Best of
Conservation

2000

The Impenetrable Forest: My Gorilla Years in Uganda


Thor Hanson - 2000
    Features the local customs in Uganda, mores and bureaucracy governing those from love to superstition.

Planting the Future: Saving Our Medicinal Herbs


Rosemary Gladstar - 2000
     A collective endeavor by United Plant Savers, featuring America's most respected and well-known herbalists. Contributors include Don Babineau, Tim Blakley, Mark Blumenthal, Jane Bothwell, Stephen Harrod Buhner, David Bunting, Richo Cech, Tane Datta, Shatoiya and Rick de la Tour, Ryan Drum, Doug Elliott, Steven Foster, Cascade Anderson Geller, Kate Gilday, Rosemary Gladstar, James Green, Pamela Hirsch, Christopher Hobbs, Sara Katz, Kathi Keville, Robyn Klein, Richard Liebmann, Brigitte Mars, Pam Montgomery, Nancy and Michael Phillips, Janice J. Schofield, Joanne Marie Snow, Deb Soule, Paul Strauss, Gregory L. Tilford, Krista Thie, Susun S. Weed, David Winston, Martin Wall, Matthew Wood. While the renaissance in the U.S. botanical market is positive in many respects, medicinal plant populations are suffering from loss of habitat and overharvesting, and many bestselling herbs are now at risk including echinacea, American ginseng, goldenseal, Hawaiian wild kava, and wild yam. The authors share their extensive experience with using and growing thirty-three of these popular herbs and include suggestions for creating your own private herbal sanctuary--whether a city balcony, suburban backyard, or rural retreat. Full-color photographs will inspire experienced and novice herb users alike to protect and cultivate these remarkable healing plants. Readers will also find out how to use herbal analogues for at-risk plants--other medicinal herbs that provide the same benefits and exist in plentiful amounts--and learn ways to make their herbal purchases a vote for sustainability. Planting the Future shows us how we can participate in the land stewardship, habitat protection, and eco-friendly consumption that will ensure an abundant, renewable supply of medicinal plants for future generations. All author royalties will be used for replanting native medicinal herbs on a 370-acre botanical sanctuary in Ohio.

The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal


Stephen R. Jones - 2000
    With descriptions of Plains Indian cosmology and accounts of their resistance to the encroachments of white settlers, vivid accounts of owl nesting behaviour and the resurgence of trumpeter swan, bald eagle, prairie chicken, and wild turkey, and compelling stories of homesteaders, range wars, and prairie fires and blizzards, this collection should appeal also to students of the American West, birdwatchers, and those who simply enjoy the outdoors.

Hands on the Land: A History of the Vermont Landscape


Jan Albers - 2000
    Albers shows how Vermont has come to stand for the ideal of unspoiled rural community, examining both the basis of the state's pastoral image and the equally real toll taken by the pressure of human hands on the land. She begins with the relatively light touch of Vermont's Native Americans, then shows how European settlers--armed with a conviction that their claim to the land was a God-given right--shaped the landscape both to meet economic needs and to satisfy philosophical beliefs. The often turbulent result: a conflict between practical requirements and romantic ideals that has persisted to this day. Making lively use of contemporary accounts, advertisements, maps, landscape paintings, and vintage photographs, Albers delves into the stories and personalities behind the development of a succession of Vermont landscapes. She observes the growth of communities from tiny settlements to picturesque villages to bustling cities; traces the development of agriculture, forestry, mining, industry, and the influence of burgeoning technology; and proceeds to the growth of environmental consciousness, aided by both private initiative and governmental regulation. She reveals how as community strengthens, so does responsible stewardship of the land. Albers shows that like any landscape, the Vermont landscape reflects the human decisions that have been made about it--and that the more a community understands about how such decisions have been made, the better will be its future decisions.

Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind (SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)


Christopher M. Bache - 2000
    It is a product of creative imagination inspired by inner journeys to the farthest frontiers of the psyche and yet a work forged by a rigorous intellect and impeccable scholarship. A fine example of a courageous pioneering venture into rarely traveled territories of the human psyche, it will remain a classic in the transpersonal field.

Feeding the World


Vaclav Smil - 2000
    He asks whether human ingenuity can produce enough food to support healthy and vigorous lives for all these people without irreparably damaging the integrity of the biosphere.What makes this book different from other books on the world food situation is its consideration of the complete food cycle, from agriculture to post-harvest losses and processing to eating and discarding. Taking a scientific approach, Smil espouses neither the catastrophic view that widespread starvation is imminent nor the cornucopian view that welcomes large population increases as the source of endless human inventiveness. He shows how we can make more effective use of current resources and suggests that if we increase farming efficiency, reduce waste, and transform our diets, future needs may not be as great as we anticipate.Smil's message is that the prospects may not be as bright as we would like, but the outlook is hardly disheartening. Although inaction, late action, or misplaced emphasis may bring future troubles, we have the tools to steer a more efficient course. There are no insurmountable biophysical reasons we cannot feed humanity in the decades to come while easing the burden that modern agriculture puts on the biosphere.

Ecology of War & Peace: Counting Costs of Conflict


Tom H. Hastings - 2000
    How do mobilization for war and the actual war effort affect the environment? How do ecological conditions encourage war? What are possible, non-violent solutions to the ecological- conflict dynamic? Ecology of War & Peace attempts to answer these questions in readable prose with an unapologetic bias toward non-violence.

Practical Wildlife Care


Les Stocker - 2000
    However, for many years, care of injured wildlife was regarded as a low priority and euthanasia was the recommended option. A lot has changed over the past twenty years and now caring for wildlife casualties is part of everyday life in many veterinary practices. Following on from the major success of the first edition, this second edition provides even more useful information on wildlife care and rehabilitation. As well as covering a whole range of species, with sections on birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, this edition now includes information on many 'alien' species appearing in the British countryside such as wallabies, wild boar and exotic reptiles. In this edition: * Essential guidance on handling, first aid, feeding and releasing, and many other disciplines not featured in veterinary or nursing training; * Full of helpful tips from an expert in wildlife rehabilitation who has unparalleled practical experience; * Expanded chapters on the care of all species - particularly casualty badgers, otters and hedgehogs - and more comprehensive guidance on rearing orphaned mammals and birds; * Lots more colour pictures to aid in management and care techniques and the latest information on zoonotic diseases from around the world.

Photo Guide to Trees of Southern Africa


Braam van Wyk - 2000
    Features of the revised edition include: * Descriptive accounts highlighting the most important field identification characters. * Full-color photographs illustrating growth form, flowers, fruit and bark of the various species. * Up-to-date distribution maps showing the range of each species in southern Africa. * Information on habitat preference of each species and uses by man. * Reference to similar and closely related species and how they can be distinguished. * Introductory chapters on biomes and trees; fruit trees; furniture and craftwork; firewood; medicinal and poisonous trees; trees and animals; architecture of trees; identifying trees.

George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation


David Lowenthal - 2000
    David Lowenthal here offers fresh insights, from new sources, into Marsh's career and shows his relevance today, in a book which has its roots in but wholly supersedes Lowenthal's earlier biography George Perkins Marsh: Versatile Vermonter (1958). Marsh's devotion to the repair of nature, to the concerns of working people, to women's rights, and to historical stewardship resonate more than ever. His Vermont birthplace is now a national park chronicling American conservation, and the crusade he launched is now global.Marsh's seminal book Man and Nature is famed for its ecological acumen. The clue to its inception lies in Marsh's many-sided engagement in the life of his time. The broadest scholar of his day, he was an acclaimed linguist, lawyer, congressman, and renowned diplomat who served 25 years as U.S. envoy to Turkey and to Italy. He helped found and guide the Smithsonian Institution, shaped the Washington Monument, penned potent tracts on fisheries and on irrigation, spearheaded public science, art, and architecture. He wrote on camels and corporate corruption, Icelandic grammar and Alpine glaciers. His pungent and provocative letters illuminate life on both sides of the Atlantic.Like Darwin's Origin of Species, Marsh's Man and Nature marked the inception of a truly modern way of looking at the world, of taking care lest we irreversibly degrade the fabric of humanized nature we are bound to manage. Marsh's ominous warnings inspired reforestation, watershed management, soil conservation, and nature protection in his day and ours.George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation was awarded the Association for American Geographers' 2000 J. B. Jackson Prize. The book was also on the shortlist for the first British Academy Book Prize, awarded in December 2001.

