on Earth Day 2010 (May 22).
The atlas brings together for the first time such information as where animal populations are concentrated, what species are in imminent danger of extinction, where forests are disappearing most rapidly and where nature is thriving.
Readers can take measure of their own place in the world, not only by longitude and latitude but also by the types of habitats surrounding them, by the species that flourish at home but not elsewhere, and by the amount of conservation that has been done - or could be.
For Chinese readers, however, the real good news is that China Environmental Science Publishing House recently published the book's Chinese version. The Chinese version includes 80 full-color maps and charts, hundreds of pictures as well as essays by leading conservation thinkers.
As the result of a conservation project launched by TNC, the atlas breaks critical new ground in global mapping as well, for the first time delineating specific freshwater and marine systems such as salt marshes and kelp forests. It also includes first-ever maps of where high concentrations of freshwater birds, seabirds and marine mammals occur.
And although the atlas documents widespread destruction of natural areas, it also highlights where the diversity of life continues to thrive, says Sanjayan, TNC's lead scientist.
"We're the luckiest generation; we have the biggest opportunity," he says. "We're at the point where we can see the worst and do the most. Forty years from now will be too late. Forty years ago - on the first Earth Day - we didn't fully know what was going on."
To create the atlas, a team of conservancy scientists asked researchers and conservationists around the globe to share their information.
The response was overwhelmingly generous, says lead author Jonathan Hoekstra. Individuals and institutions offered up entire databases - in some cases, the results of a life's work. In other instances, the team became scientific sleuths, tracking down answers to fill the gaps in our knowledge.
"It was easy to get data for the United States, parts of Australia, Europe," says Hoekstra. "But for Russia? Latin America? The team had to be creative in finding those experts."
Ultimately, the international conservation organization collected and incorporated the work of some 70 institutions representing hundreds of scientists, Hoekstra says.
Behind each map lies a database, searchable kilometer by kilometer and assembled on a consistent framework so that maps can be compared against one another.
"What's cool about this is that all this information is now in one place," says conservation geographer and self-trained birder Timothy Boucher, who is one of the authors. "Ninety percent of this data was already out there. But it was scattered, not understandable."
The atlas offers readers a chance to assess the natural world without the filter of someone else's opinion about what is or is not important, Hoekstra says.
"You can see and judge the facts for yourself," he says. "This is it - take a look at your world."
China Daily
