Healthy soil is teeming with life — not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains healthy plants, and thus become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial substances, many of them toxic to humans as well as other forms of life. But there is an alternative to this vicious circle: to garden in a way that strengthens, rather than destroys, the soil food web — the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants. By eschewing jargon and overly technical language, the authors make the benefits of cultivating the soil food web available to a wide audience, from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals.

    Depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin presents a model for a human life span rooted in the cycles and qualities of the natural world, a blueprint for individual development that ultimately yields a strategy for cultural transformation.With evocative language and personal stories, including those of elders Thomas Berry and Joanna Macy, this book defines eight stages of human life - Innocent, Explorer, Thespian, Wanderer, Soul Apprentice, Artisan, Master, and Sage - and describes the challenges and benefits of each. Plotkin offers a way of progressing from our current egocentric, aggressively competitive, consumer society to an ecocentric, soul-based one that is sustainable, cooperative, and compassionate. At once a primer on human development and a manifesto for change, Nature and the Human Soul fashions a template for a more mature, fulfilling, and purposeful life - and a better world.

    The paintings used here, of scenes from her beloved home in southern Ohio, illuminate well-crafted essays based on her daily walks and observations. Wild turkeys, coyotes, box turtles, and a bird-eating bullfrog flap, lope, and leap through her prose. She excels at describing and exploring interactions between people and animals, bringing her subjects to life in just a few lines. Her husband and children make appearances, presenting their own challenges and pleasures. The essays are arranged by season, starting with winter, providing a sense of movement through the year.

    It describes and illustrates 1220 commonly encountered species, both native and nonnative, including perennials, annuals, and shrubs. Encompassing the Pacific Northwest from southern British Columbia to northern California, from the coast to the mountains and high desert, this handy book is perfect for hikers, naturalists, native plant enthusiasts, and anyone wishing to learn about the amazingly diverse wildflowers of the region. Organized by flower color and shape, and including a range map for each flower described, it is as user-friendly as it is informative.

    This book presents principles and methods of assessment using a combination of the helpful Ayurvedic and modern techniques.

    

    Accepting the increasingly widespread belief that industrialized culture inevitably erodes the natural world, Endgame sets out to explore how this relationship impels us towards a revolutionary and as-yet undiscovered shift in strategy. Building on a series of simple but increasingly provocative premises, Jensen leaves us hoping for what may be inevitable: a return to agrarian communal life via the disintegration of civilization itself.

    A poetic consideration of the tender connection between human society and the wild, the book is by turns passionate, political, funny, and harrowing. It is also a journey into that greatest of uncharted lands-the wilderness of the mind-and Griffiths beautifully explores the language and symbolism that shape our experience of our own wildness. Part travelogue, part manifesto for wildness as an essential character of life, Wild is a one-of-a-kind book from a one-of-a-kind author.

    Rather than reproduce traditional understandings of nature and environment, Jake Kosek shifts the focus toward material and symbolic “natures,” seemingly unchangeable essences central to formations of race, class, and nation that are being remade not just through conflicts over resources but also through everyday practices by Chicano activists, white environmentalists, and state officials as well as nuclear scientists, heroin addicts, and health workers. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and extensive archival research, he shows how these contentious natures are integral both to environmental politics and the formation of racialized citizens, politicized landscapes, and modern regimes of rule.Kosek traces the histories of forest extraction and labor exploitation in northern New Mexico, where Hispano residents have forged passionate attachments to place. He describes how their sentiments of dispossession emerged through land tenure systems and federal management programs that remade forest landscapes as exclusionary sites of national and racial purity. Fusing fine-grained ethnography with insights gleaned from cultural studies and science studies, Kosek shows how the nationally beloved Smokey the Bear became a symbol of white racist colonialism for many Hispanos in the region, while Los Alamos National Laboratory, at once revered and reviled, remade regional ecologies and economies. Understories offers an innovative vision of environmental politics, one that challenges scholars as well as activists to radically rework their understandings of relations between nature, justice, and identity.

