African Wildlife & Environment Issue 79

GOOD READS

EndangeredWildlife Trust to organize the 'State of South Africa’s Species' conference in preparation for theWorld Summit 2002. "At the conference, Dr Mervyn Mansell’s paper on the state of insects included this sentence: “Higher organisms exist because of the ecosystems that support them, but ecosystems exist because invertebrates establish and sustain them”. This was a very meaningful statement,

But my jaw dropped when Pollinators, Predators and Parasites landed on my desk with a hefty thud. In these days of skinny soft-cover books and electronic publishing, it is a cause for celebration when a really impressive, hard-cover, big-format book of 448 pages is presented to the world. This is a truly impressive book, and it is certainly a groundbreaking compilation that will set the standard for many a year to come. No university

Brown locust (Photograph: Hennie de Klerk)

because it inspired me to highlight the importance of insects, both in the publication that resulted from the conference, and in my involvement with this book. I wonder how many people realise that in fact approximately 80% of all living organisms are invertebrates, and of these 75% are insects – and yet they attract very little interest. And their importance as ecosystem service providers is immense – they are essential for providing fertile soil, pollinating plants, controlling numbers of other insect species that are pests, providing food for a host of other animals, and a multitude of other services highlighted in PPP. "Now, since biomes consist of ecological regions made up of smaller ecosystems, and insects drive the dynamics of ecosystem functioning, biomes formed the perfect basis from which to emphasise the importance of insects.

library can be without a copy for the use of lecturers and students alike, and those individuals interested in natural history, the farmers, and field guide instructors, game lodges and reserves, will just have to find the money to buy this outstanding publication. I was also privileged to chair the 'virtual launch' of the publication, hosted by the Struik Nature Club and 'attended' by a number of people. We had representatives of the publishers and all three co-authors of the book online. I asked Jenny about her role in bringing this book to life: "I was introduced to insects by Hanneke van der Merwe at Lapalala Wilderness School where I was an environmental education officer during the 1990s. Ecosystem functioning and the ecological role of insects was the main focus of our work with the children. Later, I was employed by the

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