A clear-sighted book that links economics, politics, sociology and rain forest biology.

Breakfast of Biodiversity is a wide-ranging synthesis of information about rain forest destruction including ecology, politics, economics. The authors' expertise is in Central America, and other areas are represented only in a few references and examples.

There are a few laughable attempts at propaganda, e.g. "We are well aware that our analysis is at odds with much of the international community that seeks to preserve rain forests... But we, as the Lorax, seek to speak for the forest." p. 107. A friend and I spent some quality time ridiculing a passage describing modern agribusiness as transforming petroleum into preservative laden peanut butter "market[ed] under the trade name of Skippy or Dippy." p. 68-69. But on the whole, the text is level-headed and rational, and the arguments are well-grounded in scientific research about rain forest ecology. ( )