As interest in environmental issues grows, many writers of fiction have embraced themes that explore the connections between humans and the natural world. Ecologically themed fiction ranges from profound philosophical meditations to action-packed entertainments. Where the Wild Books Are offers an overview of nearly 2,000 works of nature-oriented fiction. The author includes a discussion of the precursors and history of the genre, and of its expansion since the 1970s. He also considers its forms and themes, as well as the subgenres into which it has evolved, such as speculative fiction, ecodefense, animal stories, mysteries, ecofeminist novels, cautionary tales, and others. A brief summary and critical commentary of each title is included. Dwyer’s scope is broad and covers fiction by Native American writers as well as ecofiction from writers around the world. Far more than a mere listing of books, Where the Wild Books Are is a lively introduction to a vast universe of engaging, provocative writing. It can be used to develop book collections or curricula. It also serves as an introduction to one of the most fertile areas of contemporary fiction, presenting books that will offer enjoyable reading and new insights into the vexing environmental questions of our time.
In this book, naturalist Joanna Burger takes us on a series of delightful trips through the Pine Barrens. From the Albany Pine Bush, the Long Island Barrens, and the New Jersey Pine Barrens in the Northeast, to the pinelands of South Carolina and Florida, Burger describes in lively detail how these habitats have come to harbor such a unique assemblage of species.
She introduces us to amphibians and reptiles, neotropical migrants and other birds, and a range of common and unusual mammals. Burger also traces the regions’ historic and geologic backgrounds, and the impact of human occupation from the time of the paleo-Indians to the present. She revisits the tension between development and preservation, reminding us that a healthy pine barren region requires uninterrupted land and rejuvenating fires, both of which are increasingly jeopardized.
Whispers in the Pines is essential reading for everyone concerned with the history and preservation of these unique landscapes and their wildlife.
Global warming has finally made clear the true costs of using our atmosphere as a giant sponge to soak up unwanted by-products of industrial activity. As nations, businesses, and citizens seek workable yet fair solutions for reducing carbon emissions, the question of who should pay -- and how -- looms large. Yet the surprising truth is that a system for protecting the atmosphere could be devised that would yield cash benefits to us all.
In Who Owns the Sky?, visionary entrepreneur Peter Barnes redefines the debate about the costs and benefits of addressing climate change. He proposes a market-based institution called a Sky Trust that would set limits on carbon emissions and pay dividends to all of us, who collectively own the atmosphere as a commons. The Trust would be funded by requiring polluters to pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide, and managed by a non-governmental agency. Dividends would be paid annually, in much the same way that residents of Alaska today receive cash benefits from oil companies that drill in their state.
Employing the same spirit of innovation that brought millions of dollars to the nonprofit sector through his company Working Assets, Barnes sets forth a practical new approach to protecting our shared inheritance -- not only the atmosphere, but water, forests, and other life-sustaining and economically valuable common resources. He shows how we can use markets and property rights to preserve and share the vast wealth around us, allowing us not only to profit from it, but to pass it on, undiminished, to future generations.
Who Owns the Sky? is a remarkable look at the future of our economy, one in which we can retain capitalism's virtues while mitigating its vices. Peter Barnes draws on his personal experience as a successful entrepreneur to offer viable solutions to some of our most pressing environmental and social concerns.
The United States Congress appears to be in perpetual gridlock on environmental policy, notes Sara Rinfret, editor of the significant collection, Who Really Makes Environmental Policy? As she and her contributors explain, however, most environmental policy is not made in the halls of Congress. Instead, it is created by agency experts in federal environmental agencies and it is implemented at the state level. These individuals have been delegated the authority to interpret vague congressional legislation and write rules—and these rules carry the same weight as congressional law.
Who Really Makes Environmental Policy? brings together top scholars to provide an explanation of rulemaking processes and regulatory policy, and to show why this context is important for U.S. environmental policy. Illustrative case studies about oil and gas regulations in Colorado and the regulation of coal ash disposal in southeastern states apply theory to practice. Ultimately, the essays in this volume advance our understanding of how U.S. environmental policy is made and why understanding regulatory policy matters for its future.
Forests have been at the fault lines of contact between African peasant communities in the Tanzanian coastal hinterland and outsiders for almost two centuries. In recent decades, a global call for biodiversity preservation has been the main challenge to Tanzanians and their forests.
Thaddeus Sunseri uses the lens of forest history to explore some of the most profound transformations in Tanzania from the nineteenth century to the present. He explores anticolonial rebellions, the world wars, the depression, the Cold War, oil shocks, and nationalism through their intersections with and impacts on Tanzania’s coastal forests and woodlands. In Wielding the Ax, forest history becomes a microcosm of the origins, nature, and demise of colonial rule in East Africa and of the first fitful decades of independence.
