The Story of Conservation: A first book about protecting nature

Long ago, our planet was blanketed by dark forests, dripping rainforests, sun-baked grasslands and rich blue seas. Nature was thriving and humans lived as part of it. Yet, over time, humans began changing the land around them, and powerful empires rose up, driven by a hunger for land and wealth.

After the industrial revolution, the world was changed forever, but it meant that humans were now polluting the environment like never before. Indigenous communities continued to live in harmony with nature, but their ways of life became at risk.

In the twentieth century, conservationists began to understand ecosystems, and scientists started to think about ways that humans could fix the problems that they had created. New technologies can help humans, as well as working with the indigenous communities who have always known how to work with and not against nature.

This is the fourth book in a series that includes the titles The Story of Life: A first book about evolution, The Story of Climate Change: A first book about how we can help save our planet and The Story of Inventions. Though conservation is a complicated topic, Barr and Williams present the main ideas clearly and accessibly, giving young readers a good general introduction to why we need to protect nature and what humans have done to damage it so much in the first place.