Best of
Ecology

1990

Practice of the Wild


Gary Snyder - 1990
    These essays, first published in 1990, stand as the mature centerpiece of Snyder’s work and thought, and this profound collection is widely accepted as one of the central texts on wilderness and the interaction of nature and culture. As the Library Journal affirmed, “This is an important book for anyone interested in the ethical interrelationships of things, places, and people, and it is a book that is not just read but taken in.”

Death in a Lonely Land: More Hunting, Fishing, and Shooting on Five Continents


Peter Hathaway Capstick - 1990
    The articles showcase a literary style that prompted Kirkus Reviews to say of Last Horizons, "No one since Hemingway (with the possible exception of Ruark) has written on these subjects with such literary gusto."The stockbroker-turned-outdoorsman recalls his days as an African pro hunter in "The Killer Baboons of Vlackfontein." "Four Fangs in a Treetop" records a foray into British Honduras for the jaguar, "a gold-dappled teardrop of motion." Capstick narrowly escapes the Yellow Beard, Central America's deadly tree-climbing snake, and cows "The Black Death (Cape buffalo) in the kind of article that makes this author "the guru of American hunting fans" (New York Newsday). On Brazil's forsaken Marajo Island, he bags the pugnacious red buffalo, which has the "temperament of a constipated Sumo wrestler and the tenacity of an IRS man."The author discusses 12- and 20-gauge shotgun loads; recalls the pleasures of "biltong" (African beef jerky); describes the irresistible homemade lures of snook fishing expert John Gorbatch; and kills a genteel take of Atlantic salmon with the brilliantly simple tube fly.Over thirty gorgeous drawings by famous wildlife artist Dino Paravano make this volume yet another collector's item by a writer who "keeps the tradition of great safari adventure alive in each of his books" (African Expedition Gazette).Peter Capstick's eight prior titles include The Last Ivory Hunter (SMP, 1988); Peter Capstick's Africa (SMP, 1987); and Death in the Long Grass (SMP, 1978).

Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art


Christopher Day - 1990
    Challenges conventional building and design practices and demonstrates how our built environments can be made physically, socially, and spiritually enriching.

The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature


Cathy Johnson - 1990
    With a skillful blend of inspiration and instruction, artist and naturalist Cathy Johnson offers personal anecdotes, exercises, and helpful tips to guide even first-time artists in using sketching and painting to deepen their understanding of the natural world.Featuring simple, step-by-step instructions and 280 examples of the author's own work—in color and black-and-white—The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature covers a broad range of subjects, including tools and equipment; mixing paints and washes; understanding color and using a color wheel; capturing the illusion of light; sketching clouds, flowers, trees, plants, and animals; and using field sketches as studies for future paintings. The book also includes source lists for art supplies (including mail order), lists of national workshops for sketching and painting, and a bibliography.

Ecosystems of Florida


Ronald L. Myers - 1990
    . . [and] anyone who cares about nature in Florida would love to own."--Tallahassee Democrat "The first comprehensive guide to the state’s natural resources to be written in half a century . . . invaluable"--Tampa Tribune   "Ecosystems of Florida has a proud heritage. Its authors have the same skill and enthusiasm that characterized the early Florida ecologists.  The descriptions will encourage and delight a multitude of men and women who are enamored of Florida’s landscapes. The salvation of the Florida scene will come about only if the public savors its beauty, understands its limitations, and speaks up for its preservation.  This book has come just in time to save the landscapes of Florida."—Marjorie Harris Carr, from the foreword  Between roughly 25 and 31 degrees north latitude, a combination of flat topography, poor soils, and limited surface water produce deserts nearly everywhere on earth.  In Florida, however, these conditions support a lavish biota, more diverse than that of any other state east of the Mississippi.    In this first comprehensive guide to the state’s natural resources in sixty years, thirty top scholars describe the character, relationships, and importance of Florida’s ecosystems, the organisms that inhabit them, the forces that maintain them, and the agents that threaten them.  From pine flatwoods to coral reef, Ecosystems of Florida provides a detailed, comprehensive, authoritative account of the peninsular state’s complex, fragile environments.    In straightforward text, charts, maps, and illustrations, Ecosystems of Florida offers broad vision and detailed expertise to naturalists, wildlife managers, land use planners, foresters, and other professional and general readers interested in Florida’s environmental resources. For the foreseeable future, it will serve as the authoritative guide to the state’s environment and to those who would work with it.