Wielding the Ax is a story of changing constellations of power over forests, beginning with African chiefs and forest spirits, both known as “ax–wielders,” and ending with international conservation experts who wield scientific knowledge as a means to controlling forest access. The modern international concern over tropical deforestation cannot be understood without an awareness of the long–term history of these forest struggles.
The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is one of the most important natural areas protection programs ever established at the federal level. It has resulted in the creation of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System -- a rich American legacy that includes many of our finest waterways. This book is the definitive resource on the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Topics covered include:
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the wild animal story emerged in Canadian literature as a distinct genre, in which animals pursue their own interests—survival for themselves, their offspring, and perhaps a mate, or the pure pleasure of their wildness.
Bringing together some of the most celebrated wild animal stories, Ralph H. Lutts places them firmly in the context of heated controversies about animal intelligence and purposeful behavior. Widely regarded as entertaining and educational, the early stories—by Charles G. D. Roberts, Ernest Thompson Seton, John Muir, Jack London and others—had an avid readership among adults and children. But some naturalists and at least one hunter—Theodore Roosevelt—discredited these writers as "nature fakers," accusing them of falsely portraying animal behavior.
The stories and commentaries collected here span the twentieth century. As present day animal behaviorists, psychologists, and the public attempt to sort out the meaning of what animals do and our obligations to them, Ralph Lutts maps some of the prominent features of our cultural landscape.
Other selections include essays by Theodore Roosevelt, John Burroughs, Margaret Atwood, and Ralph H. Lutts.
postamble();In Wild Delicate Seconds, Charles Finn captures twenty-nine chance encounters with the everyday—and not so everyday—animals, birds, and insects of North America.
Wild Forests presents a coherent review of the scientific and policy issues surrounding biological diversity in the context of contemporary public forest management. The authors examine past and current practices of forest management and provide a comprehensive overview of known and suspected threats to diversity.
In addition to discussing general ecological principles, the authors evaluate specific approaches to forest management that have been proposed to ameliorate diversity losses. They present one such policy -- the Dominant Use Zoning Model incorporating an integrated network of "Diversity Maintenance Areas" -- and describe their attempts to persuade the U.S. Forest Service to adopt such a policy in Wisconsin.
Drawing on experience in the field, in negotiations, and in court, the authors analyze the ways in which federal agencies are coping with the mandates of conservation biology and suggest reforms that could better address these important issues. Throughout, they argue that wild or unengineered conditions are those that are most likely to foster a return to the species richness that we once enjoyed.
A new view of what’s “wild,” and a new path for environmentalism.
At the very heart of American respect for nature, historically and philosophically, is the notion of the wild. This notion comes under scrutiny in Wild Ideas, a collection of essays that bring a fresh and refreshing perspective to the wilderness paradoxically at the center of our civilization.
Blending well-known and new voices, the volume surveys classical and romantic concepts of wilderness, from the scary to the sublime, and shows why neither serves us anymore. Instead, the authors argue for a “wild culture,” in which nature is not opposed to humanity, a mere matter of resources and consumers. A cogent reassessment of the ideas that drive the conservation movement, Wild Ideas points out a new direction for future environmentalism.Among the topics discussed are the confluence of wilderness, empire, and race in the United States; the way the ecology movement uses language; gendered views of the wilderness; maps and topology, and how they affect our view of the wild; healing by the wilderness experience; and the idea of an urban wilderness. Contributors: David Abram; Douglas Buege, U of Wisconsin; Denis Cosgrove, U of London; Robert Greenway, Sonoma State U; Ed Grumbine, Sierra Institute; Marvin Henberg, Linfield College; Irene Klaver, Montana State U; Andrew Light, U of Alberta; Lois Lorentzen, U of San Francisco; Max Oelschlaeger, U of North Texas; R. Murray Schafer; Tom Wolf.Zoos, aquaria, and wildlife parks are vital centers of animal conservation and management. For nearly fifteen years, these institutions have relied on Wild Mammals in Captivity as the essential reference for their work. Now the book reemerges in a completely updated second edition. Wild Mammals in Captivity presents the most current thinking and practice in the care and management of wild mammals in zoos and other institutions. In one comprehensive volume, the editors have gathered the most current information from studies of animal behavior; advances in captive breeding; research in physiology, genetics, and nutrition; and new thinking in animal management and welfare.
