Best of
Conservation

2013

Moon Bear


Gill Lewis - 2013
    He hates seeing the cruel way the bears are treated, but speaking up will mean losing his job. And if he can't send money home, how will his family survive?

In the Temple of Wolves: A Winter's Immersion in Wild Yellowstone


Rick Lamplugh - 2013
    When Rick Lamplugh arrives at the historic Lamar Buffalo Ranch on New Year’s Eve, he has one goal: to learn as much as possible about the ecology of the Lamar Valley. All winter he will work and live in this remote corner of Yellowstone National Park, home to some of the best wildlife watching in the world. Winter-hungry elk and bison migrate there to graze. Wolves, coyotes, and mountain lions stalk the grazers while eagles, ravens, and magpies wait to scavenge. The snowy backdrop makes the saga of death and life easy to spot. He has three frigid months to explore on skis and snowshoes, observe with all his senses, listen to and talk with experts. A literary blend of facts and feelings, In the Temple of Wolves celebrates nature’s stark beauty and treacherous cruelty, while revealing Lamplugh’s inner battles with his own human nature.

Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life


George Monbiot - 2013
    Making use of remarkable scientific discoveries that transform our understanding of how natural systems work, George Monbiot explores a new, positive environmentalism that shows how damaged ecosystems on land and at sea can be restored, and how this restoration can revitalize and enrich our lives. Challenging what he calls his “ecological boredom,” Monbiot weaves together a beautiful and riveting tale of wild places, wildlife, and wild people. Roaming the hills of Britain and the forests of Europe, kayaking off the coast of Wales with dolphins and seabirds, he seeks out the places that still possess something of the untamed spirit he would like to resurrect.He meets people trying to restore lost forests and bring back missing species—such as wolves, lynx, wolverines, wild boar, and gray whales—and explores astonishing evidence that certain species, not just humans, have the power to shape the physical landscape. This process of rewilding, Monbiot argues, offers an alternative to a silent spring: the chance of a raucous summer in which ecological processes resume and humans draw closer to the natural world.

What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?: How Money Really Does Grow on Trees


Tony Juniper - 2013
    From the recycling miracles in the soil; an army of predators ridding us of unwanted pests; an abundance of life creating a genetic codebook that underpins our food, pharmaceutical industries and much more, it has been estimated that these and other services are each year worth about double global GDP. Yet we take most of Nature's services for granted, imagining them free and limitless ... until they suddenly switch off.

Kangaroo Dundee


Chris Barns - 2013
    Brolga lives in a simple tin shed in the outback where he raises orphaned baby kangaroos. It is a sad fact of life that kangaroo mothers are at the mercy of speeding cars in this part of the world - killed on the road their young still tucked up in their pouches. These young joeys holding on to life have been given a second chance thanks to the kindness and dedication of Brolga who carefully retrieves them and nurses them back to health. Brolga has been rescuing these special creatures for years slowly and painstakingly creating a kangaroo sanctuary for the many kangaroos he has saved reared and loved. He has dedicated his life to observing how kangaroo mums care for their babies and does everything he can to replicate this. The baby kangaroos traumatised by losing their mother so early are tucked up into pillow cases and kept warm and comforted next to Brolga at night. We see him getting up at 4am to bottle feed them washing them in a little tub taking them to the supermarket and generally mothering them with heart breaking tenderness. Charting Brolga's life with the joeys and honing in on his relationship with one or two in particular Kangaroo Dundee tells the heart-warming sometimes funny sometimes poignant story of one man's unique relationship with a group of extraordinary animals.

The Burning Question: We can't burn half the world's oil, coal and gas. So how do we quit?


Mike Berners-Lee - 2013
    Add the future of energy, economics and geopolitics. Season with human nature ...The Burning Question reveals climate change to be the most fascinating scientific, political and social puzzle in history. It shows that carbon emissions are still accelerating upwards, following an exponential curve that goes back centuries. One reason is that saving energy is like squeezing a balloon: reductions in one place lead to increases elsewhere. Another reason is that clean energy sources don't in themselves slow the rate of fossil fuel extraction.Tackling global warming will mean persuading the world to abandon oil, coal and gas reserves worth many trillions of dollars - at least until we have the means to put carbon back in the ground. The burning question is whether that can be done. What mix of politics, psychology, economics and technology might be required? Are the energy companies massively overvalued, and how will carbon-cuts affect the global economy? Will we wake up to the threat in time? And who can do what to make it all happen?

