Wolves on a wilderness island illuminate lessons on the environment, extinction, and life. For more than a quarter century, celebrated biologist John Vucetich has studied the wolves, and the moose that sustain them, of the boreal forest of Isle Royale National Park, an island in the northwest corner of Lake Superior. During this time, he has witnessed both the near extinction of the local wolf population, driven largely by climate change, and the intensely debated relocation of other wolves to the island in an effort to stabilize and maintain Isle Royale's ecosystem health. In Restoring the Balance, Vucetich combines environmental philosophy with field notes chronicling his day-to-day experience as a scientist. Examining the fate of wolves in the wild, he shares lessons from these wolves and explains their impact on humanity's fundamental responsibilities to the natural world. Vucetich's engaging narrative and unique, clear-eyed perspective provide an accessible course in wolf biology and behavioral ecology. He tackles profound unresolved questions that will shape our future understanding of what it means to be good to life on earth: Are humans the only persons to inhabit Earth, or do we share the planet with uncounted nonhuman persons? What does a healthy relationship with the natural world look like? Should we intervene in nature's course in order to care for it? Touching on the triumph and tragedy of how wolves kill moose to the Shakespearian drama of wolves' social lives, Vucetich comments on ravens, mice, winter ticks, and even a life-changing encounter he shared with a toad. Vucetich produces exquisite insight by masterfully connecting his observations to a far-reaching history of ideas about the environment. Combining natural history and memoir with fascinating commentary on humanity's relationship with nature, Restoring the Balance evokes our connections with wolves as fellow apex predators, demonstrating how our shifting views on nature have implications for both their survival and ours. This book will be treasured by any thoughtful reader looking to deepen their relationship with nature and learn about the wolves of Isle Royale along the way.

Established in 2003, the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park encompasses land in Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Prioritizing wildlife over people, it paved the way for human rights abuses by park rangers, increased human-wildlife conflict, and the forced resettlement of up to 6,000 Mozambicans. Pushing wildlife conservation without consideration for its deeply problematic local consequences is at the heart of The Challenges of Transfrontier Conservation in Southern Africa: The Park Came After Us.

The Natura 2000 network of protected areas is the centrepiece of European Union nature policy, currently covering almost one-fifth of the EU's entire land territory plus large marine areas. This vast EU-wide network, which aims to conserve Europe's most valuable and threatened species and habitats, has major impacts on land use throughout all Member States of the EU. This book critically assesses the origins and implementation of the Natura 2000 network, established under the Birds Directive of 1979 and the Habitats Directive of 1992. Based on original archival research and interviews with key participants, the book records a detailed history of the origins and negotiation of Natura 2000 policy and law, with the history of EU environmental policy provided as a framework. An historical institutionalist approach is adopted, which emphasises the importance of understanding legal and policy development as processes that unfold over time. Three phases in the history of EU environmental policy are identified and described, and the history of EU nature policy is placed within the context of these three phases. Informed by this history, the author presents a comprehensive summary and assessment of the law and policy that protects Natura 2000 sites at EU level, and reviews the nature conservation outcomes for the targeted species and habitats. The book reveals how a knowledge of the history of Natura 2000 enriches our understanding of key issues such as conflicts in establishing and conserving the Natura 2000 network, EU integration in the field of nature conservation, and the future of EU nature policy.

This study examines Japan's transnational environmental policy through environmental technology transfer to Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) in the 1990s. It addresses the ability of Japan to take up the challenges in this transnational sphere. Social scientists differ in their assessment about the future of nation-states' capability to steer policy formulation under this changing framework. However, transnationalization does not necessarily undermine the state, but includes transformations of state forms and policy making. The transfer of environmental technology to NICs proceeds on the assumption of the existent, but probably reduced capacity of states to act. Based on the policy cycle model, this study focuses special attention to the actors based on Albrecht Dehnhard's theory that nation-states are gaining power in international circles.

From the perspective of the maturing metropolitan water economy, this book considers the problems of urban water management in Asia and the Pacific. It focuses on the institutional and policy dimensions of conflict and provides viable options for reducing the growing frictions among water users. .

