On borrowed time by David Lindenmayer

I read this book during the Christmas/New Year holiday break to get myself familiar with the biodiversity and its management issues in Australia. Having a bachelor in Biology, I am always curious about a place's biota wherever I am.

Another reason for choosing this book was because it targeted "ordinary Australians" therefore it was an easy read like Feral future by Tim Low. I didn't want something too challenging for the break :).

The aim of the book was "to tell ordinary Australians something about the extraordinary nature of their country, to convey how deep-seated our environmental problems really are, and to alert them to the fact that not nearly enough is being done to solve these problems (page ix)." David Lindenmayer "approached these issues from the perspective of biodiversity conservation and environmental management in Australia" and his focus was "science rather then policy, biodiversity rather than broader environment management, and general rather than specific remedies to tackle problems (page x). "

The book was organized in a Western movie way--the names of the four chapters are The Good, The Bad, the Ugly, and The Hero. Lindenmayer shared a picture of amazing (and mostly endemic) biodiversity ("the good") in the first chapter followed by the problem of biodiversity loss in the next Chapter (the bad"). When it comes to the ugly, he talked about what could happen if Australians fail to tackle the problem in chapter three. Last he focused on what Australians should be doing but haven't in The Hero chapter.

I enjoyed the book. It was a short and sweet (though with some heart-broken information in "the bad"chapter) read and it delivers what it promised. The only thing I don't like is he didn't give citations in the main text so it is difficult to tell where his data was from/follow up on those studies he drew evidence from. He did give a list of further reading at the end of the book but they are not linked to the former text.

Last but not the least, he included bunch of colorful pictures in his book, which is helpful if you want to get a vivid image of what he was talking about. But a couple of times I found the pictures are "a bit too vivid" for my liking. The first time it was a close shot of a snake, and I am definitely a snake person. The second time was a picture about the successful kangaroo harvesting industry, where a picture of hanging roos (in a meat processing factory perhaps?) was showed. I know I am in Australia and in theory roo meat is a very healthy choice but I wasn't prepared to see head-less hanging roos (or to eat them).

Last here is a list of things that I am keeping a note/interested in following up:

• Australia supports between 7~10% of the world's species, most of which occur nowhere else.
  
• Australia is the world's oldest and most isolated continent. The oldest surface rocks on the planet (blue-green algal stromatolites) --more than 4 billion years old--are found near Shark Bay in West Australia. The world's oldest fossils also occur in Australia--near Lake Torrens in northern South Australia.
  
• Australia is the globe's flattest continent. The average elevation is just 330 meters above sea level.
  
• Large female red kangaroos are perennially pregnant, with fertilized embryos triggered to begin developing as soon as rainfall makes grass and water available.
  
• Only 20% of the country receives more than 600 millimeters of annual rainfall, and the nationwide annual average is 465 millimeters. Only 12% of this rainfall flows into streams, as run-off. Evaporation and transpiration by plants return almost all of the remaining moisture to the atmosphere.
  
• Australia has some of the most extraordinary animals, including: the largest kingfisher (the kookaburra); the largest honeyeater (the yellow wattlebird); the most species of cooperative breeding birds; the largest burrowing animal (the wombat); the smallest gliding mammal (the feathertail glider); the smallest mammal that solely on a diet of leaves (the greater glider); 2/3 of the planet's marsupials (160 species in 19 families) and monotremes; the most venomous snake (the inland taipan); the smallest python; the greatest species richness in reptiles.
  
• Antechinuses (marsupial mice) have a late-winter mating frenzy, after which all the males promptly drop dead so they don't compete with the females for precious food resources at a critical time when babies are being raised.
  
• Nearly 400 species of mammals have been recorded in Australia since European settlement, and more than 85% of them are found nowhere else in the world.
  
• 2/3 of the planet's three living monotremes (the short-beaked echidna and the platypus) are found only in Australia (the 3rd species, the long-beaked echidna is from New Guinea).
  
• Bandicoots have one of the shortest gestation periods of any mammal: about 12 days. the young reach maturity and independence in 96 days, faster than almost any other mammal species. Some species of bandicoots can even reproduce in the same breeding season in which they were born.
  
• Of the more than 800 species of reptiles that live here, nearly 90% are endemic.
  
• 93% of amphibian species found nowhere in the world!
• Australia is home to amazing invertebrates as well, including: the world's longest earthworm, measuring up to 1.3 meters in length; the world's heaviest moth; the world's largest moth, with a wingspan measuring 26 cm; the world's heaviest cockroach, weighing in at 30 grams; the world's largest freshwater invertebrate, the endangered giant lobster from Tasmania, which weights up to 6kg and measures 80 cm in length.
  
• Trap-door spiders and scorpions can live for more than 20 years!
  
• The tallest flowering plants on earth are mountain ash trees found in central Victoria and Tasmania (>110m in height and 34m in girth recorded).
  
• The largest coral reef province/the Great Barrier Reef, encompassing an area of 230000 km2.
  
• The world's longest fringing reef is found at Ningaloo, in WA.
  
• The largest areas of the seagrass meadows
• Hinchinbrook Island off the north Queensland coasts supports one of the largest contiguous expanses of mangrove forest--in fact, we have more than 50% of the planet's mangrove species and the most species-rich mangrove forests.
  
• 95% Ectomycorrhizal fungi are endemic (22 genera and 3 endemic families).
  
• 85% of flowering plants are endemic.
  
• WA's Western rock lobster industry--one of the best managed fishery in the world
• Kangaroo harvesting industry one of the most sustainable industry, worths 250 Million/year
• A biodiversity credit scheme in Victoria--The BushTender trial
• Orange roughy (lives >100 years) "old growth fishery"
  
• Australia doesn't have an equivalent of LTER
• Ever since 1996, A State of the Environment is published ever 5 years. The last one was from 2006.