Insect Conservation: A Global Synthesis. Samways, M.J.2019. CABI, Oxford, UK. 560 pp. £55.00 (paperback). ISBN 9781789241679. “Synthesis: the mixing of different ideas, influences, or things to make a whole that is different, or new” (dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/synthesis). This is what Michael Samways set out to provide in this 500+ page volume. I guess this much space is required just to begin tackling a problem with millions of actors. Millions of actors that are now in the middle of an apocalyptic movie, one of those B-rated ones, where there is a lot of gore and blood. Try writing the script of this movie. Your job is to describe the fate of all the actors, to which you must give a name, describe how they make a living, and how they are related to each other. Now, create some threat, maybe global warming, maybe wipe out of entire nations. Quantify how many were sacrificed, but do not forget about the survivors. Describe what strategies were used to save them. Try to give a happy ending, so that people leave the theater with some sense of hope. Five hundred pages do not seem that much anymore, do they? Maybe an encyclopedia would be enough? Samways has been one of the strongest advocates for insect (and arthropod) conservation for many decades. Even before anyone cared for them, far from the current growing interest in the subject, he was already fighting for insects and other invertebrates. He was right there with Ed Wilson, Terry Erwin, Tim New, and the very few others who saw biodiversity for what it is, not for what it looks like. Why should the rest of us care about the “little things that run the world” (Wilson 1987)? This new book starts precisely there: tackling the perception problem. Describing the rise and fall of insects, their diversity, their roles in ecosystems, how important they are to us, and the scales at which we can move to take effective action. Particularly insightful is the philosophical aspect of insect conservation. If 99% of the species that ever lived are now extinct, why should we care about the current 1%? Will not new insect species, as for all taxa, just evolve and replace the disappearing ones? Samways argues that our sentience makes the difference. We know we are causing extinctions, and we know we can halt them. Insect conservation psychology (Simaika & Samways 2018) will play a major role in the future, and there is the need for advocates from all areas, from entomology to sociology, to pedagogy, to the arts. Given the dimension of the task, landscape-scale solutions become almost inevitable in insect conservation (Samways et al. 2020). Land sharing and land sparing, ecologically more benign agriculture, and similar solutions aim to reconcile species and ecosystem services with human activity outside (but also inside) protected areas. Despite the recent calls for 30% of global terrestrial areas to be protected by 2030 and 50% to be protected by 2050, conservation is increasingly seen as depending on the contribution of unprotected areas. Given the ubiquity and endemism levels of insects (many species are restricted to the most unsuspicious and disturbed areas, such as the Crau Plain grasshopper [Prionotropis rhodanica], which is restricted to grazed grasslands in southern France [Bröder et al. 2019]), any field, any city, any forest patch may contain the last remnants of a once-thriving population or species. Islands, both oceanic and terrestrial, are prominently featured in the book, as are population and metapopulation dynamics that emerge in such settings. With increasingly fragmented landscapes resulting from human activities, species often must cross inhospitable areas to maintain natural flows of individuals between patches, and such dynamics often need a helping hand in the shape of ecological corridors. Despite insect conservation usually requiring a focus on landscapes, species are obviously worthy of attention in themselves. And, this is where species traits enter the survival game. Habitat or climatic breadth, dispersal ability, and fecundity all influence the capacity of a species to survive under variable threatening processes. If a species does not possess the traits needed to adapt and occurs in the wrong place at the wrong time, its populations will decrease, may collapse, and at some point, be threatened or even go extinct. Such species should be identified, maybe through assessments under the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and could be the focus of specific measures that involve thinking at the landscape level again. This scale dynamics in insect conservation is considered throughout the book. Unfortunately, given the many gaps in knowledge of insect species (Cardoso et al. 2011), most will not be assessed in the near future, even though some efforts are underway (Hochkirch et al. 2020). Conservation science is forced to perform prioritization and triage. Often, priority species are chosen based on perceptions of conservation professionals, whose preferences for the big, beautiful, or useful are no different form the public's (Sumner et al. 2018). And yet, besides threat levels, there are objective ways to prioritize. Evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered vertebrates have received special attention, attention that should also be paid to invertebrates, or in Samway's words, “conserving the curious” (p. 125). On the other side of the spectrum, rapidly evolving species and the potential for