MARK CIOC. The Game of Conservation: International Treaties to Protect the World's Migratory Animals. (Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History.) Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 2009. Pp. 267. Cloth $44.95, paper $24.95

Abstract

Mark Cioc's book is a brief but ambitious analysis of several treaties and conventions dealing with wildlife from the first half of the twentieth century. Cioc argues that the agreements should be seen as hunting treaties, not conservation treaties, because the negotiators' real goals were to preserve hunting opportunities, not protect the environment. While the agreements did have some conservationist merit, if almost by accident, they were individually and collectively missed opportunities to change human uses of migratory species for the better. In fact, Cioc calls them “‘diversions’ that provided a legal framework behind which the carnage continued” (p. 5). This description, while an admirable attempt to link disparate events, fits better for some conventions than others. Cioc divides the book into three chapters and a lengthy set of appendices. The chapters deal with conventions in 1900 and 1933 to regulate big game hunting in Africa, treaties in 1916 and 1936 to protect migratory birds in North America, and conventions in 1931, 1937, and 1946 as well as a protocol from 1938 that were primarily intended to regulate whaling in the Antarctic. The appendices cover sixty pages and include the full text of all eight of the agreements. The inclusion of these documents is helpful to the reader and makes the book useful for undergraduate courses.