“The reason I travel and explore the outdoors is simple,” writes Johnny Molloy, “the world is a beautiful place!” And Molloy would know: he has backpacked more than 2,500 nights in forty states. It is this experience—much of it garnered in his home state of Tennessee—combined with his extensive production of guidebooks spanning activities from hiking and camping to paddling and bicycling, that enabled him to produce Backpacking Tennessee: Overnight Trail Adventures from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains.
Complete with directions, distances, descriptions, and maps, Backpacking Tennessee is divided into four sections that together outline forty overnight hikes across West Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, the Cumberland Plateau, and East Tennessee and the Appalachian Mountains. The trails Molloy has chosen to highlight are a mix of well-known hikes and lesser-known areas, ranging in distance and difficulty for both novice hikers and experienced backpackers. Woven throughout the trail descriptions are comments on scenery, notes about safety, and historical information that help readers get a true feel for each hike. To round out his comprehensive guide, Molloy also includes ratings, 1–5, on the family- and dog-friendliness of each trail—an especially helpful feature for readers bringing loved ones along.
From the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Cherokee National Forest to Big South Fork and Land Between the Lakes, Tennessee offers thousands of miles of trails for adventurers looking to explore. For budding outdoor enthusiasts and experienced backpackers alike, Backpacking Tennessee answers the timeless question: where do we go next?
Balancing on the Brink of Extinction presents a comprehensive overview of the Endangered Species Act -- its conception, history, and potential for protecting the remaining endangered species.
On a December day in 1968, DDT went on trial in Madison, Wisconsin. In Banning DDT: How Citizen Activists in Wisconsin Led the Way, Bill Berry details how the citizens, scientists, reporters, and traditional conservationists drew attention to the harmful effects of “the miracle pesticide” DDT, which was being used to control Dutch elm disease.
Berry tells of the hunters and fishers, bird-watchers, and garden-club ladies like Lorrie Otto, who dropped off twenty-eight dead robins at the Bayside village offices. He tells of university professors and scientists like Joseph Hickey, a professor and researcher in the Department of Wildlife Management in at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who, years after the fact, wept about the suppression of some of his early DDT research. And he tells of activists like Senator Gaylord Nelson and members of the state’s Citizens Natural Resources who rallied the cause.
The Madison trial was one of the first for the Environmental Defense Fund. The National Audubon Society helped secure the more than $52,000 in donations that offset the environmentalists’ costs associated with the hearing. Today, virtually every reference to the history of DDT mentions the impact of Wisconsin’s battles.
The six-month-long DDT hearing was one of the first chapters in citizen activism in the modern environmental era. Banning DDT is a compelling story of how citizen activism, science, and law merged in Wisconsin’s DDT battles to forge a new way to accomplish public policy. These citizen activists were motivated by the belief that we all deserve a voice on the health of the land and water that sustain us.
What kind of tree is that? Whether you’re hiking in the woods or simply sitting in your backyard, from Maine to New York you’ll never be without an answer to that question, thanks to this handy companion to the trees of the Northeast. Featuring detailed information and illustrations covering each phase of a tree’s lifecycle, this indispensable guidebook explains how to identify trees by their bark alone—no more need to wait for leaf season. Chapters on the structure and ecology of tree bark, descriptions of bark appearance, an easy-to-use identification key, and supplemental information on non-bark characteristics—all enhanced by more than 450 photographs, illustrations, and maps—will show you how to distinguish the textures, shapes, and colors of bark to recognize various tree species, and also understand why these traits evolved.
Whether you’re a professional naturalist or a parent leading a family hike, this new edition of Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast is your essential guide to the region’s 67 native and naturalized tree species.
Because they prey upon a wide variety of conifers, bark beetles have a major impact upon western forests. In most of the western states, for example, we have witnessed bark beetles in epidemic outbreaks, attacking and damaging ponderosa pine, limber pine, and other hosts.
