Death by numbers

For an exercise in accountancy, Global Biodiversity is anything but
boring. It tots up the numbers of species remaining, classified by habitat and
biological family. Though editor Brian Groombridge doesn’t labour the point, it
is clear that there is a worrying amount of red ink on the balance sheet.
Published by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the Hoechst
Foundation, £22.99, ISBN 1899628150.