future evolutionary opportunities could also receive attention. From a functional perspective, conserving a full spectrum of ecosystem service providers should also be a priority; many species perform irreplaceable functions throughout their ranges. With such surrogacy strategies, we can only hope that many other, often undescribed, species will also be protected, even if it is a risky strategy and not a panacea. After 5 chapters on general considerations, from landscape to species, the second major section of the book goes into particular habitats. Agricultural development, with its consequent habitat loss and transformation, is one of the main drivers of species declines and deserves special attention. The land-sharing and land-sparing concept is presented as one of the main solutions, as are agrienvironment schemes (as also discussed in Samways et al. 2020). Organic farming; maximization of pollination; nutrient recycling; pest control and other services; integrated pest management, including biological control; and even the controversial use of genetically modified organisms are all problems, because efforts must be made to better understand and apply them, and opportunities, because they can be fundamental for ecosystem and species resilience. Natural habitats, including forests, grasslands, caves, and freshwater, deserve special attention. These are where most species persist; tropical forests, for example, are the most species-rich ecosystems on Earth. Grasslands (including savannahs and mountain landscapes above the tree line), caves, and freshwater habitats are often island-like in that they harbor numerous narrow-range endemics and their importance surpasses their species richness. Threatened by agriculture, livestock husbandry, pollution, fire, extraction activities, invasive species, and so on, each of these habitat types face particular problems that require specific solutions, which Samways mentions and supplies examples of from different parts of the world. Urban habitats also deserve attention and often are the ideal setting for citizen science and increasing awareness of nature. Urban gardens, green roofs, and artificial lakes, all provide opportunities for information, education, and action right at our doorstep. The third and final section of the book is very practical. It considers how to list and monitor species and communities, restore habitats, and minimize species and population losses. Surveying and monitoring are often mixed or confused, yet they are complementary. Compiling an inventory through surveys yields data on alpha diversity, that is, what is where at a given point in time and space. Monitoring, in contrast, provides data on beta diversity, that is, how populations or communities change in space and time. Neither undertaking is an easy task when dealing with megadiverse taxa. Recent discussions of the insect apocalypse have brought forward a number of phylogenetic, functional, habitat, spatial, and temporal biases in monitoring efforts worldwide. Projects are being developed, but a global standardization and optimization is needed if we are ever to know what is really happening to arthropods (Cardoso & Leather 2019). I hope a second edition of this book will refer to a future global monitoring protocol. Among many examples of habitat restoration, Samways guides the reader through the restoration of Cousine Island in the Seychelles. Between 1960 and 2007, the island was restored to close to its pristine state. Two conditions allowed this to happen. First, it is an isolated and small area, thus easy to manipulate. Second, there were small populations of most native plants and insects still surviving in refuge areas. Restoration ecology is extremely complex in most situations, with human and other resources invariably coming up short. Yet, my own experience on the Desertas Islands (Madeira, Portugal) tells me that committed people on small islands can make a difference. Maybe it is time to collect examples that can not only provide guidance, but also give hope to the idea that large-scale restoration with consequent recovery of countless species is possible. This book is a thorough and necessarily incomplete synthesis of how to value and conserve insects in the Anthropocene. Many of the strategies mentioned have been attempted with success in different parts of the world, and we know enough to act immediately (Harvey et al. 2020; Samways et al. 2020). We now need to expand these local strategies. Two features make this book particularly easy to follow. First, the wealth of illustrations with extensive legends that allow the reader to follow all the arguments made in the main text. These help frame full concepts within a limited space. Second, these illustrations are complemented by a list of key points at the end of each chapter, which reiterates the arguments in bulleted points or take-away messages. The book will be of value in classroom instruction and to practitioners worldwide and serves as a guide for further developments in the area. A final word, as a spider expert myself, although insects are now receiving global attention, many of the threats and solutions to these threats apply to other arthropods (arachnids, myriapods, crustaceans, etc.) and even to other invertebrates (molluscs, annelids, etc.). Maybe the insights from work with these groups can also help insect conservation. I hope for a second edition that widens the book's scope at least to arthropod conservation.