Tigers Forever: Saving the World's Most Endangered Big Cat


Steve Winter - 2013
    In their new book, Tigers Forever, they combine a decade's worth of Winter's stunning images with Guynup’s eloquent prose to describe the tiger’s fight for survival, the threats it faces, and the few effective programs that are stemming its slaughter. They also reveal the elusive, ferocious majesty of this cat--and note that with just 3,200 left in the wild scattered in small pockets across Asia, they are in desperate need of our help to survive, that tigers could disappear within our lifetimes, and the time to act is now.

Jasper's Story: Saving Moon Bears


Jill Robinson - 2013
    The farmers extracted the bile from Jasper's body and sold it to be used in traditional medicines. It's a horrific practice and conducted on thousands of moon bears each year. But now Jasper has the chance to be free and live a life away from pain and torture. In 2000, Animals Asia, an animal welfare organization, rescued Jasper and other captive moon bears, taking them to its Moon Bear Rescue Centre. Here veterinarians attended to the bears' wounds, hoping to give them some chance of a peaceful existence in the animal sanctuary. But after so many years of abuse Jasper's wounds, both physical and mental, are extensive. Can Jasper mend his body and mind and finally enjoy the life he was meant to live?

21 Yaks and a Speedo - How to achieve your own impossible


Lewis Pugh - 2013
    Lewis Pugh knows oceans. He was the first to complete a long distance swim in every ocean of the world, and has pioneered more swims around famous landmarks than any other person in history. He swam across the icy waters of the North Pole to highlight the melting of the Arctic Sea ice, and across a glacial lake on Mount Everest to draw attention to the impact of climate change on the Himalayan glaciers. It was there that he met his first yak. Trekking behind them up the icy slopes, watching them cross skeletal bridges over dizzying ravines, and listening to them breathe outside his tent each night, Lewis got to think about the things he most admires in a yak. And found that those qualities were not unlike the ones that enabled him to meet his own challenges - and achieve things that people believed to be impossible.In 21 Yaks and a Speedo, Lewis shares his ability to dream big dreams, build crack teams, and get the job done. You'll be inspired by his devotion to excellence, his loyalty to his crew, and his belief in never giving up. These are 21 strategies Lewis used to achieve what no one thought was possible. The principles are simple but effective. Stick by them, he says, and you will achieve your own impossible.

High Moon Over the Amazon: My Quest to Understand the Monkeys of the Night


Patricia Chapple Wright - 2013
    It all starts in a New York City pet shop when Wright and her husband buy an owl monkey whose lively and rambunctious ways soon lead the young couple to South America to acquire him a mate. But while Wright's monkey family is growing, her own begins to fall apart when her husband leaves her and her daughter. Undeterred by her lack of academic experience, Wright sets out as a single mother to study primate behavior in the wild, including a year at a research station in the remote jungles of Peru. There she encounters jaguars, poisonous snakes, army ants, and massive floods that threaten her and her daughter's lives, as well as moments of great clarity and

Earth Repair: A Grassroots Guide to Healing Toxic and Damaged Landscapes


Leila Darwish - 2013
    This toxic legacy impacts the environment, our health, our watersheds, and land that could otherwise be used to grow healthy local food and medicines. Conventional clean-up techniques employed by government and industry are tremendously expensive and resource-intensive and can cause further damage. More and more communities find themselves increasingly unable to rely on those companies and governments who created the problems to step in and provide solutions.Earth Repair describes a host of powerful grassroots bioremediation techniques, including:Microbial remediation—using microorganisms to break down and bind contaminantsPhytoremediation—using plants to extract, bind, and transform toxinsMycoremediation—using fungi to clean up contaminated soil and waterPacked with valuable, firsthand information from visionaries in the field, Earth Repair empowers communities and individuals to take action and heal contaminated and damaged land. Encompassing everything from remediating and regenerating abandoned city lots for urban farmers and gardeners to recovering from environmental disasters and industrial catastrophes such as oil spills and nuclear fallout, this fertile toolbox is essential reading for anyone who wishes to transform environmental despair into constructive action.Leila Darwish is a community organizer, urban gardener, and permaculture designer with a focus on using grassroots bioremediation to address environmental justice issues in communities struggling with toxic contamination of their land and drinking water.

