What's New @ Ramsar

The compendious threatened bird tome of all time

Introducing the big bird book that probably redefines the term "big bird book"

BirdLife International, in cooperation with Lynx Edicions of Barcelona, has produced the most impressive of all physical books about birds, Threatened Birds of the World: The official source for birds on the IUCN Red List. With a contributors' list numbering in the many thousands, Alison J. Stattersfield and David R. Capper (senior editors) have assembled 852 pages' worth of hot stuff on birds, all of it beautiful but none of it too encouraging.

This astonishing volume will be particularly helpful for practitioners of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, who will be able to use these detailed and highly sophisticated data to create their own "shadow list", as it were, of wetlands in their localities that can still offer habitat to these 0.75-gazillion threatened and endangered species.

The book hosts illustrations by some of the most impressive bird illustrators still lingering on this planet, as well as incredible layout and design by the deservedly-famous Nature Conservation Bureau Ltd in Newbury, Berks., UK

Pick a bird, any bird. If it's almost gone now, you'll find it here, with birdy data, illustrations, maps of its distribution; Latin names as well as real names, and best of all, targets for remedial action in every case.

It's a sorry state of affairs when, in order to be represented in such a beautiful reference volume, you have to be almost dead or not far off. Inquiries about obtaining Threatened Birds of the World for your own Ramsar library should be directed to Lynx Edicions, Passeig de Gracia, 12 E-08007 Barcelona, Spain (tel +34 93 3010777, fax +34 93 3021475, e-mail lynx@hbw.com, Web www.hbw.com ). There's no time like the present to acquire this hot item for your-own-self or give it to the Other One for the "end-of-the-year holidays".

For further information about the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, please contact the Ramsar Convention Bureau, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ). Posted 20 October 2000, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.