James Borrell is a biodiversity scientist and science communicator researching how people and nature can adapt to environmental change.

10 Inspiring Reads for Conservationists

If you only get chance to read one book this year, then I would highly recommend this:

1. The Man Who Planted Trees – Jean Giono

It’s refreshingly short (only 4000 words) and frighteningly ahead of it’s time, considering it was published in 1953. You can read my favorite part and find a full free version here. If you have a bit longer, here are some other gems. Let me know your own recommendations in the comments below.

2. The Snow Leopard – Peter Matthiessen

3. The Wild Trees – Richard Preston

4. The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins

5. Gorillas in the Mist – Dian Fossey

6. Jaguars and Electric Eels – Alexander von Humboldt

7. The Butterfly Isles – Patrick Barkham

8. The Last Grain Race – Eric Newby

9. The Greenpeace Book – Rex Weyler

10. The Bottom Billion – Paul Collier

I heard about pretty much all of these book, thank to recommendations from friends at one time or another. What would you recommend?

Book James for a speaking event:

James is a highly acclaimed public speaker, delivering keynotes, lectures and debates to a wide range of audiences including students, the public, conservation practioners and scientists. Rather than further polarizing already divisive conservation topics, James aims to explain the complexity and nuance of conservation. What we choose to do over the next five decades, will profoundly influence the diversity of life on eath for the next 5 million years. It’s never been a more important, or more exciting time to be a conservationist.

“You had the audience hanging off your every word.”

British Exploring,

“You gave a splendid talk – cogent, passionate, clear and compelling.”

Fellow of the Royal Society,

“Interesting, informative and pitched at exactly the right level for our students.”

Academic summer school

“It was refreshing to have a speaker who talked with such passion”

City of London Freemen's