This beautiful book portrays the extraordinary fauna, flora, and geology of the Hawaiian Islands. Having been published by the Nature Conservancy, the book not only documents the unique natural history of the islands. It also gives special attention to the importance of conservation and the special challenges posed by overuse by humans and the invasive species that we have brought to the island chain.

The book is organized by overall habitat, as indicated by the chapters:
I. Volcanic Origins
II. Coasts and Sea Cliffs
III. Drylands
IV. Streams & Wetlands
V. Rain Forests
VI. Summits

Each chapter is replete with large color photos, presented in one and even two page spreads. The photos show geological and geographical features, as well as resident plant and animal life. Accompanying text describes the illustrated features, and discusses the particular challenges of conserving them in the face of anthropogenic threats.

This book opened my eyes to the extraordinary natural history of the Hawaiian Islands, a place I have never visited or read much about. I was especially struck at how a handful of colonizing forms have given rise to such a diversity of descendant species. "One kind of drosophilid fly became 800. Three hundred fifty kinds of immigrant insects evolved into over 10,000 Hawaiian species. Twenty species of land snails became a thousand. Two hundred fifty flowering plants became eighteen hundred... And the native Hawaiian honey creepers changed so much as they adapted to the wide range of island habitats that they would have astonished Charles Darwin."

Despite the 70 million years of the islands' existence, "plants established themselves only at the rate of perhaps one species in each hundred thousand years. No amphibian or land reptile successfully crossed the ocean to Hawai'i. No oak, no pine, no sequoia. No big game animal came from America or Asia, nor any beast of burden. In 70 million years, only two mammals settled in: one for land, a hoary bat... and one for sea, a monk seal of primitive habits."

One final quote from the introduction: "In less than 6500 square miles of land mass, there can be identified more than 150 kinds of natural communities, each community a small island of life harbored within the larger islands of life that are the Hawaiian Islands." ( )