The ecosystem of bark beetle and host tree is a highly coevolved community of organisms in which the evolution of one member of the community significantly influences the evolution of the other. Largely because of the enormous economic impact these insects exert on the management of our forests, few other such communities have been studied so extensively. Bark Beetles in North American Conifers brings together in one volume both theory and a wealth of empirical data gathered by researchers from all the fields in which bark beetles are studied: ecology, evolutionary biology, population genetics, entomology, and forestry.
Topics covered include the life cycle of bark beetles and their population dynamics, their genetic variation and evolutionary mechanisms, the evolution and systematics of the major groups of bark beetles, pheromone production and its implications for coevolution among these organisms, the interaction between bark beetles and their predators, host resistance and susceptibility, the relationship of parasites and symbiotic micro-organisms in general, and management and control of bark beetles based on sound ecological and evolutionary concepts. The concluding section of the book summarizes the dynamics of the coevolved system of bark beetle and host tree and discusses controversial issues for which this system may provide important answers.
The Bark River valley in southeastern Wisconsin is a microcosm of the state's - indeed, of the Great Lakes region's - natural and human history. "The Bark River Chronicles" reports one couple's journey by canoe from the river's headwaters to its confluence with the Rock River and several miles farther downstream to Lake Koshkonong. Along the way, it tells the stories of Ice Age glaciation, the effigy mound builders, the Black Hawk War, early settlement and the development of waterpower sites, and recent efforts to remove old dams and mitigate the damage done by water pollution and invasive species.
Along with these big stories, the book recounts dozens of little stories associated with sites along the river. The winter ice harvest, grain milling technology, a key supreme court decision regarding toxic waste disposal, a small-town circus, a scheme to link the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River by canal, the murder of a Chicago mobster, controversies over race and social class in Waukesha County's lake country, community efforts to clean up the river and restore a marsh, visits to places associated with the work of important Wisconsin writers - these and many other stories belong to the Bark River chronicles.
For the two voyageurs who paddle the length of the Bark, it is a journey of rediscovery and exploration. As they glide through marshes, woods, farmland, and cities, they acquire not only historical and environmental knowledge but also a renewed sense of the place in which they live. Maps and historical photographs help the reader share their experience.
Finding all the birds in Texas can be a lifetime pursuit. Basic Texas Birds, an easy-to-use field guide, will help you identify over 180 species of birds that are found across the state, including a selection of the rarer "Texas specialties" that draw birders to Texas from around the world. These are the birds that form the basis of a birder's life list for Texas.
Basic Texas Birds is organized by bird families to aid in identifying any bird you see in the wild. It is loaded with resources, including:
Much more convenient for identifying common birds than a comprehensive state or national field guide, Basic Texas Birds is a must-have resource for both beginning and experienced birders.
Bats of the Rocky Mountain West begins with a general discussion of bat biology and evolution as well as regional physiography and zoogeography. In addition, Adams describes - based on the results of extensive research - the behavior and ecology of the 31 species of bats found in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Naturalists and biologists alike will benefit from the detailed species descriptions, color photographs and illustrations, distribution maps, and echolocation sonograms. Bats of the Rocky Mountain West is a unique and valuable reference for professional bat biologists, naturalists, and wildlife enthusiasts interested in the conservation and ecology of bats in the region.
Traces the development of Alabama's environmental movement from its beginnings with the establishment of The Alabama Conservancy in the late 1960s and early '70s to the preservation efforts of present-day activist groups
The grassroots effort to preserve Alabama's Wilderness Areas spanned thirty years, from 1967 to 1997. The first battle, to establish the Sipsey Wilderness in the Bankhead National Forest, was the catalyst for reform of national policy regarding public land preserves in the eastern United States. It, and the later campaigns—to establish the Cheaha Wilderness, to enlarge the Sipsey, and to create the Dugger Mountain Wilderness—are classic tales of citizen activists overcoming the quagmire of federal bureaucracy and the intransigence of hostile politicians. Early political opposition to proposed designation or expansion of wilderness areas in Alabama was based on the belief that limiting development of these lands would negatively impact the state's powerful timber industry. In response to such opposition, serious environmental activism was born in Alabama.
