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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Conservation of the environment > General
Metis and the Medicine Line is a sprawling, ambitious look at how national borders and notions of race were created and manipulated to unlock access to indigenous lands. It is also an intimate story of individuals and families, brought vividly to life by history writing at its best. It begins with the emergence of the Plains Metis and ends with the fracturing of their communities as the Canada-U.S. border was enforced. It also explores the borderland world of the Northern Plains, where an astonishing diversity of people met and mingled: Blackfoot, Cree, Gros Ventre, Lakota, Dakota, Nez Perce, Assiniboine, Anishinaabes, Metis, Europeans, Canadians, Americans, soldiers, police, settlers, farmers, hunters, traders, bureaucrats. In examining the battles that emerged over who belonged on what side of the border, Hogue disputes Canada's peaceful settlement story of the Prairie West and challenges familiar bromides about the "world's longest undefended border."
On January 9th 2014, residents across Charleston, West Virginia, awoke to an unusual liquorice smell in the air and a similar taste in the public drinking water. That evening residents were informed that the tap water in tens of thousands of homes, hundred of businesses, and dozens of schools and hospitals - the water made available to as many as 300,00 citizens in a nine-county region - had been contaminated with a chemical used for cleaning crushed coal. This books tells a particular set of stories about that chemical spill and its aftermath, an unfolding water crisis that would lead to months, even years, of fear and distrust. It is both oral history and collaborative ethnography, jointly conceptualised, researched, and written by people - more than fifty in all - across various positions in academia and local communities. I'm Afraid of That Water foregrounds the ongoing concerns of West Virginians (and people in comparable situations in places like Flint, Michigan) confronted by the problem of contamination, where thresholds for official safety may be crossed, but a genuine return to normality is elusive.
"What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone!...Here was traveling of the old heroic kind over the unaltered face of nature." Henry David Thoreau Over a period of three years, Thoreau made three trips to the largely unexplored woods of Maine. He climbed mountains, paddled a canoe by moonlight, and dined on cedar beer, hemlock tea and moose lips. Taking notes constantly, Thoreau was just as likely to turn his observant eye to the habits and languages of the Abnaki Indians or the arduous life of the logger as he was to the workings of nature. He acutely observed the rivers, lakes, mountains, wolves, moose, and stars in the dark sky. He also told of nights sitting by the campfire, and of meeting men who communicated with each other by writing on the trunks of trees. In The Maine Woods, Thoreau captured a wilder side of America and revealed his own adventurous spirit.
Indian screw pine family Pandanaceae represents three genera, in which genus Pandanus and Benstonea are distributed in two hotspots in India the Western Ghats and the Northeast Himalayan region. For the first time, Indian Pandanaceae has been assessed for its taxonomic status and phylogenetic relationship. The extensive survey by the authors led to the discovery of three new Pandanus species (two from the Western Ghats and one from the Northeast Himalaya). The present taxonomic revision confirmed total number of Pandanus species to 14 that are distributed in the Southern India (9 species) and Northeast Himalayan region (5 species). Genus Benstonea is represented by two species, one from Southern India and another species common to both regions. A detailed species identification key is given along with conservation status of each species following IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (2001). The study revealed that, out of 16 Pandanus and Benstonea species, six species are under threatened categories. In recent years, a chloroplast DNA-based molecular phylogenetic approach has been followed to understand the evolutionary relationship among the plant species. The interrelationship among the 14 Pandanus species at infrageneric level has been worked out using this approach, which has led to the rearrangement of some species to the subgenera proposed by Stone (1974). Moreover, the close relationship between Pandanus and Benstonea has been confirmed and the interrelationship of Indian Pandanus genus in global context is given. This book also describes the economic importance of each Pandanus species.
Issues In Agroecology - Present Status and Future Prospectus not only reviews aspects of ecology, but the ecology of sustainable food production systems, and related societal and cultural values. To provide effective communication regarding status and advances in this field, this series connects with many disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, environmental sciences, ethics, agriculture, economics, ecology, rural development, sustainability, policy and education, and integrations of these general themes so as to provide integrated points of view that will help lead to a more sustainable construction of values than conventional economics alone. Such designs are inherently complex and dynamic, and go beyond the individual farm to include landscapes, communities, and biogeographic regions by emphasizing their unique agricultural and ecological values, and their biological, societal, and cultural components and processes.