    His teaching and writings have inspired a generation’s thinking about humankind’s place in the Earth Community and the universe, engendering widespread critical acclaim and a documentary film on his life and work. This new collection of essays, from various years and occasions, expands and deepens ideas articulated in his earlier writings and also breaks new ground. Berry opens our eyes to the full dimensions of the ecological crisis, framing it as a crisis of spiritual vision. Applying his formidable erudition in cultural history, science, and comparative religions, he forges a compelling narrative of creation and communion that reconciles modern evolutionary thinking and traditional religious insights concerning our integral role in Earth’s society.While sounding an urgent alarm at our current dilemma, Berry inspires us to reclaim our role as the consciousness of the universe and thereby begin to create a true partnership with the Earth Community. With Evening Thoughts, this wise elder has lit another beacon to lead us home.

    Joseph Masco offers the first anthropological study of the long-term consequences of the Manhattan Project for the people that live in and around Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb, and the majority of weapons in the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, were designed. Masco examines how diverse groups--weapons scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, neighboring Pueblo Indian Nations and Nuevomexicano communities, and antinuclear activists--have engaged the U.S. nuclear weapons project in the post-Cold War period, mobilizing to debate and redefine what constitutes "national security." In a pathbreaking ethnographic analysis, Masco argues that the U.S. focus on potential nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War obscured the broader effects of the nuclear complex on American society. The atomic bomb, he demonstrates, is not just the engine of American technoscientific modernity; it has produced a new cognitive orientation toward everyday life, provoking cross-cultural experiences of what Masco calls a "nuclear uncanny." Revealing how the bomb has reconfigured concepts of time, nature, race, and citizenship, the book provides new theoretical perspectives on the origin and logic of U.S. national security culture. The Nuclear Borderlands ultimately assesses the efforts of the nuclear security state to reinvent itself in a post-Cold War world, and in so doing exposes the nuclear logic supporting the twenty-first-century U.S. war on terrorism.

    His work is based on an integration of rational scientific analysis with our intuition, sensing and feeling.

    A gripping account of the dramatic race to preserve one of America's most imperiled birds.

    Since South American fire ants arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in the 1940s, they have spread to become one of the most reviled pests in the Sunbelt."In Fire Ants" Tschinkel provides not just an encyclopedic overview of "S. invicta"--how they found colonies, construct and defend their nests, forage and distribute food, struggle among themselves for primacy, and even relocate entire colonies--but a lively account of how research is done, how science establishes facts, and the pleasures and problems of a scientific career.Between chapters detailed enough for experts but readily accessible to any educated reader, "interludes" provide vivid verbal images of the world of fire ants and the people who study them. Early chapters describe the several failed, and heavily politically influenced, eradication campaigns, and later ones the remarkable spread of "S. invicta"'s "polygyne" form, in which nests harbor multiple queens and colonies reproduce by "budding." The reader learns much about ants, the practice of science, and humans' role in the fire ant's North American success.

    R. R. Tolkien demonstrate a complex and comprehensive ecological philosophy. The ecology of Middle-earth portrayed in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion brings together three potent and convincing elements of preservation and conservation--sustainable agriculture and agrarianism, horticulture independent of utilitarianism, and

    Crow, Nancy FitzSimmons, Robert C. Lacy, Michael W. Nachman, Michael E. Soule, Andrea Taylor, Loren H. Rieseberg, R.C. Vrijenhoek, Lisette Waits, Robin S. Waples and Andrew Young. Supplementary information designed to support Conservation and the Genetics of Populations including: Downloadable sample chapterAnswers to questions and problemsData sets illustrating problems from the bookData analysis software programsWebsite linksAn Instructor manual CD-ROM for this title is available. Please contact our Higher Education team at HigherEducation@wiley.com for more information.