As urban areas keep growing, water infrastructure ages, and the requirements on environmental protection become more rigorous, there is a continual need for upgrading water pollution control facilities and restoring degraded urban waters. Such issues are addressed in this book by focusing on five major topics: (a) Upgrading stormwater management facilities, (b) Retrofitting / upgrading combined sewer overflow (CSO) facilities, (c) Optimising/upgrading sewage treatment plant performance, (d) Urban stream restoration, and (e) Challenges in restoring urban environment. Each chapter contains some overview papers followed by research or case study papers. Besides presentations of new approaches and accomplishments in the field of upgrading and restoration, several papers provide analysis of vast needs in this field in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which either recently joined the European Union (EU) or are preparing for accession, and need to comply with the existing EU directives dealing with environmental protection. As such, this book will be of primary interest to researchers and university lecturers dealing with environmental upgrading and restoration, environmental planners from all levels of government, municipal engineers and politicians, and finally the private industry representatives (consultants, private utilities and environmental technology suppliers) searching for new business opportunities among the new or aspiring members of EU.

Settled Asbestos Dust Sampling and Analysis compiles the most significant data on asbestos in settled dust. This ready reference presents an analysis of settled dusts and surface particles of all sizes for asbestosthat is useful for qualitative and quantitative assessment and helps to determine the source of fibers. The main scope of this reference includes sample collection, sample analyses, and interpretation of settled dust data, as well as the use of such data for purposes including asbestos abatement projects and in-place management programs. Sections on lead and other particulates are also included.

Jacques offers a unique analysis of the connections between global marine and atmospheric science to global political phenomena. He shows how human survival is intricately linked to the sustainability of the world ocean, a singular connected body of regional oceans that is by definition a global resource that touches all other ecosystems. Jacques warns that the world ocean now offers evidence of several existential crises for global human populations, including declining global fisheries, coral reef losses, and climate change, but there has been a lack of global or regional cooperation in sustaining this complex ecosystem. He suggests how we can synthesize and coordinate global ecological information, exploring three regional areas in their local and global context: the South Pacific, Caribbean basin, and Southeast Asia. His book will be a valuable resource for researchers and students in environmental studies, marine sciences, and globalization studies.

Landscape Ecology - a rapidly growing science - quantifies the ways ecosystems interact. It establishes links between activities in one region and repercussions in another. Landscape Ecology: A Top-Down Approach serves as a general introduction to this emerging area of study. In this book the authors take a "top down" approach. They believe that context is equally as important as content and that an isolated, dismembered landscape fragment loses biodiversity. In contrast, past and current ecosystem studies have not considered the consequences of outside influences. The authors argue that the most detailed mathematical models of biodiversity within a landscape do not suffice to predict the outcome of management practices if the contextual analysis reveals that human impacts outside the landscape contribute to a reserve's ultimate demise. The material presented in this book demonstrates that protecting disconnected vignettes of nature in isolated national parks and reserves, or saving so-called "hot spots" of biodiversity, does not work. The rapid convergence of themes in ecology supports the study of the ecology of landscapes. Advances in this field will come from studies in landscape effects and the mobile organisms whose top down effects create and maintain landscapes. Landscape Ecology: A Top Down Approach supplies the basics for this work.

Many societal challenges defy simple solutions within the grasp of one academic discipline, a single type of organization, or a country acting alone. Such "wicked problems" require collaboration that crosses social, political, or geographic boundaries. Collaboration across boundaries is increasingly seen as a necessary way forward, whether for the cases of education, health care, community policing, or international trade. At the same time, collaboration poses its own challenges, and what is more, so too does crossing boundaries. Regardless of the skill set required to achieve a particular goal, collaboration and crossing boundaries make their own demands. Crossing Boundaries for Collaboration brings together multiple bodies of work on collaboration across different kinds of boundaries. It highlights the promise of "collaborative advantage," while featuring detailed discussions of the challenges involved. It provides a framework for thinking about collaboration in terms of a suite of issues, each with particular tasks and challenges that can be addressed via strategic practices. This book also features an extensive discussion of the importance of boundaries for collaboration, which recognizes that while crossing boundaries complicates collaboration, spanning divides can also magnify collaborative advantage. To illustrate the joys and travails of collaboration across boundaries, this book takes up the case of conservation and development in the Amazon. Well-known for its biological resources, the basin is changing rapidly, and Amazonian societies increasingly demand inclusive approaches to conservation and development. This book draws on firsthand experiences from direct participation in several complicated conservation and development projects that spanned disciplinary, organizational, and national boundaries. While the projects permitted achievement of goals beyond the reach of individual partners, the challenges along the way were daunting. This book focuses on issues of particular salience when collaborating across boundaries: politics and inequality, uncertainty and surprise, and collaboration and the self. It also underscores the strategic importance of investing in collaborative practice and the experience of crossing boundaries, even if an initial effort fails. In light of growing need to address complex problems, this book provides a clarion call to collaborate across boundaries, recognizing the difficulties in order to achieve the advantages.