Saving endangered species presents a critical and increasingly pressing challenge for conservation and sustainability movements, and is also matter of survival and livelihoods for the world's poorest and vulnerable communities. In 1973, a global Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) was adopted to stem the extinction of many species. In 2015, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 15) the United Nations called for urgent action to protect endangered species and their natural habitats. This volume focuses on the legal implementation of CITES to achieve the global SDGs. Activating interdisciplinary analysis and case studies across jurisdictions, the contributors analyse the potential for CITES to promote more sustainable development, proposing international and national regulatory innovations for implementing CITES. They consider recent innovations and key intervention points along flora and fauna value chains, advancing coherent recommendations to strengthen CITES implementation, including through the regulation of trade in endangered species globally and locally.
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is exceptionally biodiverse. It contains about half of the world s remaining tropical forests, nearly one-fifth of its coastal habitats, and some of its most productive agricultural and marine areas. But agriculture, fishing and other human activities linked to rapid population and economic growth increasingly threaten that biodiversity. Moreover, poverty, weak regulatory capacity, and limited political will hamper conservation. Given this dilemma, it is critically important to design conservation strategies on the basis of the best available information about both biodiversity and the track records of the various policies that have been used to protect it. This rigorously researched book has three key aims. It describes the status of biodiversity in LAC, the main threats to this biodiversity, and the drivers of these threats. It identifies the main policies being used to conserve biodiversity and assesses their effectiveness and potential for further implementation. It proposes five specific lines of practical action for conserving LAC biodiversity, based on: green agriculture; strengthening terrestrial protected areas and co-management; improving environmental governance; strengthening coastal and marine resource management; and improving biodiversity data and policy evaluation."
When we look at some of the most pressing issues in environmental politics today, it is hard to avoid data technologies. Big data, artificial intelligence, and data dashboards all promise "revolutionary" advances in the speed and scale at which governments, corporations, conservationists, and even individuals can respond to environmental challenges. By bringing together scholars from geography, anthropology, science and technology studies, and ecology, The Nature of Data explores how the digital realm is a significant site in which environmental politics are waged. This collection as a whole makes the argument that we cannot fully understand the current conjuncture in critical, global environmental politics without understanding the role of data platforms, devices, standards, and institutions. In particular, The Nature of Data addresses the contested practices of making and maintaining data infrastructure, the imaginaries produced by data infrastructures, the relations between state and civil society that data infrastructure reworks, and the conditions under which technology can further socio-ecological justice instead of re-entrenching state and capitalist power. This innovative volume presents some of the first research in this new but rapidly growing subfield that addresses the role of data infrastructures in critical environmental politics.
The establishment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) points to the crucial role attributed to science and knowledge for the successful implementation of biodiversity politics by both scientists and policy-makers. With the increased importance of biodiversity in international politics, and in part inspired by the success the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has had in raising awareness of global warming, the call for an 'IPCC for Biodiversity' was successful. The Politics of Knowledge and Global Biodiversity gives a full overview of the process of its implementation as finalised in 2013 and proposes an innovative conceptual framework that puts this specific case into a more general perspective of international politics and relations. It provides a detailed empirical analysis of the knowledge politics associated with the establishment of IPBES and its conceptual framework and methodological approach is grounded in a theoretical perspective. This pioneering work is the first to examine IPBES in this way and is essential reading for researchers and scholars of International Relations, Environmental and Biodiversity Politics, Science-Policy Interfaces and Global Environmental Governance. It will also be of interest to political scientists and social scientists.
How can cultural forms motivate people to care about their environment? While important scientific data about ecosystems is mushrooming, E. N. Anderson argues in this powerful new book that putting effective conservation into practice depends primarily on social solidarity and emotional factors. Marshaling decades of research on cultures across several continents, he shows how societies have been more or less successful in sustainably managing their environments based on collective engagements such as religion, art, song, myth, and story. This provocative and deeply felt book by a leading writer and scholar in human ecology and anthropology will be read and debated widely for years to come.