Using newspaper reports, Congressional testimony, interviews, and his own recollections, John Randolph traces the development of Alabama's environmental movement from its beginnings with the establishment of The Alabama Conservancy in the late 1960s and early '70s to the preservation efforts of present-day activist groups, such as the Alabama Environmental Council, the Cahaba River Society, and the Alabama Wilderness Alliance.
The Battle for Alabama's Wilderness permits all of the players—pro and con—to speak for themselves, but the heroes—people like Mary Burks, Blanche Dean, Joab Thomas, and Pete Conroy—embody the vision, hope, and persistence required of those who succeed in their preservation efforts. Randolph's account is a testament to the power of grassroots citizen groups who are committed to a common cause and inspired by a shared ideal.
Our beaches are eroding, sinking, washing out right under our houses, hotels, bridges; vacation dreamlands become nightmare scenes of futile revetments, fills, groins, what have you—all thrown up in a frantic defense against the natural system. The romantic desire to live on the seashore is in doomed conflict with an age-old pattern of beach migration. Yet it need not be so. Conservationist Wallace Kaufman teams up with marine geologist Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., in an evaluation of America's beaches from coast to coast, giving sound advice on how to judge a safe beach development from a dangerous one and how to live at the shore sensibly and safely.
Apes and dolphins: primates and cetaceans. Could any creatures appear to be more different? Yet both are large-brained intelligent mammals with complex communication and social interaction. In the first book to study apes and dolphins side by side, Maddalena Bearzi and Craig B. Stanford, a dolphin biologist and a primatologist who have spent their careers studying these animals in the wild, combine their insights with compelling results. Beautiful Minds explains how and why apes and dolphins are so distantly related yet so cognitively alike and what this teaches us about another large-brained mammal: Homo sapiens.
Noting that apes and dolphins have had no common ancestor in nearly 100 million years, Bearzi and Stanford describe the parallel evolution that gave rise to their intelligence. And they closely observe that intelligence in action, in the territorial grassland and rainforest communities of chimpanzees and other apes, and in groups of dolphins moving freely through open coastal waters. The authors detail their subjects’ ability to develop family bonds, form alliances, and care for their young. They offer an understanding of their culture, politics, social structure, personality, and capacity for emotion. The resulting dual portrait—with striking overlaps in behavior—is key to understanding the nature of “beautiful minds.”
Being among bees is a full-body experience, Mark Winston writes—from the low hum of tens of thousands of insects and the pungent smell of honey and beeswax, to the sight of workers flying back and forth between flowers and the hive. The experience of an apiary slows our sense of time, heightens our awareness, and inspires awe. Bee Time presents Winston’s reflections on three decades spent studying these creatures, and on the lessons they can teach about how humans might better interact with one another and the natural world.
Like us, honeybees represent a pinnacle of animal sociality. How they submerge individual needs into the colony collective provides a lens through which to ponder human societies. Winston explains how bees process information, structure work, and communicate, and examines how corporate boardrooms are using bee societies as a model to improve collaboration. He investigates how bees have altered our understanding of agricultural ecosystems and how urban planners are looking to bees in designing more nature-friendly cities.
The relationship between bees and people has not always been benign. Bee populations are diminishing due to human impact, and we cannot afford to ignore what the demise of bees tells us about our own tenuous affiliation with nature. Toxic interactions between pesticides and bee diseases have been particularly harmful, foreshadowing similar effects of pesticides on human health. There is much to learn from bees in how they respond to these challenges. In sustaining their societies, bees teach us ways to sustain our own.
In January 1990, the New York Harbor suffered a major oil spill when an underwater pipe at an Exxon refinery leaked into the Arthur Kill, the fifteen-mile strait that runs between New Jersey and Staten Island. The waterway is home to herons and egrets, fiddler crabs and sea turtles, and a favorite place for recreational fishing, bird-watching, hiking, and boating. It is also lined with refineries and a busy corridor for oil tankers. Because this industrial activity posed such an imposing threat to the fragile ecosystem, biologists had been monitoring the region’s water, soil, vegetation, and wildlife for some time before the oil spill. Thus, we have before -and-after data about the habitat—the only oil spill anywhere for which this is true.