For over 350 million years, thousands of species of amphibians have lived on earth, but since the 1990s they have been disappearing at an alarming rate, in many cases quite suddenly and mysteriously. What is causing these extinctions? What role do human actions play in them? What do they tell us about the overall state of biodiversity on the planet? In Extinction in Our Times, James Collins and Martha Crump explore these pressing questions and many others as they document the first modern extinction event across an entire vertebrate class, using global examples that range from the Sierra Nevada of California to the rainforests of Costa Rica and the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. Joining scientific rigor and vivid storytelling, this book is the first to use amphibian decline as a lens through which to see more clearly the larger story of climate change, conservation of biodiversity, and a host of profoundly important ecological, evolutionary, ethical, philosophical, and sociological issues.

"In this brilliant study of cloned wild life, Carrie Friese adds a whole new dimension to the study of reproduction, illustrating vividly and persuasively how social and biological reproduction are inextricably bound together, and why this matters."--Sarah Franklin, author of Dolly Mixtures: the Remaking of Genealogy The natural world is marked by an ever-increasing loss of varied habitats, a growing number of species extinctions, and a full range of new kinds of dilemmas posed by global warming. At the same time, humans are also working to actively shape this natural world through contemporary bioscience and biotechnology. In Cloning Wild Life, Carrie Friese posits that cloned endangered animals in zoos sit at the apex of these two trends, as humans seek a scientific solution to environmental crisis. Often fraught with controversy, cloning technologies, Friese argues, significantly affect our conceptualizations of and engagements with wildlife and nature. By studying animals at different locations, Friese explores the human practices surrounding the cloning of endangered animals. She visits zoos--the San Diego Zoological Park, the Audubon Center in New Orleans, and the Zoological Society of London--to see cloning and related practices in action, as well as attending academic and medical conferences and interviewing scientists, conservationists, and zookeepers involved in cloning. Ultimately, she concludes that the act of recalibrating nature through science is what most disturbs us about cloning animals in captivity, revealing that debates over cloning become, in the end, a site of political struggle between different human groups. Moreover, Friese explores the implications of the social role that animals at the zoo play in the first place--how they are viewed, consumed, and used by humans for our own needs. A unique study uniting sociology and the study of science and technology, Cloning Wild Life demonstrates just how much bioscience reproduces and changes our ideas about the meaning of life itself. Carrie Friese is Lecturer in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Water users of the Platte River Basin have long struggled to share this scarce commodity in the arid high plains, ultimately organising collectively owned and managed water systems, allocating water along extensive stream systems, and integrating newer groundwater with existing surface-water uses. In 1973, the Endangered Species Act brought a new challenge: incorporating the habitat needs of four species-the whooping crane, piping plover, least tern, and pallid sturgeon-into its water-management agenda. This book tells of the negotiations among the U.S. Department of the Interior, the environmental community, and the states of Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska that took place from the mid-1970s to 2006. Ambitious talks among rival water users, environmentalists, state authorities, and the Department of the Interior finally resulted in the Platte River Habitat Recovery Program. Documenting how organisational interests found remedies within the conditions set by the Endangered Species Act, describing how these interests addressed habitat restoration, and advancing sociological propositions under which water providers transcended self-interest and produced an agreement benefiting the environment, this book details the messy process that took place over more than thirty years. Presenting important implications for the future of water management in arid and semi-arid environments, this book will be of interest to anyone involved in water management, as well as academics interested in the social organisation of common property.

Find out why oceans are important, how they're under threat and what we can do to protect them. With bright, bold illustrations and simple text, Eco Baby: Oceans is perfect for little ones... because we're never too young to start caring about the planet. Eco Baby is a series of bright, bold board books introducing the very youngest of children to environmental issues.