Within leisure studies there is a growing awareness and intensifying conscience about the potential environmental threat posed by the continued and unmanaged economic growth and development of sport, tourism and leisure. This collection brings together explicit discussions from a range of fields including environmental geography, consumer research, sociology and politics of the increasing relevance and complexities of environmental politics in leisure studies. It provides a snapshot into the wide-ranging debates on the politics of the environment and leisure/sport/tourism and serves as a starting point for further dialogue between leisure studies scholars and those in other disciplines where many of environmental debates have been advanced. The volume will be of great value to scholars and practitioners in the areas of leisure studies, conservation and local politics. This book was published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.
'The Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy is a very important book. More than 40 experienced authors, including some of the most important international thought leaders of our time, have confronted a crucial question: How can and should national governments come to grips with the need for global action on a wide range of increasingly urgent environmental challenges that exceed their authority and capability? Through close examination of numerous case studies, a balanced perspective that takes government, business and civil society into account, and fresh interdisciplinary thinking about a range of policy tools, the Handbook offers a treasure-trove of new concepts and new perspectives. The authors conclude that by acknowledging the ongoing erosion of national sovereignty and accepting the growing need to work together in supranational forums, national governments can, in fact, increase their capacity to shape their own destiny.' - Lawrence Susskind, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US 'In an increasingly interdependent world, global forces affect both the design and effectiveness of environmental policy. This Handbook provides an unusually creative and comprehensive guide, not only to the nature of these forces and their impacts, but also to how a better understanding of these forces can provide a foundation for improving the effectiveness of environmental policy.' - Tom Tietenberg, Colby College, US In the current era of globalization, national governments are increasingly exposed to international influences that present new constraints and opportunities for domestic environmental policies. This comprehensive, revised Handbook pushes the frontiers of theoretical and empirical knowledge, and provides a state-of-the-art examination of the multifaceted effects of globalization on environmental governance. Including substantially revised as well as new contributions from leading authorities, the Handbook offers an insightful overview of recent developments at the intersection of globalization and national environmental policy. It covers themes including national regimes, trade rules, types of goods, federalism, innovation, standards, citizen-consumers, developing countries, policy networks, partnerships, and carbon trading. The Handbook's depth and scope will appeal to a broad and varied readership, across academics, students, and policy makers interested in public and private governance, environmental economics, international relations, environmental politics and law, sociology, and political science. Contributors: T. Chagas, P. Conceicao, E. Dellas, D. Esty, M. Flaherty, P. Glasbergen, E. Harkink, J. Hontelez, M. Ivanova, M. Jansen, N. Johnstone, M. Kalamova, I. Kaul, A. Keck, R. Kemp, W. Kersten, A. Kolliker, L. Kramer, D. Liefferink, A. Mol, H. Mowat, H. Opschoor, S. Ozinga, J. Pieters, D. Post, L. Soete, G. Spaargaren, B. Stigson, C. Streck, M. Toffel, N. Uludere Aragon, J. van Kasteren, P. van Seters, S. Veenman, J. Verschuuren, R. Visser, D. Vogel, K. von Moltke, M. von Unger, R. Weehuizen, F. Wijen, K. Zoeteman
'Read this book, then look and wonder' Sunday Times We have to learn to live as part of nature, not apart from it. And the first step is to start looking after the insects, the little creatures that make our shared world go round. Insects are essential for life as we know it - without them, our world would look vastly different. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research and a lifetime's study, Dave Goulson reveals the long decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades and its potential consequences. Eye-opening and inspiring, Silent Earth asks for profound change at every level and a passionate argument or us to love, respect and care for our six-legged friends. 'Compelling - Silent Earth is a wake-up call' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding 'Enlightening, urgent and funny, Goulson's book is a timely call for action' New Statesman
Two kinds of long-term research are taking place at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, a renowned research facility in the temperate rain forest of the Oregon Cascades. Here, scientists investigate the ecosystem's trees, wildlife, water, and nutrients with an eye toward understanding change over varying timescales up to two hundred years or more. And writers from both literary and scientific backgrounds spend time in the forest investigating the ecological and human complexities of this remarkable and deeply studied place. This anthology-which includes work by some of the nation's most accomplished writers, including Sandra Alcosser, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Jane Hirshfield, Linda Hogan, Freeman House, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Kathleen Dean Moore, Robert Michael Pyle, Pattiann Rogers, and Scott Russell Sanders-grows out of the work of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program and showcases the insights of the program's thoughtful and important encounters among writers, scientists, and place. These vivid essays, poems, and field notes convey a landscape of moss-draped trees, patchwork clear-cuts, stream-swept gravel bars, and hillsides scoured by fire, and also bring forward the ambiguities and paradoxes of conflicting human values and their implications for the ecosystem. Forest Under Story offers an illuminating and multifaceted way of understanding the ecology and significance of old-growth forests, and points the way toward a new kind of collaboration between the sciences and the humanities to better know and learn from special places.