National Audubon Society Pocket Guide to Familiar Butterflies Of North America


National Audubon Society - 1990
    This streamlined volume contains: a simple field guide identifying 80 of the most widespread butterflies in North America and a complete overview of observing butterflies, covering basic identifying field marks and practical tips for observing and distinguishing different butterflies.This pocket guide is packed with information; bright photographs capturing the butterflies perched with their wings spread and closed; specific descriptions of each species' important identifying characteristics, life cycle, habitat and range, line drawings depicting the basic butterfly anatomy, a description of major butterfly groups and a glossary of technical terms.When observing these beautifully fragile creatures, the National Audubon Society Guide to Familiar Butterflies of North America is an excellent and handy reference guide to take along during any nature walk.

Animal Watching: A New Guide to the Animal World


Desmond Morris - 1990
    Destined to be Morris' most popular book. 500 full-color photographs.

Nch'i-Wána, "the Big River": Mid-Columbia Indians and Their Land


Eugene S. Hunn - 1990
    Known to these people as Nch'i-Wana (the Big River), it forms the spine of their land, the core of their habitat.At the turn of the century, the Sahaptin speakers of the mid-Columbia lived in an area between Celilo Falls and Priest Rapids in eastern Oregon and Washington. They were hunters and gatherers who survived by virtue of a detailed, encyclopedic knowledge of their environment. Eugene Hunn's authoritative study focuses on Sahaptin ethnobiology and the role of the natural environment in the lives and beliefs of their descendants who live on or near the Yakima, Umatilla, and Warm Springs reservations.

The Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris


Bernardus Silvestris - 1990
    In form, it is a prosimetrum, in which passages of prose alternate with verse passages in various classical meters. The philosophical basis of the work is the Platonism of contemporary philosophers associated with the cathedral school of Chartres—one of whom, Thierry of Chartres, is the dedicatee of the work. According to a marginal note in one early manuscript, the Cosmographia was recited before Pope Eugene III when he was traveling in France (1147–48). - Wikipedia

Sonoran Desert Summer


John Alcock - 1990
    "Only very special plants and animals can survive and reproduce in a place that may receive as little as six inches of rain in a year," observes Alcock, "a place where the temperature may rise above one hundred degrees each day for months on end." Yet he and other biologists have discovered here startling signs of life hidden in plain view under the summer sun: - male digger bees compete to reach virgins underground during the early summer mating season; - the round-tailed ground squirrel goes about its business, sounding alarm calls when danger threatens its kin; - the big-jawed beetles Dendrobias mandibularis emerge in time to feast on saguaro fruits and to use their mandibles on rival males as well; - Harris's hawks congregate in groups, showing their affinity for polyandry and communal hunting; - robberflies mimic the appearance of the bees and wasps on which they prey; - and peccaries reveal the adaptation of their reproductive cycle to the desert's seasonal rains. The book's 38 chapters introduce readers to these and other desert animals and plants, tracing the course of the season through activities as vibrant as mating rituals and as subtle as the gradual deterioration of a fallen saguaro cactus. Enhanced by the line drawings of Marilyn Hoff Stewart, Sonoran Desert Summer is both an account of how modern biology operates and a celebration of the beauty and diversity that can be found in even the most unpromising places.

Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology


Allan Hunt Badiner - 1990
    If we are to survive, as the message of this book declares, we must develop a peaceful heart."—Petra Kelly

Cultural Etiquette: a Guide for the Well-Intentioned


Amoja Three Rivers - 1990
    It was intended as an antidote to the poison of microaggressions committed by people of all racial and ethnic groups in writing and thinking about as well as speaking and interacting with Black/Indigenous/People of Color and Jewish people.Long before Franchesca Ramsey's "Sh#t White Girls Say to Black Girls" YouTube video and all the videos and blogs that grew from it, "Cultural Etiquette" was a thoughtful, witty account of the things no one should say to members of racial and ethnic groups subjected to systemic oppression in the United States. Sample chapter headings include "What Is Ethnocentrism and What Should I Take For It?" and "Just Don’t Do This. Okay?"This edition is authorized by the next-of-kin of the late Amoja Three Rivers and is published by the author's designated custodian of her writings. It preserves all of Three Rivers' words with only tiny changes in punctuation, spelling corrections and formatting necessary for an ebook.

Siwiti, a Whale's Story


Alexandra Morton - 1990
    Surrounded and protected by her family, the little orca's life is full of excitement and adventure. Siwiti explores the inlets and channels of the Pacific Northwest. Chasing salmon, playing with harbour seals and Dall porpoises, escaping from aggressive sea lions, Siwiti learns the do's and don't's of undersea life. As curious as any child, she also watches the humans who seem so intent on observing her and her family.

The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God


Rupert Sheldrake - 1990
    In The Rebirth of Nature, Sheldrake urges us to move beyond the centuries-old mechanistic view of nature, explaining why we can no longer regard the world as inanimate and purposeless. Sheldrake shows how recent developments in science itself have brought us to the threshold of a new synthesis in which traditional wisdom, intuitive experience, and scientific insight can be mutually enriching.

Wild by Law The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and the Places it Has Saved


Tom Turner - 1990
    

Earth Education: A New Beginning


Steve Van Matre - 1990
    It is not true. The environmental movement has been led astray: + trivialized by mainstream education + diluted by those with other agendas + co-opted by the very agencies and industries that have contributed so much to the problems This book proposes another direction--an alternative that many environmental leaders and teachers around the world have already taken. It is called The Earth Education Path, and anyone can follow it in developing a genuine educational program made up of magical learning adventures. Earth education aims to accomplish what environmental education set out to do, but didn't: to help people improve upon their cognitive and affective relationship with the earth's natural communities and life support systems, and begin crafting lifestyles that will lessen their impact upon those places and processes on behalf of all the earth's passengers. If you care about the health of our troubled planet, then you should read what this internationally known educator has to say about how we lost a whole generation of teachers and leaders and what you can do to help them find their way again.

Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare Animals and Plants


Jonathan Kingdon - 1990
    Contrary to superficial appearances, however, this monolithic continent is a complex mosaic of landlocked islands--islands which vary from isolated forests in oceans of grassland to lakes in seas of land. The flora and fauna of each of these islands represent a snapshot of millions of years of evolution and the biological reaction to the environment of the past. In this richly illustrated book Jonathan Kingdon takes these island communities one by one and delves back into their history to explain why and how they may have evolved as they have and thus the reason why the community is there. As the reader is led through continental Africa, a pattern begins to take shape, providing an understanding of Africa's complexities and putting the continent's biology in a new and dynamic perspective. Kingdon's book is also a fervent plea to conserve these islands. It will be of surpassing interest to anyone concerned with working in African conservation as well as to a wide audience of other general readers.

Partner Earth: A Spiritual Ecology


Pam Montgomery - 1990
    The pace and demands of modern life have caused a great split between the material and the spiritual in our lives. Our bodies reflect this through fatigue, depression, and chronic illness. To become whole beings again, the author asserts that we must reclaim our birthright as partners with all of creation, opening ourselves to the spirits of plants, animals, and the elements, known as devas, through whom we can bridge the gap between the physical body and the energetic patterns that support all life. Partner Earth provides a wide range of practical exercises, based on traditional wisdom, visualizations, and the author's experience as an herbalist, that enable one to create sacred space, find plant and animal allies, and create flower essences that can help heal the rift between individuals and their environment.