Demons in Eden: The Paradox of Plant Diversity is the title of a book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

ed by Jonathan Silvertown. (Its publisher

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

 is The University of Chicago Press.) It includes a description of Darwinian

Darwinism

Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....

 evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

ary botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

 (in the first chapter

Chapter (books)

A chapter is one of the main divisions of a piece of writing of relative length, such as a book. Chapters can be numbered in the case of such writings as law code or they can be titled. For example, the first chapters of some well-known novels are titled:*"The Boy Who Lived" – Harry Potter...

); botanical phylogeny

Phylogenetics

In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices...

 (in the second); invasive plants in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 (in the eighth); and green biotechnology

Biotechnology

Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...

 (in the ninth). Allusion to the Garden of Eden

Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...

 occurs frequently in the book.

The final chapter, entitled “The End of Eden?”, describes (p. 145) lessons learned from experiences of the Guanacaste Conservation Area

Guanacaste Conservation Area

Guanacaste Conservation Area is an administrative area which is managed by SINAC for the purposes of conservation in the northwestern part of Costa Rica. It contains three National Parks, as well as wildlife refuges and other nature reserves...

. Silvertown thus attempts to develop general principles for conserving botanic diversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

. Firstly, “find sustainable uses for natural or restored habitats that will give local people an economic incentive to protect biodiversity.” Secondly, invasive plants “can and must be removed.” Thirdly, “what humans have damaged, nature can heal, given help and time.”

External links

• Demons in Eden website
• An excerpt from the book