Inside a Bald Eagle's Nest: A Photographic Journey Through the American Bald Eagle Nesting Season


Teena Ruark Gorrow - 2013
    Through 160 breathtaking images captured in eagles' natural habitats, this factual account offers a rare glimpse into the behaviors and activities of America's national symbol as it prepares a nest, mates, lays eggs, and raises its young. Travel with adult eagles as they gather nest materials, forage for prey, and ward off intruders into their territory. Inside the nest, observe how eaglets grow from hatchlings into fledglings, and experience first flight. Included are tips for observing eagles and a glossary of terms. This is a perfect book for eagle enthusiasts and eagle nest cam viewers, nature and wildlife lovers, bird watchers, conservationists, scientists, teachers, children, and photographers. The one-of-a-kind photographs and comprehensive descriptions make this a must-have treasure to be enjoyed by all ages. It is sure to become the go-to reference on bald eagles.

The Once and Future Great Lakes Country: An Ecological History


John L. Riley - 2013
    Its landscapes are utterly changed from what they were five hundred years ago. The region's superabundant fish and wildlife and its magnificent forests and prairies astonished European newcomers who called it an earthly paradise but then ushered in an era of disease, warfare, resource depletion, and land development that transformed it forever. The Once and Future Great Lakes Country is a history of environmental change in the Great Lakes region, looking as far back as the last ice age, and also reflecting on modern trajectories of change, many of them positive. John Riley chronicles how the region serves as a continental crossroads, one that experienced massive declines in its wildlife and native plants in the centuries after European contact, and has begun to see increased nature protection and re-wilding in recent decades. Yet climate change, globalization, invasive species, and urban sprawl are today exerting new pressures on the region’s ecology. Covering a vast geography encompassing two Canadian provinces and nine American states, The Once and Future Great Lakes Country provides both a detailed ecological history and a broad panorama of this vast region. It blends the voices of early visitors with the hopes of citizens now.

Empty Hands, Open Arms: The Race to Save Bonobos in the Congo and Make Conservation Go Viral


Deni Ellis Béchard - 2013
    How could the world possibly accept the extinction of this majestic species?Béchard discovered one relatively small NGO, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), which has done more to save bonobos than many far larger organizations. Based on the author’s extensive travels in the Congo and Rwanda, this book explores BCI's success, offering a powerful, truly postcolonial model of conservation. In contrast to other traditional conservation groups Béchard finds, BCI works closely with Congolese communities, addressing the underlying problems of poverty and unemployment, which lead to the hunting of bonobos. By creating jobs and building schools, they gradually change the conditions that lead to the eradication of the bonobos.This struggle is far from easy. Devastated by the worst military conflict since World War II, the Congo and its forests continue to be destroyed by aggressive logging and mining. Béchard's fascinating and moving account—filled with portraits of the extraordinary individuals and communities who make it all happen offers a rich example of how international conservation must be reinvented before it's too late.

Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist's Journey to Climate Skepticism