    Ayahuasca is the strongest shamanic plant medicine. Brewed from the combination of the Amazonian vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, and leaves from the plant, Psychotria viridis, Ayahuasca creates sweeping visual and mentally startling effects. For many of the indigenous cultures of the Amazonian basin, Ayahuasca is central to their culture, revealing to mankind its role in the universe and the true nature of reality. Used properly, Ayahuasca provides healing and integration with nature and community and stimulates the creative process. The authors are recognized experts in the field of ethnology, anthropology and pharmacology and demonstrate the use of Ayahuasca in shamanic rituals. They dive deep into shamanic visionary worlds, explore the plants and their souls, and share their authentic encounters with Amazonian cultures and their artistic works.

    The book invites the reader to explore native plants in their wild habitats and offers step-by-step ethical harvesting guidelines while emphasizing conservation issues. The author is a well-respected medical herbalist and teacher who lives in the mountains of north Georgia. Praise for Medicinal Plants of the Southern Appalachians. "This is one volume that I want to own as we enter the post-corporate age: a priceless guide to Southern plant alchemy. This practical yet enchanting botanical brings an ancient art to modernity. These pages are as rich as the cove forests they honor. Even to peruse Howell's manual is healing, and exhilarating, not only because of the book's inherent beauty, but because it contains vital knowledge all of us will need as fossil fuels dwindle and we return to the local. One day this book may save your life." Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Wild Card Quilt and Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land "An elegant introduction presented in a clear-as-a-bell style that educates as well as entertains." Peter Loewer, author of The Wild Gardener and Jefferson's Garden "There are many comprehensive volumes about medicinal plants in other regions of North America but none for the botanically rich southeast. Now, a widely experienced and knowledgeable herbalist has written a thorough guide to the virtues of Yellow Root, Rabbit Tobacco, Dogwood Bark, Sweet Fern and other better known herbs of the region. From Howell's book, readers can learn to use local plants safely and consciously to improve the health of their families or patients." David Winston, RH (AHG), Dean, Herbal Therapeutics School of Herbal Medicine "An excellent, much needed resource on Southeastern herbs. Well thought out and easy to follow." Tim Blakely, co-author of The Bootstrap Guide to Medicinal Herbs in the Garden, Field and Marketplace "I often remind veterinarians that the foundation of botanical medicine lies in the experience of learning all aspects of medicinal plants thoroughly. This book guides the reader out of the classroom and into the fields and forest where plants become, to the student, more tangible sources of healing. Recommended for any practitioner who wants to deepen their understanding of our native apothecary." Susan Wynn, DVM, RH (AHG), Executive Director, Veterinary Botanical Medical Assoc.

    These detailed, never-before-published watercolor portraits, with text by the master of sport fishing, Dean Clarke, combine to make an upscale guide for the naturalist, an aid to the angler, a tool for the educator and conservationist, and an enjoyable read.

    "Hands-On Ecology" develops children's fascination with their world by giving them a front-row seat in the exploration of various ecological habitats. The book gives teachers the tools they need to create an extensive, in-depth study of ecology, including background information on ecosystems, how to set up a hands-on study of their local ecosystem, a look at how human populations affect the environment, and viable ways classrooms can contribute to conservationism.

    Writing for a broad audience, Mark Bertness examines how distinctive communities of plants and animals are generated on rocky shores and in salt marshes, mangroves, and soft sediment beaches on Atlantic shorelines.The book provides a comprehensive background for understanding the basic principles of intertidal ecology and the unique conditions faced by intertidal organisms. It describes the history of the Atlantic Coast, tides, and near-shore oceanographic processes that influence shoreline organisms; explains primary production in shoreline systems, intertidal food webs, and the way intertidal organisms survive; sets out the unusual reproductive challenges of living in an intertidal habitat, and the role of recruitment in shaping intertidal communities; and outlines how biological processes like competition, predation, facilitation, and ecosystem engineering generate the spatial structure of intertidal communities.The last part of the book focuses on the ecology of the three main shoreline habitats--rocky shores, soft sediment beaches, and shorelines vegetated with salt marsh plants and mangroves--and discusses in detail conservation issues associated with each of them.