In this edition, more than three-quarters of the text is new, and information from more than seventy-five contributors is thoroughly updated. The standard text for all courses in zoo biology, Wild Mammals in Captivity will, in its new incarnation, continue to be used by zoo managers, animal caretakers, researchers, and anyone with an interest in how to manage animals in captive conditions.
It is nearly impossible to live in Alaska without being influenced by its natural environment. Residents have no choice but to coexist with the Alaska wilderness and its animal inhabitants, and this extraordinary experience—along with the stunning landscape—is what often draws people to Alaska. Wild Moments offers a fascinating range of creative nonfiction essays that describe the chance meetings that bring Alaska residents face to face with their animal neighbors. These imaginative accounts speak to the ability of nature to transform the human experience, and the authors urge us through their works to protect these often threatened creatures who share our planet.
The contributors to this collection include some of Alaska’s most prestigious nature writers, such as Peggy Shumaker, Ned Rozell, Nick Jans, Debbie S. Miller, Craig Childs, Richard Nelson, and Drew Pogge. Wild Moments presents some of the best and most innovative nonfiction writing in an environmental context, and it will be of interest to all readers with a passion and concern for the natural world.
With Wheeler’s compelling narrative, in-depth background details, and eye for revealing the offbeat, you can count this as the first nature book to paint the extraordinary picture of New Jersey’s unlikely wilderness in all its glory. Come along for all the adventure and insight in Wild New Jersey!
Best of Show Award, Society for Technical Communication International
From the East Texas swamps and forests to the Edwards Plateau canyons and the Trans-Pecos mountains, Texas hosts a surprising number of native orchids. Their exquisite beauty endears them to everyone from wildflower lovers to professional botanists and conservationists.
This beautifully illustrated book presents all 54 wild orchids of Texas. The species descriptions that accompany Joe Liggio's lovely color photos discuss the plant's flowers, blooming season, pollinators, typical habitats, and range (also shown by map), including its distribution within and beyond Texas. The species are grouped by genus and also listed by color, county, and habitat for easy reference.
In addition to the species accounts, the authors offer a general natural history of Texas orchids that discusses such topics as pollination and reproduction, special growing requirements, and threats to orchids from loss of habitats and careless collecting. They also describe the many orchid habitats in Texas and the species that grow in each. This wide variety of information, which has never before been collected in one volume for a general readership, makes this book the essential guide to Texas' wild orchids.
Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-based Writing is a powerful collection of mostly unpublished essays and poetry by both prominent American environmental writers and exciting new voices. The poetry and essays by more than fifty contributors offer the reader glimpses into places as diverse as a forest in West Africa, the moors of Ireland, the canyons of the Sonoran desert mountains, and the fields of New England, and they reflect the varied perspectives of field biologists, hunters, farmers, environmental educators, wilderness guides, academics, writers, and artists.
The collection is an intimate portrait of the natural world drawn through the wisdom, ecological consciousness, and open hearts of these exceptional contributors. The Wildbranch Writing Workshop, cosponsored by Orion magazine and Sterling College, has encouraged thoughtful natural history, outdoor, and environmental writing for more than twenty years. The Wildbranch faculty has included its founder E. Anne Proulx, the essayists Edward Hoagland, Janisse Ray, and Scott Russell Sanders, the poet Alison Hawthorne Deming, and many other notable authors. Many have work included in the anthology.
Winner of the New Mexico Book Association's Southwest Book Design & Production Awards for Excellence in the category Trade Books: Non-illustrated.
This book aims to introduce to a larger audience issues that are too often limited to scholarly circles. A thought-provoking collection of essays by some of the environmental movement's preeminent thinkers, The Wilderness Condition explores the dynamic tension between wild nature and civilization, offering insights into why the relationship has become adversarial and suggesting creative means for reconciliation. Contributors include Paul Shepard, Curt Meine, Max Oelschlaeger, and George Sessions.
To further understanding of the meanings and values of wilderness, this volume explores wilderness and its significance to humans from myriad viewpoints, based on a meeting of the North American Interdisciplinary Wilderness Conference.
The critically acclaimed biography of this venerable naturalist and writer.
The first biography of this venerable naturalist and writer.