A riveting study of the booming rosewood trade between China and Madagascar uncovers an alternative approach to environmentalism that disrupts Western models. Rosewood is the world's most trafficked endangered species by value, accounting for larger outlays than ivory, rhino horn, and big cats put together. Nearly all rosewood logs are sent to China, fueling a $26 billion market for classically styled furniture. Vast expeditions across Asia and Africa search for the majestic timber, and legions of Chinese ships sail for Madagascar, where rosewood is purchased straight from the forest. The international response has been to interdict the trade, but in this incisive account Annah Lake Zhu suggests that environmentalists have misunderstood both the intent and the effect of China's appetite for rosewood, causing social and ecological damage in the process. For one thing, Chinese consumers are understandably seeking to reclaim their cultural heritage, restoring a centuries-old tradition of home furnishing that the Cultural Revolution had condemned. In addition, Chinese firms are investing in environmental preservation. Far from simply exploiting the tree, businesses are carefully managing valuable forests and experimenting with extensive new plantings. This sustainable-use paradigm differs dramatically from the conservation norms preferred by Western-dominated NGOs, whose trade bans have prompted speculation and high prices, even encouraging criminal activity. Meanwhile, attempts to arm conservation task forces-militias meant to guard the forests-have backfired. Drawing on years of fieldwork in China and Madagascar, Rosewood upends the pieties of the global aid industry. Zhu offers a rigorous look at what environmentalism and biodiversity protection might look like in a world no longer dominated by the West.

A concise but comprehensive introduction to the biology of standing waters (lakes and ponds). As with other books in the Biology of Habitats Series, the emphasis in this book is on the organisms that dominate freshwater environments. Management and conservation aspects are also considered. The first edition of the book published in 1998 with a second, revised edition in 2005. There has been significant development in the field since the last revision appeared, particularly in the ecology of lakes and ponds in subtropical and tropical areas, and a new revision of this now classic text is timely.

National Parks are Britain's breathing spaces - protected areas enjoyed by the millions of visitors attracted every year by their tranquillity, beauty and landscape. Fifteen National Parks cover a significant share of Britain's total land area - 10 per cent of England, 20 per cent of Wales, and 7 per cent of Scotland. Yet despite their importance, few people today are aware of the campaign in the 1930s and 1940s to establish National Parks. And fewer still know the name of the man who was its principal driving force. John Dower was an architect, a planner, a prodigious walker, an accomplished writer and, above all, a fighter. Fight for It Now is the first biography to be written about him, and the title reflects his one great objective and the increasing urgency of attaining it as his health declined. Drawing on extensive national archives and his private papers and letters, the book describes Dower's early work with pressure groups like the Friends of the Lake District and the Council for the Protection of Rural England, and then his subsequent move during the Second World War to an influential position inside government, focusing on post-war reconstruction. While German bombs were falling on British cities, it was part of Dower's job to quarter the English countryside and identify potential areas for National Parks. Dower's most influential contribution was his 'one-man White Paper' National Parks in England and Wales published at the end of the war in 1945. The 'Dower Report' addressed key questions on the criteria for selecting National Parks, where they should be located, who they were for, and how they should be administered, and it paved the way at last for the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. While overcoming opponents both outside and inside government, Dower wrote continuously as though his project could only be hammered out at white heat. And all the while, the one struggle he knew he could not win was the tuberculosis that eventually killed him, at the tragically early age of forty-seven.

The recent technologies for sustainable development and maintaining ecological integrity in the field of agriculture, forestry and environmental management for the green future. Describes the recent technologies and issues to generate awareness among the global scientific community towards sustainable development. Covers various eco-friendly approaches for successful management of soil, water, forest, agriculture, and other natural resources. Addresses the policy issues promoting conservation, protection and management of various natural resources. Presents the issues of climate change and sustainable strategies to combat such a mega event. The existence of life on the earth primarily depends upon the agriculture, forest and environment. The changing climate is imposing the multifaceted challenges in front of human civilization. The agroecosystem management practices and technologies leads to higher productivity with destruction of agricultural, forest and environmental habitat leading to soil-water-air pollution. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) plays a key role in the promoting research and developmental activities in various sectors to achieve the sustainable development goals under 2030 agenda. Gradual growth of science and technology has imposed a significant pressure on the different ecosystem. In this context, approaches such as sustainable agriculture, forestry and eco-friendly technologies need to be address across the world. Keeping view of these facts this book underlines scientific chapters dealing with the issues with proper explanation, and accompanied by illustrative diagrams, tables, database as required. The editors have tried to provide a brief scenario about the current issues related to the agriculture, forestry and environment. Therefore, the book would be a very useful resource for academicians, scientists, and policy makers of the related field.