    Perhaps less than one tenth of one percent of this vast prairie remains—small patches tucked away here and there, once serving as hay meadows or sprouting from rock too stony to plow. Matt White’s connections with both prairie plants and prairie people are evident in the stories of discovery and inspiration he tells as he tracks the ever dwindling parcels of tallgrass prairie in northeast Texas. In his search, he stumbles upon some unexpected fragments of virgin land, as well as some remarkable tales of both destruction and stewardship. Helping us understand what a prairie is and how to appreciate its beauty and importance, White also increases our awareness of prairies, past and present, so that we might champion their survival in whatever small plots remain.

    More than 200 common wetland plants, birds, fishes, and insects are described by three of Hawai'i's leading botanists. Photographs and a glossary of botanical and ecological terms, an index to all scientific and common names, and references for further reading provide additional information.

    It suggests that the world is facing a rite of passage into adulthood and that a time of cooperation, stabilization, and sharing is approaching. With an original theory of history based on developmental psychology, including an analysis of masculine and feminine archetypes, this thoughtful guide weaves the narratives of human history and individuals' experiences into a path of enlightenment and a way to catalyze social change.

    The book unites theory with examples from a wide range of taxa in a logical and progressive manner, and its accessible writing style makes subjects such as population genetics and phylogenetics highly comprehensible to its readers. The first part of the book introduces the essential underpinnings of molecular ecology, starting with a review of genetics and a discussion of the molecular markers that are most frequently used in ecological research. This leads into an overview of population genetics in ecology. The second half of the book then moves on to specific applications of molecular ecology, covering phylogeography, behavioural ecology and conservation genetics. The final chapter looks at molecular ecology in a wider context by using a number of case studies that are relevant to various economic and social concerns, including wildlife forensics, agriculture, and overfishing * comprehensive overview of the different aspects of molecular ecology * attention to both theoretical and applied concerns * accessible writing style and logical structure * numerous up-to-date examples and references This will be an invaluable reference for those studying molecular ecology, population genetics, evolutionary biology, conservation genetics and behavioural ecology, as well as researchers working in these fields.

    This conservation story, The Search for Lost Habitats, illustrated with over 450 colored slides taken by the author and friends, follows him as he explores the flora of the Lake Erie dunes, the fens and bogs of northeast Ohio, and the prairies and rocky outcrops near the Ohio River, among many other habitat types. Soon he branches out to include the other states around the upper Great Lakes, as well as the province of Ontario in Canada, with chapters on the limestone barrens of Manitoulin Island, southeast Minnesota's "Driftless Area," river bottoms in northern Illinois, and many other locations. Occasionally the author studies a single plant family, such as orchids, gentians, and mallows, and describes his adventures in finding the rare habitats that these colorful species require. Although written in a journalistic, easy-to-read, and often humorous style that avoids much of the technical botanical terminology of textbooks and scholarly articles, these first-person narratives are factual and accurate. They will appeal to home gardeners, professional botanists and naturalists, and anyone in between who enjoys a good yarn about adventures in the natural world. Perry Peskin has enjoyed the natural world ever since elementary-school days, when he tramped through the woods covering the hills behind his native Cumberland, in western Maryland. Later he explored the trails through the park system of his second home, the metropolitan area of Cleveland, Ohio. Choosing biology as a minor at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University, Peskin went on many three-hour field trips in his botany classes through habitats he never knew existed--a practice continued throughout a lifetime. As a high-school English teacher, in several schools in and around Cleveland, he encouraged his students to write descriptive essays by going on three-hour walks on their own and then writing about their experiences and feelings. Even before retirement, he started writing about the natural world in first-person essays that reflected the viewpoint of an inquiring reporter rather than a scholar. Seventeen articles on Ohio and neighboring states, including Ontario, Canada, make up the contents of the present book, starting with a 1975 visit to a Pennsylvania bog and ending with a 2004 field trip to Kentucky's Natural Bridge State Park, sponsored by the Cleveland Metropolitan Park District. Another 15 articles are ready to be combined into Book 2, which will cover various parts of North America from Alaska to Costa Rica. Retired from teaching for 23 years, Peskin still makes his home in the Cleveland area. He and his wife Carolyn have gone on many eco-tours throughout North and parts of South America as well as England and France, observing habitats as varied as the Arctic tundra, the deserts of the Southwest, and the tropical rain forests.