Sigurd Olson (1899-1982) was acknowledged during his lifetime as a leader of the American environmental movement, an emblematic figure for an entire generation of activists. A Wilderness Within is the first biography of this writer, teacher, and activist who was a harbinger of the opening of America’s ecological consciousness.From opposing the building of roads in the wilderness to preserving America’s most treasured wild rivers, Olson was involved in fierce battles over the environment throughout his life. He testified before Congress, spoke at town meetings, and was once even hanged in effigy.But Olson is best known for his many essays that express the wonder, awe, and peace he found in the wilderness. The lyricism and evocative beauty of his prose became a model for nature writers like Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard. Olson’s popular books, including The Singing Wilderness, Listening Point, and Reflections from the North Country, are beloved by generations of readers, with over 300,000 copies sold. A Wilderness Within looks beyond the environmental battles and books to expose the inner forces that drove Sigurd Olson. He rejected his father’s path as a minister and agonized over his own spiritual life, struggled with school and work. Backes details Olson’s painful path to becoming a writer, and the physical and emotional tolls that his activism and writing took of him. For this biography, Backes conducted interviews with Olson’s family and had complete access to Olson’s papers, diaries, correspondence, and photographs. This research is what makes A Wilderness Within the authoritative portrait of one of the greatest environmentalists of the twentieth century.A stunning look at a man with a vision for the natural world and a vision for himself, A Wilderness Within will be essential reading for Olson fans, historians, and outdoors people around the country.David Backes is the author of Canoe Country: An Embattled Wilderness (1991) and The Wilderness Companion (1992).424 pages Translation Rights: University of Minnesota PressDuring the summer of 2000, Americans from coast to coast witnessed the worst fire season in recorded history. Daily news reports brought dramatic images of vast swaths of land going up in smoke, from the mountains of Montana and Wyoming, to the scrublands of Texas, to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where a controlled burn gone awry threatened forests, homes, and even our nation's nuclear secrets. As they have for centuries, wildfires captured our attention and our imagination, reminding us of the power of the natural forces that shape our world.
In Wildfire: A Reader nature writer and wildland firefighter Alianor True gathers together for the first time some of the finest stories and essays ever written about wildfire in America. From Mark Twain to Norman Maclean to Edward Abbey, writers featured here depict and record wildfires with remarkable depth and clarity. An ecological perspective is well represented through the works of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and John McPhee. Ed Engle, Louise Wagenknecht, and Gretchen Yost, firefighters from the front lines, give us exciting first-person perspectives, reliving their on-the-ground encounters with forest fires.
The works gathered in Wildfire not only explore the sensory and aesthetic aspects of fire, but also highlight how much attitudes have changed over the past 200 years. From Native Americans who used fire as a tool, to early Americans who viewed it as a frightening and destructive force, to Aldo Leopold and other conservationists whose ideas caused us to rethink the value and role of fire, this rich collection is organized around those shifts in thinking.
Capturing the fury and the heat of a raging inferno, or the quiet emergence of wildflowers sprouting from ashes, the writings included in Wildfire represent a vital and compelling addition to the nature writing and natural history bookshelf.
Winner, Carroll Abbott Memorial Award, Native Plant Society of Texas, 2002
Many visitors to Texas beaches see only the sands between the surf and the first low dunes. Because few plants grow there, it's easy to get the impression that Texas beaches consist mostly of barren sand—while just the opposite is true. Beyond the dunes grow an amazing variety and abundance of native plants. Many of them, like Indian Blanket, Goldenrod, and Seaside Gerardia, produce great splashes of flowering color. Others display more modest flowers or are interesting for their growing habits. In all, over seven hundred species of flowering plants grow on Texas beaches and islands.
This handy field guide will aid you in identifying some 275 common and/or noteworthy flowering plants of the Texas beaches and islands from the Rio Grande to the Louisiana border. Each plant is illustrated by a color photograph, accompanied by a description of its appearance, habitat, and blooming time. The plants are grouped by families, which in turn are arranged according to relationships and similarities for easy reference. An introduction to beach habitats and plant life, references for further reading, and a glossary of terms make this book fully useful for everyone who wants a good, general understanding of beach plant life and wildflowers.
You'll find them throughout the year in Houston—lyre-leaf sage, Drummond skullcap, silver-leaf nightshade, snow-on-the-prairie, lemon beebalm, scarlet pimpernel, plains wild indigo, spring ladies'-tresses, deer pea vetch.
These wildflowers and hundreds of other species flourish in this part of Texas, but until this book was published in 1993 no guide had focused exclusively on the Houston area. John and Gloria Tveten spent years seeking out both the common and the rare flowers. They describe here more than 200 plants. A color photograph of each one will make identification easy.
The guide is arranged by color, with each entry tracing the history and lore of a species. Many plants—for example, prairie Indian plantain and self-heal—were used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes. Others, like poke-weed and wapato, are edible. Southern dewberry and giant ragweed are used as natural dyes. And some, like rattlebush and milkweed, are poisonous.