This unique book discusses the human consequences of the oil spill as well as providing detailed studies of its effects on the plants and animals of the Arthur Kill. Biologists, environmentalists, lawyers, and officials worldwide will find this book an essential guide to dealing with—and possibly preventing—future environmental disasters.
The contributors areJohn Brzorad, Angela Christini, Keith Cooper, Lynn Frink, Michael Gochfeld, Paul Hauge, Gordon Johnson, Alan D. Maccarone, Katherine Parsons, Carolyn Summers, Robert Tucker.
"The natural world is a lot like a game of musical chairs," observes Pete Dunne. "Everywhere you turn, everywhere you go, there are places where living things sit down, niches that support their specific needs. But just as in musical chairs, there aren't enough places to go around. Our species keeps removing them—forcing other creatures to leave the game."
In these twenty-nine essays, one of America's top nature writers trains his sights on the beauties and the vulnerabilities of the natural world. Writing to infuse others with a sense of the richness and diversity that nature holds, Pete Dunne ranges over topics from the wonder of the year's first snowfall to the lost art of stargazing to the mysterious forces that impel people to hunt—and not to hunt. Running like a thread through all the essays is Dunne's desire to preserve all that is "natural" in nature, to stop our unthinking destruction of wild places and wild creatures before we humans find ourselves with "the last chair, in an empty room" on an impoverished earth.
Whether it's the sudden, plunging dives of Brown Pelicans, the singing and aerial displays of Northern Mockingbirds, or the communal nesting of Purple Martins, innate and learned behaviors are some of the most fascinating things to observe in Texas birds. Even casual birdwatchers eventually ask, "why do they do that?" while serious birders and ornithologists seek to understand all the behaviors involved in feeding, flying, mating, and rearing young. But until now, it has been hard to find this information in one handy source.
In this comprehensive, yet easy-to-use book, Kent Rylander distills data from many sources to provide an authoritative guide to the behavior of Texas birds. He begins by explaining the principles of animal behavior and illustrating how they can be applied to interpreting bird behaviors in the field. The majority of the book is devoted to accounts of more than 400 species of birds that are most likely to be encountered by Texas birdwatchers. Each account describes such behaviors as feeding, courtship, parenting, and other behaviors that are significant for that species. References to interesting and important articles from scientific journals are incorporated in the species accounts where appropriate, and line drawings illustrate some of the behaviors described.
Winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize
“This trenchant work of literary criticism examines the complex ways…African American authors have written about animals. In Bennett’s analysis, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, and others subvert the racist comparisons that have ‘been used against them as a tool of derision and denigration.’...An intense and illuminating reevaluation of black literature and Western thought.”
—Ron Charles, Washington Post
For much of American history, Black people have been conceived and legally defined as nonpersons, a subgenre of the human. In Being Property Once Myself, prize-winning poet Joshua Bennett shows that Blackness has long acted as the caesura between human and nonhuman and delves into the literary imagination and ethical concerns that have emerged from this experience. Each chapter tracks a specific animal—the rat, the cock, the mule, the dog, the shark—in the works of Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Jesmyn Ward, and Robert Hayden. The plantation, the wilderness, the kitchenette overrun with pests, the valuation and sale of animals and enslaved people—all place Black and animal life in fraught proximity.
Bennett suggests that animals are deployed to assert a theory of Black sociality and to combat dominant claims about the limits of personhood. And he turns to the Black radical tradition to challenge the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness in discourses surrounding the environment and animals. Being Property Once Myself is an incisive work of literary criticism and a groundbreaking articulation of undertheorized notions of dehumanization and the Anthropocene.
“A gripping work…Bennett’s lyrical lilt in his sharp analyses makes for a thorough yet accessible read.”
—LSE Review of Books
“These absorbing, deeply moving pages bring to life a newly reclaimed ethics.”
