Sustaining Life

Eric Chivian, M.D., is the Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. He shared the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He is the lead editor and author of Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War and Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment. Aaron Bernstein, M.D., is a Research Associate at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, and Resident, Boston Combined Residency in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School/Boston University School of Medicine.

• Foreword E. O. Wilson ; Prologue Kofi Annan ; Chapter 1What is Biodiversity? By Stuart Pimm, Maria Alice dos Santos Alves, Eric Chivian, and Aaron Bernstein ; Chapter 2How is Biodiversity Threatened by Human Activity? By Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein ; Chapter 3Ecosystem Services By Jerry Melillo and Osvaldo Sala ; Chapter 4Medicines from Nature By David J. Newman, John Kilama, Aaron Bernstein, and Eric Chivian ; Chapter 5Biodiversity and Biomedical Research By Eric Chivian, Aaron Bernstein, and Joshua P. Rosenthal ; Chapter 6Threatened Groups of Organisms Valuable to Medicine By Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein ; Chapter 7Ecosystem Disturbance, Biodiversity Loss, and Human Infectious Disease By David H. Molyneux, Richard S. Ostfeld, Aaron Bernstein, and Eric Chivian ; Chapter 8Biodiversity and Food Production By Daniel Hillel and Cynthia Rosenzweig ; Chapter 9Genetically Modified Foods and Organic Farming By Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein ; Chapter 10 What Individuals Can Do to Help Conserve Biodiversity By Jeffrey A. McNeely, Eleanor Sterling, and Kalemani Jo Mulongoy ; Appendix Agencies, Organizations, Treaties, Conventions, and NGOs Working to Conserve Biodiversity ; Part A: Co-sponsors ; Part B: Treaties, Conventions, and Intergovernmental Organizations ; Part C: Non-Governmental Organizations

Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity is a landmark book that lays out the case for the conservation of biodiversity and the multiple benefits it provides. The book is well organized, with beautiful supporting imagery. It is a much needed resource and a call to appreciate and take action to conserve our biological diversity at this critical time.