At the end of each species account is a list of key identifying characteristics for quick reference in the field. Summaries of plant families are also included, as well as tips on where and when to look for wildflowers.
Many recreational hikers have stopped along the trail to admire a wildflower only to wonder what, exactly, they are looking at. Wildflowers of the Mountain West is a useful field guide that makes flower identification easy for the general outdoor enthusiast.
Many available plant guides are too technical or cumbersome for non-specialists to embrace. Covering New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Oregon, this book is perfect for the enthusiasts who has little botanical knowledge but would like to know more about the wildflowers they are seeing. Organized by flower color for easy reference, plant records include the common and scientific names, a description of typical characteristics, habitat information and distribution maps, look-alike species, color photographs, and informative commentary. In addition, the book provides a useful introduction to the Mountain West region, along with line drawings to illustrate basic flower parts, shapes, and arrangements; a glossary of common botanical terms; a quick search key; and an index.
The book is spiral-bound, making it easy to bring along while hiking, backpacking, or biking, and stunning full color photographs make visual confirmation of flower type simple and straightforward.
This classic of midwestern natural history is back in print with a new format and new photographs. Originally published in 1989, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie introduced many naturalists to the beauty and diversity of the native plants of the huge grasslands that once stretched from Manitoba to Texas. Now redesigned with updated names and all-new photographs, this reliable field companion will introduce tallgrass prairie wildflowers to a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts in the Upper Midwest.
Each species account is accompanied by a brilliant full-page color photograph by botanist Thomas Rosburg. In clear, straightforward, and accessible prose, authors Sylvan Runkel and Dean Roosa provide common, scientific, and family names; the Latin or Greek meaning of the scientific names; habitat and blooming times; and a complete description of plant, flower, and fruit. Particularly interesting is the information on the many ways in which Native Americans and early pioneers used these plants for everything from pain relief to dyes to hairbrushes.
Runkel and Roosa say that prairies can be among the most peaceful places on earth; certainly they are among the most beleaguered. Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie will inspire both amateurs and professionals with the desire to learn more about the wonders of the prairie landscape.
Americans are having an increasing impact on the rural landscape as development further encroaches in former wilderness areas. This disruptive land use is causing a decline in wildlife and wildlife habitats. Wildlife and Habitats in Managed Landscapes presents a new strategy for solving this problem by redefining habitats to include the concept of landscape. Employing this strategy, natural resource managers apply tools of planning, management, and design to entire landscapes to meet the needs of both wildlife and humans.
Wildlife and Recreationists defines and clarifies the issues surrounding the conflict between outdoor recreation and the health and well-being of wildlife and ecosystems. Contributors to the volume consider both direct and indirect effects of widlife-recreationist interactions, including:
The editors and contributors to Wildlife Crime examine topical issues from extinction to trafficking in order to understand the ecological, economic, political, and social costs and consequences of these crimes. Drawing from diverse theoretical perspectives, empirical and methodological developments, and on-the-ground experiences of practitioners, this comprehensive volume looks at how conservationists and law enforcement grapple with and combat environmental crimes and the profitable market for illegal trade.
Chapters cover criminological perspectives on species poaching, unregulated fishing, the trading of ivory and rhino horns, the adoption of conservation technologies, and ranger workplaces and conditions. The book includes firsthand experiences and research from China, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, and the United States. The result is a significant book about the causes of and response to wildlife crime.
Contributors include: Johan Bergenas, Avi Brisman, Craig Forsyth, Meredith Gore, Georg Jaster, Alex Killion, Kasey Kinnard, Antony C. Leberatto, Barney Long, Nerea Marteache, Gohar Petrossian, Jonah Ratsimbazafy, Gary Roloff, Viviane Seyranian, Louise Shelley, Rohit Singh, Nicole Sintov, Nigel South, Milind Tambe, Daan van Uhm, Greg Warchol, Rodger Watson, Rob White, Madelon Willemsen, and the editor.
Elephants rarely breed in captivity and are not considered domesticated, yet they interact with people regularly and adapt to various environments. Too social and sagacious to be objects, too strange to be human, too captive to truly be wild, but too wild to be domesticated—where do elephants fall in our understanding of nature?
In Wildlife in the Anthropocene, Jamie Lorimer argues that the idea of nature as a pure and timeless place characterized by the absence of humans has come to an end. But life goes on. Wildlife inhabits everywhere and is on the move; Lorimer proposes the concept of wildlife as a replacement for nature. Offering a thorough appraisal of the Anthropocene—an era in which human actions affect and influence all life and all systems on our planet— Lorimer unpacks its implications for changing definitions of nature and the politics of wildlife conservation. Wildlife in the Anthropocene examines rewilding, the impacts of wildlife films, human relationships with charismatic species, and urban wildlife. Analyzing scientific papers, policy documents, and popular media, as well as a decade of fieldwork, Lorimer explores the new interconnections between science, politics, and neoliberal capitalism that the Anthropocene demands of wildlife conservation.
