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The UN declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. In the same year, the World Biodiversity Association proposed a new certification standard to the world of agriculture based on the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of agrosystems: Biodiversity Friend. The Biodiversity Indices of soil, water, and air are the characterising elements of the standard for evaluating the impacts of human activities on agroecosystems. This field guide illustrates how to apply the Biodiversity Indices of the Biodiversity Friend standard through the survey of so-called bioindicators: biological communities of particular organisms. These indices provide useful indications of the degree of alteration of air, water, and soil ? the three fundamental components of the environment that surrounds us. Up to now, the Biodiversity Friend standard and the Biodiversity Indices have been applied in hundreds of farms in Italy, in Europe, and also in tropical environments, contributing to create in farmers, the true custodians of the territory, a new awareness of the importance of protecting biodiversity for the quality of products and for the perpetuation of life on earth. Many of the readers of this volume will have found themselves wondering about the environmental quality of a protected area, or a region with different degrees of anthropisation. Learning to ?read the signs of biodiversity? is one of the main objectives of this manual. From a perspective of active citizenship, the use of the Biodiversity Indices also allows one to understand how epiphytic lichens, aquatic macroinvertebrates, and soil fauna are useful in giving information on the quality of air, water, and soil of a territory: from the observation of their presence or absence, each of us can simply and autonomously evaluate the healthiness of the environment in which we live. Specifically, the analysis of lichen communities present on tree trunks, of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities present in surface watercourses, and of soil-dwelling invertebrate communities can provide very useful information to evaluate anthropogenic impact on natural, rural and urban environments. Moreover, the contents of this manual may represent an effective educational tool to teach young people careful observation of nature, to discover its wonderful forms and to understand the state of alteration of an environment. Verona. World Biodiversity Association. 160 pp., 153 illustrations, swiss brochure gr. 8 [15.2 x 21 cm].…