The Root Causes of Biodiversity Loss


Alexander Wood - 2000
    The causes go deep and the losses are driven by a complex array of social, economic, political and biological factors at different levels. Immediate causes such as over-harvesting, pollution and habitat change have been well studied, but the socioeconomic factors driving people to degrade their environment are less well understood. This book examines the underlying causes. It provides analyses of a range of case studies from Brazil, Cameroon, China, Danube River Basin, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Tanzania and Vietnam, and integrates them into a new and interdisciplinary framework for understanding what is happening. From these results, the editors are able to derive policy conclusions and recommendations for operational and institutional approaches to address the root causes and reverse the current trends. It makes a contribution to the understanding of all those - from ecologists and conservationists to economists and policy makers - working on one of the major challenges we face.

Cleaning Painted Surfaces: Aqueous Methods


Richard Wolbers - 2000
    It is a distillation of many years' experience of formulating a cleaning treatment for any given object. The general principles of the chemistry and the practical applications are described. The methods are applicable to the surface cleaning of both traditional and modern paint media found on sculptures, ethnographic materials, paintings, gilded surfaces and furniture. Aqueous methods are certainly worth considering for those surfaces which cannot be cleaned safely by methods based on solvents.

Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act


Mark W.T. Harvey - 2000
    In this deeply researched and affectionate portrait, Mark Harvey brings to life this great leader of environmental activism. Zahniser worked for the Bureau of Biological Survey (a precursor to the Fish and Wildlife Service) and the Department of the Interior, wrote for Nature magazine, and eventually managed the Wilderness Society and edited its magazine, Living Wilderness. His eloquent definition of wilderness still serves as a central tenet for the Wilderness Society: "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

Hotspots: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions


Russell A. Mittermeier - 2000
    They are four of the Earth's twenty-five "hotspots," geographical areas which, according to scientists and naturalists, are home to the world's greatest plant and animal diversity. The numbers are staggering: fully sixty percent of all terrestrial animal and plant species are found in these hotspots, which are themselves only 1.4 percent of the Earth's surface; they contain 54 percent of amphibian species and nearly half of all the plant species on Earth. They are the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on Earth. "Hotspots" is the definitive compilation and status report on these twenty-five areas. Russell Mittermeier, Cristine Mittermeier and Norman Myers, who pioneered the "hotspots" concept, take you through each of these regions, describing the various ecosystems and the threats to their existence. They have gathered the work of more than one hundred international experts on plant and animal life together with hundreds of spectacular color photographs, essentially creating a tour of the magnificent array of life found in each region. How we address and reverse the tide of destruction in coming decades will determine the planet's course for centuries to come, and "Hotspots" actually offers hope that this destruction can be slowed. By showcasing the specific areas that contain the greatest diversity, it demonstrates that we can conserve a major share of this terrestrial biodiversity by focusing efforts on relatively small geographical areas. "Hotspots" is not only an important work forconservationists; it is also an extraordinary view of life on Earth. ""Hotspots" represents a breakthrough in the way we regard life on Earth and should be required reading for government decision-makers, corporate leaders, and college students alike."--From the Foreword by Harrison Ford