—Colin Dayan, author of The Law Is a White Dog
“Tremendously illuminating…Refreshing and field-defining.”
—Salamishah Tillet, author of Sites of Slavery
The austere landscape of the Great Basin has inspired diverse responses from the people who have moved through or settled in it. Author Richard V. Francaviglia is interested in the connection between environment and spirituality in the Great Basin, for here, he says, "faith and landscape conspire to resurrect old myths and create new ones." As a geographer, Francaviglia knows that place means more than physical space. Human perceptions and interpretations are what give place its meaning. In Believing in Place, he examines the varying human perceptions of and relationships with the Great Basin landscape, from the region's Native American groups to contemporary tourists and politicians, to determine the spiritual issues that have shaped our connections with this place. In doing so, he considers the creation and flood myths of several cultures, the impact of the Judeo-Christian tradition and individualism, Native American animism and shamanist traditions, the Mormon landscape, the spiritual dimensions of gambling, the religious foundations of Cold War ideology, stories of UFOs and alien presence, and the convergence of science and spirituality.
Believing in Place is a profound and totally engaging reflection on the ways that human needs and spiritual traditions can shape our perceptions of the land. That the Great Basin has inspired such a complex variety of responses is partly due to its enigmatic vastness and isolation, partly to the remarkable range of peoples who have found themselves in the region. Using not only the materials of traditional geography but folklore, anthropology, Native American and Euro-American religion, contemporary politics, and New Age philosophies, Francaviglia has produced a fascinating and timely investigation of the role of human conceptions of place in that space we call the Great Basin.
This is the second book in a series of detailed guidebooks covering all the best “life-list” backpacking vacations in the spectacular backcountry of the American West. This new volume specifically covers the best such adventures in the states of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Every conceivable aspect of trip planning is covered in the guide, including maps and descriptions of the trail, where to locate the nearest airport, other area attractions that shouldn’t be missed, and guide services that are available. A noteworthy feature of the book is the individual vignettes that give insight into the historical significance of many of the trails. Also unique are the interesting and humorous personal accounts that the authors share from their personal experiences hiking these routes. Backpackers will find a wide range of outstanding trips, from high mountain adventures to some of the world’s best lower-elevation canyon hikes. Best Backpacking Trips in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico provides an extensive choice of terrific expeditions.
Environmental policy studies commissioned by government agencies or other stakeholders can play a vital role in environmental decisionmaking; they provide much-needed insight into policy options and specific recommendations for action. But the results of even the most rigorous studies are frequently misappropriated or misunderstood and are as likely to confuse an issue as they are to clarify it.
Better Environmental Policy Studies explores this problem, as it considers the shortcomings of current approaches to policy studies and presents a pragmatic new approach to the subject. Reviewing five cases that are widely regarded as the most effective policy studies to have been conducted in the United States in the last few decades, the authors present a comprehensive guide to the concepts and methods required for conducting effective policy studies. The book:
Better Environmental Policy Studies presents a practical, battle-tested approach to overcoming the obstacles to formulating effective environmental policy. It is an invaluable resource for students and faculty in departments of environmental studies, public policy and administration, and planning, as well as for professional policy analysts and others involved with making decisions and mediating disputes over environmental issues.
Better Trout Habitat explains the physical, chemical, and biological needs of trout, and shows how climate, geology, vegetation, and flowing water all help to create trout habitat.
Climate change has become one of the most polarizing issues of our time. Extremists on the left regularly issue hyperbolic jeremiads about the impending destruction of the environment, while extremists on the right counter with crass, tortured denials. But out in the vast middle are ordinary people dealing with stronger storms and more intense droughts than they’ve ever known. This middle ground is the focus of Betting the Farm on a Drought, a lively, thought-provoking book that lays out the whole story of climate change—the science, the math, and most importantly, the human stories of people fighting both the climate and their own deeply held beliefs to find creative solutions to a host of environmental challenges.