What are the obstacles in the way of effectively solving the environmental crises of our time? What can we do to overcome them? These may be two of the most important questions heading into the 21st century. Organized human societies have the ability to completely change the world. While we have excelled at building, destroying and rebuilding, we have not succeeded at conserving, preserving, and sustaining. Priviledged Goods: Commoditization and Its Impact on Environment and Society suggests that our propensity toward environmental destruction - a tragic flaw of the modern economy - can be understood as a result of hidden economic forces. These forces drive social and economic development towards increasing mobilization of energy and material beyond what is actually needed to achieve general prosperity and meet basic human needs. The author explains the complex concept of commoditization using examples from key sectors of society. Interdisciplinary in scope, Privileged Goods: Commoditization and Its Impact on Environment and Society will appeal to a wide variety of environmental professionals. It explains the key concepts, discusses the history of public policy, analyzes the "appropriate technology" movement of the 70s and compares it to the sustainable development movement of today.

In 1994, representatives from all over the world met in Costa Rica to discuss the impact of ecological economics on developing countries. That groundbreaking conference laid the foundation for this new collection of research on environmental sustainability. While most discussions on sustainable development focus on the industrialized nations, Environmental Sustainability: Practical Global Applications takes a different angle: it presents the views of the developing countries themselves on issues such as wildlife resources in Nambia, timber production in Costa Rica, property rights and land reform in South Africa, and other steps being taken to implement environmentally sustainable economies around the world. This is an ideal text for students of natural and social sciences, development professionals and entrepreneurs seeking opportunities for ecologically sustainable businesses. Academics will find it useful as a source of current research and for making new contacts in the field. For anyone interested in exploring the link between man and his environment-specifically, the relationship between economics and ecology- Environmental Sustainability, is a must.

The number-one environmental threat to public health, air pollution remains a pressing problem-made even more complicated by the massive quantity and diversity of air pollution sources. Biofiltration technology (using micro-organisms growing on porous media) is being recognized as one of the most advantageous means to convert pollutants to harmless products. Done properly, biofiltration works at a reasonable cost-utilizing inexpensive components, without requiring fuel or generating hazardous by-products. Firmly established in Europe, biofiltration techniques are being increasingly applied in North America: Biofiltration for Air Pollution Control offers the necessary knowledge to "do it right."

"This fascinating and most timely critical medical anthropology study successfully binds two still emergent areas of contemporary anthropological research in the global world: the nature and significant impact of multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers on human social life everywhere, and the contribution of corporations to the fast-paced degradation of our life support system, planet Earth. . . . Focusing on a pharmaceutically-impacted town on the colonized island of Puerto Rico, Dietrich ably demonstrates the value of ethnography carried out in small places in framing the large issues facing humanity." -Merrill Singer, University of Connecticut The production of pharmaceuticals is among the most profitable industries on the planet. Drug companies produce chemical substances that can save, extend, or substantially improve the quality of human life.However, even as the companies present themselves publicly as health and environmental stewards, their factories are a significant source of air and water pollution--toxic to people and the environment. In Puerto Rico, the pharmaceutical industry is the backbone of the island's economy: in one small town alone, there are over a dozen drug factories representing five multinationals, the highest concentration per capita of such factories in the world. It is a place where the enforcement of environmental regulations and the public trust they ensure are often violated in the name of economic development. The Drug Company Next Door unites the concerns of critical medical anthropology with those of political ecology, investigating the multi-faceted role of pharmaceutical corporations as polluters, economic providers, and social actors. Rather than simply demonizing the drug companies, the volume explores the dynamics involved in their interactions with the local community and discusses the strategies used by both individuals and community groups to deal with the consequences of pollution. The Drug Company Next Door puts a human face on a growing set of problems for communities around the world. Accessible and engaging, the book encourages readers to think critically about the role of corporations in everyday life, health, and culture.