    In this, his second of a three-volume series concerning world ecological degradation, Chew reviews the past 5,000-year history of structural conditions and processes that define the relationship between nature and culture. Chew's message about the coming Dark Ages, as human communities continue to reorganize to meet the contingencies of ecological scarcity and climate changes, is a must-read for those concerned with human interactions and environmental changes, including environmental anthropologists and historians, world historians, geographers, archaeologists, and environmental scientists.

     Expanded and updated, this second edition includes new chapters on understanding ecosystems and the use of computer models in wildlife management Gives a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of ecology including the latest theories on population dynamics and conservation Reviews practical applications and techniques and how these can be used to formulate realistic objectives with in an ecological framework Examples of real-life management situations from around the world provide a broad perspective on the international problems of conservation Worked examples on CD enable students to practice calculations explained in the text Artwork from the book is available to instructors online at www.blackwellpublishing.com/sinclair. An Instructor manual CD-ROM for this title is available. Please contact our Higher Education team at HigherEducation@wiley.com for more information.Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

    Entries combine phylogenetic and systematic data with insights into genetics, physiology and application. Existing entries have been revised to incorporate rapid progress and technological innovation. The new edition improves on the lucid presentation, logical layout and abundance of illustrations that readers rely on, adding color illustration throughout. Expanded to seven volumes in its print form, the new edition adds a new, searchable online version.

    

    With insights from many cultures and across time, Bedrock wonderfully illuminates the geology of our home planet.The book is organized into sections that deal with rock and stone; deep time; earthquakes and faults; volcanoes and eruptions; rivers to the sea; mountains and high¬lands; wind and desert; the flow of ice; and the life of the Earth. Insightful, penetrating, and provocative, the works are written from many positions — traditional and indigenous as well as Western scientific. Bedrock bridges specialized science and ordinary existence, providing a fascinating portrait of the forces that have shaped the Earth and giving readers a sense of the geologic experience encompassing their lives.

    They are a force that we cannot really control, and thus understanding, appreciating, and learning tolive with wildfire is ultimately our wisest public policy.With more than 150 dramatic photographs, Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy covers the topic of wildfire from ecological, economic, and social/political perspectives while also documenting how past forest policies have hindered natural processes, creating a tinderbox of problems that we are faced with today.More than 25 leading thinkers in the field of fire ecology provide in-depth analyses, critiques, and compelling solutions for how we live with fire in our society. Using examples such as the epic Yellowstone fires of 1988, the ever-present southern California fires, and the Northwest's Biscuit Fire of 2002, the book examines the ecology of these landscapes and the policies and practices that affected them and continue to affect them, such as fire suppression, prescribed burns, salvage logging, and land-use planning. Overall, the book aims to promote the restoration of fire to the landscape and to encourage its natural behavior so it can resume its role as a major ecological process.

    In formulating responses to these criticisms, the conservation effort has stumbled badly, says Eric T. Freyfogle in this thought-provoking book. Conservationists and environmentalists haven’t done their intellectual homework, he contends, and they have failed to offer an understandable, compelling vision of healthy lands and healthy human communities.Freyfogle explores why the conservation movement has responded ineffectually to the many cultural and economic criticisms leveled against it. He addresses the meaning of good land use, describes the many shortcomings of “sustainability,” and outlines six key tasks that the cause must address. Among these is the crafting of an overall goal and a vision of responsible private ownership. The book concludes with a stirring message that situates conservation within America’s story of itself and with an extensive annotated bibliography of conservation’s most valuable voices and texts—important information for readers prepared to take conservation more seriously.