Seamus McGraw takes us on a trip along America’s culturally fractured back roads and listens to farmers and ranchers and fishermen, many of them people who are not ideologically, politically, or in some cases even religiously inclined to believe in man-made global climate change. He shows us how they are already being affected and the risks they are already taking on a personal level to deal with extreme weather and its very real consequences for their livelihoods. McGraw also speaks to scientists and policymakers who are trying to harness that most renewable of American resources, a sense of hope and self-reliance that remains strong in the face of daunting challenges. By bringing these voices together, Betting the Farm on a Drought ultimately becomes a model for how we all might have a pragmatic, reasoned conversation about our changing climate.
An important collection of personal essays from one of the most widely published American environmental writers addresses the effects of ranching on the environment. Acclaimed nature writer Linda M. Hasselstrom sees herself as a rancher who writes—a definition that shapes the tone and content of her writing. Now owner of the South Dakota cattle ranch where she grew up, Hasselstrom lives in intimate contact with the natural world. "Nature is to me both home and office. Nature is my boss, manager of the branch office—or ranch office—where I toil to convert native grass into meat. . . . If I want to keep my job as well as my home, I pay attention not only to Nature's orders, but to her moods and whims." She writes knowingly of the rancher's toil and of the intelligence and dignity of the wild and domesticated creatures that share the prairie grassland she calls home. As one who knows and loves the land, Hasselstrom appreciates the concerns of environmental activists and understands that responsible ranchers can play a role in nurturing a healthy rural ecosystem. Rich in detail, humor, and pathos, these essays offer wry commentary on the scope of human folly and the even greater human potential for community and empathy. "Only people who live in the country," she writes, "could form a relationship with nature so intimate that they feel concern for one lonely duck. People who live in cities . . . only glimpse nature from high windows or speeding vehicles. Even wilderness lovers who probe deeply are only passing through. We who live on the land truly live within the land, each of our lives only one among the other inhabitants of the place." These are essays to read with wonder and delight, to relish and ponder. Available in hardcover and paperback.
One of the largest estuaries on the North Atlantic coast, Narragansett Bay served as a gateway for colonial expansion in the seventeenth century and the birthplace of American industrialization in the late eighteenth. Christopher Pastore presents an environmental history of this watery corner of the Atlantic world, beginning with the first European settlement in 1636 and ending with the dissolution of the Blackstone Canal Company in 1849. Between Land and Sea traces how the Bay’s complex ecology shaped the contours of European habitation, trade, and resource use, and how littoral settlers in turn reconfigured the physical and cultural boundaries between humans and nature.
Narragansett Bay emerges in Pastore’s account as much more than a geological formation. Rather, he reimagines the nexus of land and sea as a brackish borderland shaped by the tension between what English settlers saw as improvable land and the perpetual forces of the North Atlantic Ocean. By draining swamps, damming rivers, and digging canals, settlers transformed a marshy coastal margin into a clearly defined edge. The resultant “coastline” proved less resilient, less able to absorb the blows of human initiative and natural variation than the soggy fractal of water and earth it replaced.
Today, as sea levels rise and superstorms batter coasts with increasing ferocity, Between Land and Sea calls on the environmentally-minded to make a space in their notions of progress for impermanence and uncertainty in the natural world.
Beyond 40% is a practical guide for communities trying to solve their solid waste disposal problems.
Gaylord Nelson’s legacy is known and respected throughout the world. He was a founding father of the modern environmental movement and creator of one of the most influential public awareness campaigns ever undertaken on behalf of global environmental stewardship: Earth Day.
Nelson died in 2005, but his message in this book is still timely and urgent, delivered with the same eloquence with which he articulated the nation’s environmental ills throughout the decades. He details the planet’s most critical concerns—from species and habitat losses to global climate change and population growth. In outlining strategies for planetary health, Nelson inspires citizens to reassert environmentalism as a national priority. Included in this reprint is a new preface by Gaylord Nelson’s daughter, Tia Nelson.
In Beyond Mammoth Cave: A Tale of Obsession in the World’s Longest Cave, James D. Borden and Roger W. Brucker provide gripping first-person accounts of the discoveries, including Roppel Cave, that made Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave three times longer than any other cave in the world.