Using the example of China's Wutai Shan-recently designated both a UNESCO World Heritage site and a national park-Robert J. Shepherd analyzes Chinese applications of western notions of heritage management within a non-western framework. What does the concept of world heritage mean for a site practically unheard of outside of China, visited almost exclusively by Buddhist religious pilgrims? What does heritage preservation mean for a site whose intrinsic value isn't in its historic buildings or cultural significance, but for its sacredness within the Buddhist faith? How does a society navigate these issues, particularly one where open religious expression has only recently become acceptable? These questions and more are explored in this book, perfect for students and practitioners of heritage management looking for a new perspective.
Using the example of China's Wutai Shan-recently designated both a UNESCO World Heritage site and a national park-Robert J. Shepherd analyzes Chinese applications of western notions of heritage management within a non-western framework. What does the concept of world heritage mean for a site practically unheard of outside of China, visited almost exclusively by Buddhist religious pilgrims? What does heritage preservation mean for a site whose intrinsic value isn't in its historic buildings or cultural significance, but for its sacredness within the Buddhist faith? How does a society navigate these issues, particularly one where open religious expression has only recently become acceptable? These questions and more are explored in this book, perfect for students and practitioners of heritage management looking for a new perspective.
Wildlife expert Eanna Ni Lamhna takes us on a tour of all things to do with our wonderful natural world: from a celebration of our fascinating birds and bees, and their powers of migration and pollination, to the thorny challenges of our time, such as climate change, sustainability and our carbon footprint. Her mantra is that learning about our wild world is not just for young children or David Attenborough fans, it is a lifelong necessary knowledge for our survival - and we need to open our eyes and our minds to the challenges that face us and our world into the future. The key is to find the balance between our needs and wants and the future of our precious planet and all its inhabitants. This brand new book raises, and discusses, questions such as; Why should we care about this natural world? Do we need and value the great outdoors now more than ever? But who wants spiders in their house? And what use are wasps anyway? Should we be worried by genetic engineering and windfarms? Biodiversity - what did it ever do for us? Does it mean the end of the world if the whales become extinct? Are global warming and climate change the same thing? What happened to the hole in the ozone layer? Is veganism the answer to sustainable food? What is carbon sequestration - just fancy words for trees? And why are carbon sinks so important? Is the mobile phone taking over our lives for good or for evil? How does a virus become a pandemic, and why?
Phosphorus is essential to the production of our food, and it also triggers algal blooms in lakes, rivers, and oceans when it slips through our hands. An understanding of this essential resource and how we have used and misused it over the years is crucial to the sustainability of our well-being on our planet. In this book, world authorities on phosphorus sustainability Jim Elser and Phil Haygarth explain this element's involvement in biology, human health and nutrition, food production, ecosystem function, and environmental sustainability. Phosphorus chronicles the sustainability challenges phosphorus both poses and solves in various contexts. The book begins with its discovery over 350 years ago, moving to its basic chemistry and the essential role it plays in all living things on Earth. Chapters go on to explain the rise in the usage of phosphorus in agriculture and how the increase in the mining of rock phosphate in the mid-20th century was essential for the Green Revolution. However, phosphorus emissions from human wastes and detergents triggered widespread algal blooms in the 1960s and 1970s. While such emissions have been brought under better control with wastewater treatment, diffuse emissions from farming continue to cause water quality degradation. The authors explain how these diffuse phosphorus emissions may worsen with climate change. In ten concise chapters, Elser and Haygarth offer engaging explanations of our historical use and abuse of phosphorus, including the phosphorus sustainability movement and new efforts to sustain food benefits of limited rock reserves following the phosphate rock price shock in 2007-2008. Highlighting new approaches for phosphorus, the two "Systems Innovators" turn toward the emerging set of sustainable phosphorus solutions necessary to achieve a sustainable "phosphoheaven" and avoid "phosphogeddon." The book provides an insider's take on this essential resource and why all of us need to wrestle with the wicked problems this element will cause, illuminate, or eliminate in years to come.