Jim Steele - 2013
    His first book, Landscapes and Cycles, An Environmentalist's Journey to Climate Skepticism will likewise open your minds. It compares the effects of landscape changes, natural cycles and climate change on polar bears, whales, walruses, penguins, frogs, pika, butterflies and marine ecosystems. Although it is wise to think globally, all wildlife reacts locally and all regions of the earth have been behaving very differently from what a globally averaged statistic might suggest. Despite media horror stories, many species have benefitted from recent climate change. Those species that are struggling have invariably been affected by issues other than climate change and require very different remedies. Controlling our carbon footprints will never address the most pressing issues of habitat loss and watershed degradation. Landscapes and Cycles juxtaposes environmental optimism and with concern. It celebrates the work of conservationists and scientists whose tireless efforts have enabled the full recovery of a great many species. On the other hand it presents withering criticism against the politicization of climate change and those who have hijacked key environmental issues to the detriment of good environmental stewardship. Steele highlights how faulty science and bad models have misguided critical conservation efforts and misrepresented conservation success. Most distressing Landscapes and Cycles reveals how global warming advocates have opposed appropriate conservation efforts simply because the concerned scientists did not blame climate change. Landscapes and Cycles demystifies both climate science and conservation science in a manner easily understood by everyone. In easily grasped terms Steele explains how natural cycles can cause abrupt climate change and extreme weather events and how those events affect wildlife. If we want to be good stewards of the environment, understanding those natural cycles are essential. Landscapes and Cycles outlines how we can build a more resilient environment and provides a much-needed perspective from which we can better separate sincere concerns from the overzealous catastrophic predictions that dominate the media. Landscapes and Cycles highlights what we need to look for during the next 10 years in order to determine if the "control knob" of global climate change is natural cycles or the rising concentration of carbon dioxide. Until then Steele argues now more than ever, we need to have more transparent and respectful debates to move the science forward. Landscapes and Cycles will enlighten anyone concerned with climate change and the fate of endangered species. Not only is it fascinating reading for the general public, it should required reading for every high school and college environmental studies class.

Of Bonobos and Men: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo


Deni Ellis Béchard - 2013
    Less well known is the fact that these great apes don’t kill their own kind, and that they share nearly 99% of our DNA. Their approach to building peaceful coalitions and sharing resources has much to teach us, particularly at a time when our violent ways have pushed them to the brink of extinction. Animated by a desire to understand bonobos and learn how to save them, acclaimed author Deni Ellis Béchard traveled into the Congo.Of Bonobos and Men is the account of this journey. Along the way, we see how partnerships between Congolese and Westerners, with few resources but a common purpose and respect for indigenous knowledge, have resulted in the protection of vast swaths of the rainforest. And we discover how small solutions—found through openness, humility, and the principle that “poverty does not equal ignorance”—are often most effective in tackling our biggest challenges. Combining elements of travelogue, journalism, and natural history, this incomparably rich book takes the reader not only deep into the Congo, but also into our past and future, revealing new ways to save the environment and ourselves.

Tree Gardens: Architecture and the Forest


Gina Crandell - 2013
    But aside from their purely practical uses, trees are appreciated for their beauty and have long served as important elements in designed landscapes. Tree Gardens is the first book to focus on what author Gina Crandell calls the "largest living architectural structures"—masses of trees that form expressive spaces on sites all over the world. Each case study—from the grand park at Versailles, to New York City's 9/11 Memorial Forest—explains how the scale, context, species, and spacing of trees on a particular site establish its expressive structure. Featuring engaging text and beautiful images, this much-needed book combines useful how-to aspects of tree planting with theoretical discourse on tree garden design and will be an important resource for students, landscape architects, and horticulturists alike.

Primate Ethnographies


Karen B. Strier - 2013
    Essays cover such primates as lemurs, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and apes. Readers experience the excitement of discovery and the challenges of primate field research. Primate Ethnographies can be used as a textbook or a companion reader.

Invisible Nature: Healing the Destructive Divide Between People and the Environment


Kenneth Worthy - 2013
    Amidst all the wondrous luxuries of the modern world—smartphones, fast intercontinental travel, Internet movies, fully stocked refrigerators—lies an unnerving fact that may be even more disturbing than all the environmental and social costs of our lifestyles. The fragmentations of our modern lives, our disconnections from nature and from the consequences of our actions, make it difficult to follow our own values and ethics, so we can no longer be truly ethical beings. When we buy a computer or a hamburger, our impacts ripple across the globe, and, dissociated from them, we can’t quite respond. Our personal and professional choices result in damages ranging from radioactive landscapes to disappearing rainforests, but we can’t quite see how. Environmental scholar Kenneth Worthy traces the broken pathways between consumers and clean-room worker illnesses, superfund sites in Silicon Valley, and massively contaminated landscapes in rural Asian villages. His groundbreaking, psychologically based explanation confirms that our disconnections make us more destructive and that we must bear witness to nature and our consequences. Invisible Nature shows the way forward: how we can create more involvement in our own food production, more education about how goods are produced and waste is disposed, more direct and deliberative democracy, and greater contact with the nature that sustains us.