Borden, a relative newcomer, and Brucker, a veteran explorer, bring a personal and sometimes conflicting view of their roles as adversaries in a race that lasted from 1972 through 1983 to find “big cave.” They describe hazardous adventures, precarious climbs, and close calls from falling rocks. The perils are many and the trek arduous as they squirm through muddy tubes, wade in neck-deep cold water, and crawl over sharp rocks and gritty sand. Theirs is a tale of agonizing endurance spiced by spectacular discoveries.
But the cave was not the sole obstacle. The explorations were complicated by political intrigue and the rivalry between the Kentucky-based Cave Research Foundation and the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition, each seeking to make discoveries and hide secrets. Extreme stress, of course, evoked extreme behavior, ranging from selfishness to sacrifice, from outrageous humor to the deadly serious response.
Beyond Mammoth Cave includes maps by Patricia Kambesis that show the progression of cave discoveries in relation to the topography. Original line drawings by well-known illustrator Linda Heslop capture the dark mystery of the exploration. The book features five black and white photographs as a color gallery of photographs.
A sequel to The Longest Cave by Brucker and Richard A. Watson, this book is a comprehensive update of the speleological investigations in the Mammoth Cave region. Brucker’s involvement provides continuity to the investigation.
In 1993, Alan Rabinowitz, called "the Indiana Jones" of wildlife science by The New York Times, arrived for the first time in the country of Myanmar, known until 1989 as Burma, uncertain of what to expect. Working under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society, his goal was to establish a wildlife research and conservation program and to survey the country's wildlife. He succeeded beyond all expectations, not only discovering a species of primitive deer completely new to science but also playing a vital role in the creation of Hkakabo Razi National Park, now one of Southeast Asia's largest protected areas.
Beyond the Last Village takes the reader on a journey of exploration, danger, and discovery in this remote corner of the planet at the southeast edge of the Himalayas where tropical rain forest and snow-covered mountains meet. As we travel through this "lost world" -- a mysterious and forbidding region isolated by ancient geologic forces -- we meet the Rawang, a former slave group, the Taron, a solitary enclave of the world's only pygmies of Asian ancestry, and Myanmar Tibetans living in the furthest reaches of the mountains. We enter the territories of strange, majestic-looking beasts that few people have ever heard of and fewer have ever seen -- golden takin, red goral, blue sheep, black barking deer. The survival of these ancient species is now threatened, not by natural forces but by hunters with snares and crossbows, trading body parts for basic household necessities.
The powerful landscape and unique people the author befriends help him come to grips with the traumas and difficulties of his past and emerge a man ready to embrace the world anew. Interwoven with his scientific expedition in Myanmar, and helping to inform his understanding of the people he met and the situations he encountered, is this more personal journey of discovery.
Nature writer Candice Andrews weaves together contemporary observations and historical reminisces in Beyond the Trees: Stories of Wisconsin Forests. Readers will journey to some of the most pristine and notable places in the Upper Midwest—Wisconsin’s state and national forests.
The diversity of landscapes evoked in Beyond the Trees is matched only by the characters who inhabit them. Traverse the footsteps of Ojibwe hunters and early explorers in the remote woods of Brule River State Forest. Trek past the remains of bygone logging and CCC camps in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Glimpse into the world of Great Lakes shipping in Point Beach State Forest. Walk on trails named after John Muir and Increase Lapham in the Kettle Moraine State Forest, and experience urban green space at Milwaukee’s Havenwoods State Forest. From orchids to oak savanna, beaver to brook trout, and white-tailed deer to timber wolves, discover Wisconsin’s wildlife and flora and fauna. Archival images, informative sidebars, locator maps, and contact information for Wisconsin state and national forests round out this unique book.
This E-ssential is a three-part series that covers John Davis's epic journey from Florida to Maine. In 2011, with support from the Wildlands Network, Davis traveled 7,600 miles in 10 months from Florida to Maine by foot, bicycle, skis, and canoe/kayak. His extensive travels were motivated by wanting to answer the question “Is it possible in the twenty-first century to identify and protect a continental-long wildlife corridor that could help to protect eastern nature into the future?”
