The Bible on Nongovernmental Organizations?

Abstract

Building the Next Ark: How NGOs Work to Protect Biodiversity. By Michael M. Gunter Jr. Hanover: Dartmouth College Press/University Press of New England, 2004. 276 pp., $26.00 (ISBN: 1-58465-383-3). Michael Gunter's Building the Next Ark: How NGOs Work to Protect Biodiversity is a well-presented volume that represents a substantial and timely contribution to the literatures on international organizations, political sociology, and environmental studies. Given the quality of the critical thinking exercise undertaken by Gunter, Building the Next Ark will be useful in many ways to a variety of readers. For example, regardless of their issue area, the managers and staff of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) will find it particularly worthwhile to reflect upon Gunter's analyses of the tactics, operations, and effectiveness of the 11 US-based environmental groups on which he focuses: Biodiversity Action Network; Conservation International, Defenders of Wildlife; Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund); Earthwatch Institute; Environmental Defense (formerly Environmental Defense Fund); The Nature Conservancy; The Ocean Conservancy (formerly the Center for Marine Conservation); Sierra Club; World Resources Institute; and World Wildlife Fund. Policymakers, in turn, will get a glimpse at the inner workings of these NGOs and will be able to reflect upon their own responses to them. Students, teachers, and scholars interested in NGOs and civil society will find emerging theoretical frameworks that are developed in a clear, concise, if admittedly sometimes idiosyncratic, manner. Thus, Building the Next Ark even merits consideration as a textbook in …