The Best of Nature


Terry R. Thomas - 2013
    It covers a wide variety of topics including humorous glimpses of nature, philosophy, natural history, and conservation. Readers praise Terry's style, breadth of subject matter and his ability to communicate complex and emotional topics in a relaxed and understandable manner. From teenagers to octogenarians, from the coffee shop to the school room, Terry's columns are widely read and enjoyed. Some of the columns here are Terry's personal favorites, others seemed to strike a chord with readers. Most have an important message or lesson that will resonate with readers. They are written with a goal to simultaneously entertain and educate about the wonderful workings of nature. Hopefully, at least one story makes you laugh out loud and another one brings a tear to the eye and warms your heart. "You hit a home run with your article on, Big Questions in Nature. It should be required reading fore everyone who has lost touch with nature...great job!" Joe Chapman "We enjoyed your column, Bloom Where Planted. Some of the best writing yet. The Post Register is fortunate to have your weekly columns." Lou Griffin. "WOW. What a phenomenal piece you wrote. You are amazing." Jennifer Jackson

The Quest for the Golden Trout: Environmental Loss and America’s Iconic Fish


Douglas M. Thompson - 2013
    It is a manufactured experience—much to the detriment of our rivers and streams. Americans’ love of trout has reached a level of fervor that borders on the religious. Federal and state agencies, as well as nongovernmental lobbying groups, invest billions of dollars on river restoration projects and fish-stocking programs. Yet, their decisions are based on faulty logic and risk destroying species they are tasked with protecting. River ecosystems are modified with engineered structures to improve fishing, native species that compete with trout are eradicated, and nonnative invasive game fish are indiscriminately introduced, genetically modified, and selectively bred to produce more appealing targets for anglers—including the freakishly contrived “golden trout.” The Quest for the Golden Trout is about looking at our nation’s rivers with a more critical eye—and asking more questions about both historic and current practices in fisheries management.

Animals Rule Club: Beware the Seiceps


Jinny Braden - 2013
    As she and her siblings listen to what the cat has to say they learn their father is not the only human in trouble, all humans are about to become extinct. The three of them must save their dad and the human world as they know it. For the sake of humanity Christy, Maisa, and Will must experience three Unitedmares, vivid shared dreams, that allow them to live the lives of blue crabs, salmon, and golden poison dart frogs. For three nights they drink their potions and share three amazing dreams. In each Unitedmare they start off inside eggs, hatch, and grow to be adults. Sometimes they have fun, other times its quite scary. In each dream they run into problems caused by man. They see firsthand how water runoff, river dams, de-forestation, and many other human actions have made life hard for the animals they have become. When they have completed the three Unitedmares they must go to a USE meeting and prove humans are willing to learn about their mistakes and can change their ways. If they fail the Seiceps will be released and all humans on earth will be destroyed in 24 hours. Although fiction, Animals Rule Club: Beware the Seiceps has a very strong message about caring for our planet. Its like Alice in Wonderland meets the Magic School Bus for middle school age kids. Warning this story may change the way you live your every day life.