Imagining conservation in a world where humans are geological actors entangled within and responsible for powerful, unstable, and unpredictable planetary forces, this work nurtures a future environmentalism that is more hopeful and democratic.
In the heart of Wyoming sprawls the ancient homeland of the Eastern Shoshone Indians, who were forced by the U.S. government to share a reservation in the Wind River basin and flanking mountain ranges with their historical enemy, the Northern Arapahos. Both tribes lost their sovereign, wide-ranging ways of life and economic dependence on decimated buffalo. Tribal members subsisted on increasingly depleted numbers of other big game—deer, elk, moose, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep. In 1978, the tribal councils petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help them recover their wildlife heritage. Bruce Smith became the first wildlife biologist to work on the reservation. Wildlife on the Wind recounts how he helped Native Americans change the course of conservation for some of America's most charismatic wildlife.
This volume presents the results of a five-year study of wildlife-management policies in national parks. It synthesizes interviews with individuals inside and outside the National Park Service, provides a comprehensive review of published and unpublished literature, and draws on the collective experience of the authors with various units of the system over the past three decades. Among the topics examined are:
Wildlife Restoration links restoration ecology and wildlife management in an accessible and comprehensive guide to restoring wildlife and the habitats upon which they depend. It offers readers a thorough overview of the types of information needed in planning a wildlife-habitat restoration project and provides the basic tools necessary for developing and implementing a rigorous monitoring program. The book:
The author does not offer a "cookbook" approach, but rather provides basic tools for understanding ecological concepts that can be used to design restoration projects with specific goals for wildlife. He focuses on developing an integrated approach to large-scale landscape restoration. In addition, he provides guidance on where more advanced and detailed literature can be found.
Wildlife Restoration sets forth a clear explanation of key principles of wildlife biology for the restorationist, and will allow wildlife biologists to bring the insights of their field to restoration projects. It is an essential source of information for everyone involved with studying, implementing, or managing wildlife restoration projects, including students, ecologists, administrators, government agency staff, and volunteer practitioners.
National Audubon Society sanctuaries across the United States preserve the unique combinations of plants, climates, soils, and water that endangered birds and other animals require to survive. Their success stories include the recovery of the common and snowy egrets, wood storks, Everglade kites, puffins, and sandhill cranes, to name only a few.
In this book, Frosty Anderson describes the development of fifteen NAS sanctuaries from Maine to California and from the Texas coast to North Dakota. Drawn from the newsletter "Places to Hide and Seek," which he edited during his tenure as Director/Vice President of the Wildlife Sanctuary Department of the NAS, these profiles offer a personal, often humorous look at the daily and longer-term activities involved in protecting bird habitats. Collectively, they record an era in conservation history in which ordinary people, without benefit of Ph.Ds, became stewards of the habitats in which they had lived all their lives. It's a story worth preserving, and it's entertainingly told here by the man who knows it best.
Better known as a poet and dramatist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was also a learned philosopher and natural scientist. Astrida Orle Tantillo offers the first comprehensive analysis of his natural philosophy, which she contends is rooted in creativity.
Tantillo analyzes Goethe’s main scientific texts, including his work on physics, botany, comparative anatomy, and metereology. She critically examines his attempts to challenge the basic tenets of Newtonian and Cartesian science and to found a new natural philosophy. In individual chapters devoted to different key principles, she reveals how this natural philosophy—which questions rationalism, the quantitative approach to scientific inquiry, strict gender categories, and the possibility of scientific objectivity—illuminates Goethe’s standing as both a precursor and critic of modernity.
Tantillo does not presuppose prior knowledge of Goethe or science, and carefully avoids an overreliance on specialized jargon. This makes The Will to Create accessible to a wide audience, including philosophers, historians of science, and literary theorists, as well as general readers.
"Our country is lucky to have Jerry Dennis. A conservationist with the soul of a poet whose beat is Wild Michigan, Dennis is a kindred spirit of Aldo Leopold and Sigurd Olson. The Windward Shore---his newest effort---is a beautifully written and elegiac memoir of outdoor discovery. Highly recommended!"
---Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
"Come for a journey; stay for an awakening. Jerry Dennis loves the Great Lakes, the swell of every wave, the curve of every rock. He wants you to love them too before our collective trashing of them wipes out all traces of their original character. Through his eyes, you will treasure the hidden secrets that reveal themselves only to those who linger and long. Elegant and sad at the same time, The Windward Shore is a love song for the Great Lakes and a gentle call to action to save them."
---Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
"In prose as clear as the lines in a Dürer etching, Jerry Dennis maps his home ground, which ranges outward from the back door of his farmhouse to encompass the region of vast inland seas at the heart of our continent. Along the way, inspired by the company of water in all its guises---ice, snow, frost, clouds, rain, shore-lapping waves---he meditates on the ancient questions about mind and matter, time and attention, wildness and wonder. As in the best American nature writing---a tradition that Dennis knows well---here the place and the explorer come together in brilliant conversation."
---Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist Manifesto
If you have been enchanted by Jerry Dennis’s earlier work on sailing the Great Lakes, canoeing, angling, and the natural wonders of water and sky—or you have not yet been lucky enough to enjoy his engaging prose—you will want to immerse yourself in his powerful and insightful new book on winter in Great Lakes country.
Grounded by a knee injury, Dennis learns to live at a slower pace while staying in houses ranging from a log cabin on Lake Superior’s Keweenaw Peninsula to a $20 million mansion on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. While walking on beaches and exploring nearby woods and villages, he muses on the nature of time, weather, waves, agates, books, words for snow and ice, our complex relationship with nature, and much more.
From the introduction: “I wanted to present a true picture of a complex region, part of my continuing project to learn at least one place on earth reasonably well, and trusted that it would appear gradually and accumulatively—and not as a conventional portrait, but as a mosaic that included the sounds and scents and textures of the place and some of the plants, animals, and its inhabitants. Bolstered by the notion that a book is a journey that author and reader walk together, I would search for promising trails and follow them as far as my reconstructed knee would allow.”
"I'm embarrassed to say I thought I knew anything substantial about Wisconsin agriculture or its history before I read this book. 'Wisconsin Agriculture' should be required reading in history classes from high school to the collegiate level. It makes me thankful that Jerry Apps has such a sense of commitment to Wisconsin's agricultural heritage--and to getting the story right." --Pam Jahnke, Farm Director, Wisconsin Farm Report Radio
Wisconsin has been a farming state from its very beginnings. And though it's long been known as "the Dairy State," it produces much more than cows, milk, and cheese. In fact, Wisconsin is one of the most diverse agricultural states in the nation.
The story of farming in Wisconsin is rich and diverse as well, and the threads of that story are related and intertwined. In this long-awaited volume, celebrated rural historian Jerry Apps examines everything from the fundamental influences of landscape and weather to complex matters of ethnic and pioneer settlement patterns, changing technology, agricultural research and education, and government regulations and policies. Along with expected topics, such as the cranberry industry and artisan cheesemaking, "Wisconsin Agriculture" delves into beef cattle and dairy goats, fur farming and Christmas trees, maple syrup and honey, and other specialty crops, including ginseng, hemp, cherries, sugar beets, mint, sphagnum moss, flax, and hops. Apps also explores new and rediscovered farming endeavors, from aquaculture to urban farming to beekeeping, and discusses recent political developments, such as the 2014 Farm Bill and its ramifications. And he looks to the future of farming, contemplating questions of ethical growing practices, food safety, sustainability, and the potential effects of climate change.
Featuring first-person accounts from the settlement era to today, along with more than 200 captivating photographs, "Wisconsin Agriculture" breathes life into the facts and figures of 150 years of farming history and provides compelling insights into the state's agricultural past, present, and future.
Cattails grow in a marsh, pitcher plants grow in a bog, jewelweed grows in a swamp, right? Do sandhill cranes live among sandy hills? Frogs live near lakes and ponds, but can they live on prairies, too? What is a pine barrens, an oak opening, a calcareous fen?
Wisconsin’s Natural Communities is an invitation to discover, explore, and understand Wisconsin’s richly varied natural environment, from your backyard or neighborhood park to stunning public preserves.Part 1 of the book explains thirty-three distinct types of natural communities in Wisconsin—their characteristic trees, beetles, fish, lichens, butterflies, reptiles, mammals, wildflowers—and the effects of geology, climate, and historical events on these habitats. Part 2 describes and maps fifty natural areas on public lands that are outstanding examples of these many different natural communities: Crex Meadows, Horicon Marsh, Black River Forest, Maribel Caves, Whitefish Dunes, the Blue Hills, Avoca Prairie, the Moquah Barrens and Chequamegon Bay, the Ridges Sanctuary, Cadiz Springs, Devil’s Lake, and many others.
