Best of
Conservation

2002

The Ten Trusts: What We Must Do to Care for The Animals We Love


Jane Goodall - 2002
    Respect all life2. Live as part of the Animal Kingdom3. Educate our children to respect animals4. Treat animals as you would like to be treated5. Be a steward6. Value the sounds of nature and help preserve them7. Do not harm life in order to learn about it8. Have the courage of your convictions9. Act knowing that your actions make a difference10. Act knowing that you are not alone.Filled with inspirational stories, The Ten Trusts provides lessons Jane Goodall has learned from a lifetime of experience, with the warmth and emotion her readers have come to expect from her. Marc Bekoff, cofounder of the Roots and Shoots program with Jane, also contributes his profound insights and research, which Jane has come to rely on. Together, they share their hope and vision for humanity and all the earth's creatures, distilled into ten eloquent spiritual lessons. Within these ten trusts, Goodall reveals how we can gain true enlightenment by living in harmony with the animal kingdom and honoring the interconnection between all species.

Eye of the Albatross: Visions of Hope and Survival


Carl Safina - 2002
    Carl Safina's guide and inspiration is an albatross he calls Amelia, whose life and far-flung flights he describes in fascinating detail. Interwoven with recollections of whalers and famous explorers, Eye of the Albatross probes the unmistakable environmental impact of the encounters between man and marine life. Safina's perceptive and authoritative portrait results in a transforming ride to the ends of the Earth for the reader, as well as an eye-opening look at the health of our oceans.

Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild


Renée Askins - 2002
    As head of this grassroots organization, she made it her goal to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park, where they had been eradicated by man over seventy years before. In this intimate account, Askins recounts her courageous fifteen-year campaign, wrangling along the way with Western ranchers and their political allies in Washington, enduring death threats, and surviving the anguish of illegal wolf slayings to ensure that her dream of restoring Yellowstone's ecological balance would one day be realized. Told in powerful, first-person narrative, Shadow Mountain is the awe-inspiring story of her mission and her impassioned meditation on our connection to the wild.

The Future of Life


Edward O. Wilson - 2002
    Yet it is so ravaged by human activity that half its species could be gone by the end of the present century. These two contrasting truths—unexpected magnificence and underestimated peril—have become compellingly clear during the past two decades of research on biological diversity.In this dazzlingly intelligent and ultimately hopeful book, Wilson describes what treasures of the natural world we are about to lose forever—in many cases animals, insects, and plants we have only just discovered, and whose potential to nourish us, protect us, and cure our illnesses is immeasurable—and what we can do to save them. In the process, he explores the ethical and religious bases of the conservation movement and deflates the myth that environmental policy is antithetical to economic growth by illustrating how new methods of conservation can ensure long-term economic well-being.The Future of Life is a magisterial accomplishment: both a moving description of our biosphere and a guidebook for the protection of all its species, including humankind.

Elephantoms: Tracking the Elephant


Lyall Watson - 2002
    This "entertaining and enchanting" work (Washington Post Book World) chronicles how Watson's fascination grew into a lifelong quest to understand the nature and behavior of this impressive creature.From that moment on, Watson's fascination grew into a lifelong obsession with understanding the nature and behavior of this impressive creature. Around the world, the elephant—at once a symbol of spiritual power and physical endurance—has been worshipped as a god and hunted for sport."Watson's insights and speculations are dazzling, but what lends them power is his extraordinary knowledge of evolutionary biology and animal behavior, ethnography and South African history" (Wade Davis, National Geographic Society). "Like a shaman, Watson conjures up the spirit of the massive beast" (Publishers Weekly), documents the animal's wide-ranging capabilities to remember and to mourn, and reminds us of its rich mythic origins, its evolution, and its devastation in recent history. Part meditation on an elusive animal, part evocation of the power of place, Elephantoms presents an alluring mix of the mysteries of nature and the wonders of childhood.

Preserving What Is Valued: Museums, Conservation, and First Nations


Miriam Clavir - 2002
    Author Miriam Clavir argues that museum practices are historically grounded and represent values that are not necessarily held by the originators of the objects. She first focuses on conservation and explains the principles and methods conservators practise. She then discusses First Nations people's perspectives on preservation, quoting extensively from interviews done throughout British Columbia, and comparing the British Columbia situation with that in New Zealand.

Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy Of Industrial Agriculture


Andrew Kimbrell - 2002
    It includes more than 250 profound and startling photographs and gathers together more than 40 essays by leading ecological thinkers including Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, David Ehrenfeld, Helena NorbergHodge, Vandana Shiva, and Gary Nabhan. Its scope and photo-driven approach provide a unique and invaluable antidote to the efforts by agribusiness to obscure and disconnect us from the truth about industrialized foods.

The Extraordinary Adirondack Journey Of Clarence Petty: Wilderness Guide, Pilot, And Conservationist


Chris Angus - 2002
    Chronicles Petty's rise from his start as the son of backwoods uneducated parents through his life as a wilderness guide, forester, camp director, World War II pilot, district ranger, aerial forest firefighter - ultimately leaving his mark as a lifelong advocate for the protecton of wilderness.

Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition


Bill Belleville - 2002
    Deep Cuba recounts Bill Belleville's month-long journey around the island in the company of American and Cuban marine biologists and a Discovery Channel film crew. It was the first, and so far only, United States submersible research expedition in Cuban waters. From coral reefs to mangrove swamps to a submerged volcanic mountain, the voyagers encountered sublimely wild places unseen before by anyone from the United States--or even by many Cubans.Belleville conveys the tempo of the scientists' workday, during which the routine gathering of data and specimens could be punctuated by trips in a state-of-the-art submersible, the discovery of new species, or a tropical storm. Throughout the trip, as well, all on board had to work through differences that arose from the expedition's contrary goals: to produce a commercially viable seagoing adventure film and to conduct controlled, methodical scientific investigations.Belleville paces his coverage of the expedition with absorbing stories about the history and culture of the island's peoples, from the indigenous Taino to its current inhabitants of African and European heritage. Deep Cuba even includes a candid portrait of Castro himself. An avid diver, sport fisherman, and naturalist, El Comandante paid a visit aboard the research vessel.Deep Cuba is an engaging mix of nature and travel writing, along with scientific reportage that is keenly attuned to current crises in research funding. Revealed here is a magnificent marine world with crucial ecological links to the Caribbean Basin and the southeastern United States.

Introduction to Conservation Genetics


Richard Frankham - 2002
    The text is presented in an easy-to-follow format with main points and terms clearly highlighted. Each chapter concludes with a concise summary, which together with worked examples, problems and answers, emphasize the key principles covered. Text boxes containing interesting case studies and other additional information enrich the content throughout. Over 100 beautiful pen and ink portraits of endangered species help bring the material to life.

Our Way or the Highway: Inside the Minnehaha Free State


Mary Losure - 2002
    Mary Losure was there; as a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio she witnessed the neighborhood's transformation from a quiet street to the center of an emotionally charged standoff. Fueled by idealism and anger, a diverse coalition banded together to try to stop the highway expansion. Beginning in 1998, this group sustained protests for more than one year and eventually faced an unprecedented show of force by law enforcement.In Our Way or the Highway Losure offers an inside view of the activist subculture that converged into a makeshift encampment dubbed the "Minnehaha Free State." Here, a retired stenographer befriended EarthFirst! members and appeared in the organization's national journal, fist raised in protest of the destruction of her home. A pipe fitter abandoned his old life to defend what he believed to be the sacred sites of his Dakota ancestors. A dreamy, dreadlocked seeker hitchhiked to Minneapolis and spent days perched in a doomed cottonwood tree. A police lieutenant watched the trees fall and felt surprising sympathy for the activists' beliefs. Engagingly written, Our Way or the Highway reveals the motivations, perceptions, and dynamics of those involved in this conflict of wills and ideals.Among the issues Losure explores are the roles of ecoanarchism and grassroots activism in the age of globalization. This fascinating subculture, brought to the spotlight during protests over the World Trade Organization in Seattle and Genoa, has been largelyundocumented in the mainstream press. With a practiced reporter's eye Mary Losure shows the activists' world and the way the establishment views them, and ultimately she lays bare the power of the existing order and the fragility and absolute necessity of dissent.

The Biology of Sea Turtles, Volume II


Peter L. Lutz - 2002
    Biology of Sea Turtles, Volume II emphasizes practical aspects of biology that relate to sea turtle management and to changes in marine and coastal ecosystems. These topics include the interactions of humans and sea turtles, an introduction to sea turtle anatomy, sensory and reproductive biology, sea turtle habitat use and ecology, stress and health, and the maintenance of captured animals. This volume provides both historical and up-to-date information.