John paints a vivid picture of the physical challenges of the trek, such as climbing the highest point in South Carolina with a heavily loaded bike and trying to consume the 8,000 calories per day he needed to fuel himself for the journey. As readers adventure with Davis, they will also share his evolving understanding of what it would take to implement an Eastern Wildway.
Eastern wildlife, both seen and unseen, from Florida panthers to North Carolina’s red wolves to the ghosts of cougars farther north, are the real focus of this adventure as John explores how such wildness can coexist with human development in the most populated regions of the United States. The science and conservation of large-scale connectivity are brought to life by his travels—offering unique insights into the challenges and opportunities for creating an Eastern Wildway. This is a must-read for enthusiasts of hiking narratives, as well as professionals and students interested in issues related to large-scale connectivity. Compelling photographs and other graphics complement John’s fascinating story.
In this remarkable debut book of poems, winner of the Native Writers First Book Award, Suzanne S. Rancourt, presents her experience as a mixed-raced person seeking understanding through relationship with the natural world and dominant culture. Her family portraits are reminiscent of E. A. Robinson; her sensuous nature poems are imbued with love of earth as a "blessing."
Dance
my legs are explosions
expressions
of lustful wind
i converse through cracks in the walls
slipping in my true intention like a snow drift
on the inside
side of a door i pound
your chest
has become my wailing wall
i crave your tongue dusted
with words and implications
i have something you need
Biodiversity and the Law is a timely and provocative volume that combines historical perspective and cutting-edge legal analysis in an authoritative and broad discussion of biodiversity and the law. Leading legal and policy experts consider a variety of options for the worldwide protection of biodiversity and present a succinct but comprehensive overview of the legal mechanisms available. They examine how conservation advocates can better utilize existing law, and consider what new law is needed.
Among the topics considered are:
"Biophilia" is the term coined by Edward O. Wilson to describe what he believes is humanity's innate affinity for the natural world. In his landmark book Biophilia, he examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes might be a biologically based need, integral to our development as individuals and as a species. That idea has caught the imagination of diverse thinkers.
The Biophilia Hypothesis brings together the views of some of the most creative scientists of our time, each attempting to amplify and refine the concept of biophilia. The variety of perspectives -- psychological, biological, cultural, symbolic, and aesthetic -- frame the theoretical issues by presenting empirical evidence that supports or refutes the hypothesis. Numerous examples illustrate the idea that biophilia and its converse, biophobia, have a genetic component:
In diverse regions around the country, impending crises over dwindling natural resources and conflicts over land use have given birth to a new approach to environmental management and policymaking. Known as bioregional assessment, the approach gives science and scientists a crucial role in the policymaking process, bringing together experts on a range of issues to assess existing ecological and social conditions and to provide a base of knowledge from which to develop policy options and management decisions.
A number of high-profile assessments have been conducted, and while much has been written on individual projects, little has been done to compare assessments or integrate the lessons they provide. Bioregional Assessments synthesizes the knowledge from many regions by examining the assessment process and detailing a series of case studies from around the country. Each case study, written by knowledgeable leaders from the region, features a detailed description of the project followed by reviews from the perspectives of science, management, and policy.
Case studies examined are the Forest Ecosystem Management Assess ment Team (FEMAT) Assessment; the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Assessments; the Everglades-South Florida Assessments; the Northern Forest Lands Assessments; Southern California Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP); the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project; and the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project.
In addition, the book features introductory chapters that examine the challenges inherent in the assessment of complex regional systems, and the role of science in the assessment process. The concluding chapter provides a synthesis and analysis of the assessment process.
Bioregional assessments are quickly becoming an essential part of ecosystem management. This book provides a unique look at the theory and practice of bioregional assessments, and is an essential volume for resource managers, scientists, policymakers, and anyone involved with formulating or implementing strategies for regional planning and ecosystem management.
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