Intended for anyone who has a love for the natural world, this book is also an excellent introduction for students. And, it provides landowners, public officials, and other stewards of our environment with the knowledge to recognize natural communities and manage them for future generations.
The controversy over the management of national forests in the Pacific Northwest vividly demonstrates the shortcomings of existing management institutions and natural resource policies. The Wisdom of the Spotted Owl explores the American policymaking process through the case of the spotted owl -- a case that offers a striking illustration of the failure of our society to cope with long-term, science-intensive issues requiring collective choices.
Steven Lewis Yaffee analyzes the political and organizational dynamics from which the controversy emerged and the factors that led to our stunning inability to solve it. He examines the state of resource management agencies and policy processes, providing insight into questions such as:
Some parks, preserves, and other natural areas serve people well; others are disappointing. Successful design and management requires knowledge of both people and environments.
With People in Mind explores how to design and manage areas of "everyday nature" -- parks and open spaces, corporate grounds, vacant lots and backyard gardens, fields and forests -- in ways that are beneficial to and appreciated by humans. Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, leading researchers in the field of environmental psychology, along with Robert Ryan, a landscape architect and urban planner, provide a conceptual framework for considering the human dimensions of natural areas and offer a fresh perspective on the subject. The authors examine.
physical aspects of natural settings that enhance preference and reduce fear ways to facilitate way-finding how to create restorative settings that allow people to recover from the stress of daily demands landscape elements that are particularly important to human needs techniques for obtaining useful public input
A century ago, many people had given up on the wood duck, dooming it to extinction along with the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet. Today, it’s one of the most familiar and most harvested ducks in the eastern half of the country, and one of America’s great conservation success stories.
In With Wings Extended, Minnesota conservationist Greg Hoch introduces readers to a duck they probably recognize but may not know well. This book shows how almost anyone can get involved in conservation and do something for wildlife beyond writing checks to conservation organizations. Hoch illustrates the complexities of wildlife and habitat management that landowners as well as state and federal wildlife agencies deal with on a daily basis, and takes readers through the life stages of what is largely considered the most beautiful duck in the world. In this fascinating and practical read, Hoch blends the historical literature about the species with modern science, and also shows how our views of conservation have changed over the last century.
Georgie White Clark-adventurer, raconteur, eccentric--first came to know the canyons of the Colorado River by swimming portions of them with a single companion. She subsequently hiked and rafted portions of the canyons, increasingly sharing her love of the Colorado River with friends and acquaintances. At first establishing a part-time guide service as a way to support her own river trips, she went on to become perhaps the canyons' best-known river guide, introducing their rapids to many others-on the river, via her large-capacity rubber rafts, and across the nation, via magazine articles and movies. Georgie Clark saw the river and her sport change with the building of Glen Canyon Dam, enormous increases in the popularity of river running, and increased National Park Service regulation of rafting and river guides. Adjusting, though not always easily, to the changes, she helped transform an elite adventure sport into a major tourist activity.
Maparyan organizes the contributions around five key ideas. The first section looks at womanist self-care as a life-saving strategy. The second examines healing the Earth as a prerequisite to healing ourselves. In Part Three, the essays illuminate how womanism’s politics of invitation provides a strategy for enlarging humanity’s circle of inclusion, while Part Four considers womanism as both a challenge and antidote to dehumanization. The final section delves into womanism’s potential for constructing worlds and futures. In addition, Maparyan includes a section of works by womanist visual artists.
Defiant and far-sighted, Womanism Rising takes readers on a journey into a new generation of concepts, ideas, and strategies for womanist studies.
Animal rights is one of the fastest growing social movements today. Women greatly outnumber men as activists, yet surprisingly, little has been written about the importance and impact of gender on the movement. Women and the Animal Rights Movement combats stereotypes of women activists as mere sentimentalists by exploring the political and moral character of their advocacy on behalf of animals.
Emily Gaarder analyzes the politics of gender in the movement, incorporating in-depth interviews with women and participant observation of animal rights organizations, conferences, and protests to describe struggles over divisions of labor and leadership. Controversies over PETA advertising campaigns that rely on women's sexuality to "sell" animal rights illustrate how female crusaders are asked to prioritize the cause of animals above all else. Gaarder underscores the importance of a paradigm shift in the animal liberation movement, one that seeks a more integrated vision of animal rights that connects universally to other issues--gender, race, economics, and the environment--highlighting that many women activists recognize and are motivated by the connection between the oppression of animals and other social injustices.
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