Tiger Fire: 500 Years Of The Tiger In India


Valmik Thapar - 2013
    It has been feared, worshipped, admired, hunted, studied, photographed, written about, immortalized in art and poetry, and has enthralled king and commoner alike. Tiger Fire celebrates this magnificent predator by bringing together the very best non-fiction writing, photography and art on the Indian tiger from the first written description of a real-life encounter with the animal by the Mughal Emperor Babur in the sixteenth century to photographs and studies of the last of the species surviving in the wild today.Conceived and edited by the worlds foremost authority on the Indian tiger, Valmik Thapar (who has also contributed many pieces and photographs to this volume), the books contributors are drawn from an array of renowned naturalists, writers, photographers and tiger enthusiasts down the centuries including Babur, Akbar, Franois Bernier, Thomas Roe, R.G. Burton, Walter Campbell, Thomas Williamson, F.W. Champion, Kesri Singh, Jim Corbett, Hugh Allen, Richard Perry, Arjan Singh, George Schaller, Kenneth Anderson, M. Krishnan, Peter Jackson, Fateh Singh Rathore, Kim Sullivan, Tejbir Singh, Jaisal and Anjali Singh, Aditya Dicky Singh, K. Ullas Karanth, Dharmendra Khandal and Dhritiman Mukherjee. Culled from over a million words (both published and unpublished) on the animal and several thousand photographs, the accounts and pictures assembled in this book show us the tiger in extraordinary and compelling detail.The book contains stories and reports of tiger hunts, attacks on humans by tigers, fights between the tiger and other animals such as the leopard, the bison, the wild dog, the boar and the elephant, narratives about tigers rearing their young, finding mates and wild tigers forging bonds with humans. Using his unequalled knowledge of wild tigers, derived from almost forty years of observing them in their natural habitat, Valmik Thapar has put together the most ambitious book ever published on the tiger in India. A lasting testimonial to an animal that has dazzled the human race, Tiger Fire will be treasured by everyone who possesses it.

Rhinoceros Summer


Jamie Thornton - 2013
    A trophy hunter on the verge of bankruptcy. A young photographer desperate for fame.Seventeen–year–old Lydia Gibb has no business setting foot in Tanzania, but a fluke opportunity provides a chance to leave her boring life, to capture beauty with her camera--to mean something. But nothing is what it seems, and Lydia becomes ensnared in the bloody, male-dominated world of showdown hunting. She uses her camera as a shield, but the horrors mount, and so do her feelings for Caleb, a rugged, earnest game officer on a mission of his own--until Lydia captures his sights. Lydia’s pictures surpass her wildest ambitions, but then fall into the wrong hands. Unless she and Caleb team up and race to take back the camera, her work will drive both her and a rare rhino into extinction. RHINOCEROS SUMMER is a New Adult / YA crossover novel.

India's Environmental History: A Reader, Volume 1: From Ancient Times to the Colonial Period


Mahesh Rangarajan - 2013
    It looks at a variety of the country’s regions, landscapes, and arenas as settings for strife or harmony, as topography and ecological fabric, in the process covering a vast historical terrain.Vol. 1 provides an antidote to the existing historiography, which barely takes notice of the era before 1800. The essays here range from prehistoric India to the middle of the nineteenth century. They provide insights on forest and water disputes, contests over urban and rural space, struggles over water and land, and frictions over natural wealth which have led to a reinterpretation of source materials on early and medieval India.Vol 2. Shows how colonial rule resulted in ecological change on a new scale altogether. Forests covering over half a million sq km were taken over by 1904 and managed by foresters. Canal construction on a gigantic scale gave British India perhaps more acreage than any other political entity on earth. Similar new forces were at work in relation to the animal world, with species being reclassified as vermin to be hunted down or as game to be selectively shot.For all who are interested in the diverse and detailed findings of the best scholarship on India’s environment, this book (and its companion volume) is essential.

California Condors in the Pacific Northwest


Jesse D'Elia - 2013
    Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in charge of condor research in the 1980s and lead author of The California Condor: A Saga of Natural History and Conservation Despite frequent depiction as a bird of California and the desert southwest, North America’s largest avian scavenger once graced the skies of the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to British Columbia. This important volume documents the condor’s history in the region, from prehistoric times to the early twentieth century, and explores the challenges of reintroduction.  Jesse D’Elia and Susan Haig investigate the paleontological and observational record as well as the cultural relationships between Native American tribes and condors, providing the most complete assessment to date of the condor’s occurrence in the Pacific Northwest. They evaluate the probable causes of regional extinction and the likelihood that condors once bred in the region, and they assess factors that must be considered in determining whether they could once again thrive in Northwest skies.  Incorporating the newest research and findings and more than eighty detailed historical accounts of human encounters with these birds of prey, California Condors in the Pacific Northwest sets a new standard for examining the historical record of a species prior to undertaking a reintroduction effort. It is a vital reference for academics, agency decision makers, conservation biologists, and readers interested in Northwest natural history. The volume is beautifully illustrated by Ram Papish and includes a number of previously unpublished photographs.