Endocrine Interactions of Insect Parasites and Pathogens is one of the first books to concentrate specifically on the endocrine aspects of host/parasite and host/pathogen reactions. Written by well-known researchers in the field, the book is an up-to-date compendium and provides a thorough review of the current research.
One of the problems faced by heritage organizations and museums is adapting old buildings to their needs or building new ones to fit in with historic sites. How exactly do you create a visitor's centre at Stonehenge? The real difficulty lies where the budget is minimal, and the potential damage to the environment or setting enormous. Architecture in Conservation looks at the need of the heritage industry to respond sensitively to the limitations or potentials of the environment. James Strike explains the strategies for producing new development at historic sites, examining the philosophy of conservation practive and stressing the importance of taking into account the characteristics of each individual site. He explains the way in which the methods of producing good developments relate to our very perception of history, and addresses the practical problems involved in developing appropriate sites, including the current architectural interest in pastiche versus modern design. Case studies from around the world demonstrate the potential of each approach. James Strike draws on his broad experience as an architect at English Heritage to show that a sensitive approach to these issues can unlock conservation problems and open up new opportunities for architectural expansion. Architecture in conservation will be of considerable interest to site owners and architects responsible for site development, and to students of architecture, history and building practice and is intended as a handbook for those responsible for commissioning heritage work.
For thousands of years, Pacific Northwest Indians fished, bartered, socialized, and honored their ancestors at Celilo Falls, part of a nine-mile stretch of the Long Narrows on the Columbia River. Although the Indian community of Celilo Village survives to this day as Oregon's oldest continuously inhabited town, with the construction of The Dalles Dam in 1957, traditional uses of the river were catastrophically interrupted. Most non-Indians celebrated the new generation of hydroelectricity and the easy navigability of the river "highway" created by the dam, but Indians lost a sustaining center to their lives when Celilo Falls was inundated. Death of Celilo Falls is a story of ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances, as neighboring communities went through tremendous economic, environmental, and cultural change in a brief period. Katrine Barber examines the negotiations and controversies that took place during the planning and construction of the dam and the profound impact the project had on both the Indian community of Celilo Village and the non-Indian town of The Dalles, intertwined with local concerns that affected the entire American West: treaty rights, federal Indian policy, environmental transformation of rivers, and the idea of "progress."
In northern Thailand, Laos, and southern China, marginal fishing communities along the Mekong River and its tributaries are experiencing the adverse effects of changing ecosystems on their fish stocks, local economies, lifestyles, and cultural practices. Transnational mega-projects are causing great environmental degradation and endangering people's livelihoods. While depicting a stark future for less advantaged Mekong communities, this book sees reasons for hope in the communities' capacity to respond to these changes. Using their knowledge and experience to cope with evolving historical realities such as erratic water levels, many local communities have devised conservation measures for fishing. The author advocates bottom-up planning and transnational civil society alliances between local groups and regional and international organizations to bring about more balanced development and sounder natural resource management in the region. Appendixes contain an extensive inventory of fish species, habitat, conservation status, and fishing techniques. Yos Santasombat is professor of anthropology at Chiang Mai University.
From the renowned wolf researcher and author of The Rise of Wolf 8 and The Reign of Wolf 21 comes a stunning account of an unconventional alpha male. A lover, not a fighter. That was wolf 302. A renegade with an eye for the ladies, 302 was anything but Yellowstone's perfect alpha male. For starters, he fled from danger. He begged for food from other wolves, ditched females he'd gotten pregnant, and even napped during a heated battle with a rival pack! But this is not the story of 302's failures. This is the story of his dramatic transformation. And legendary wolf writer Rick McIntyre witnessed it all from the sidelines. As McIntyre closely observed with his spotting scope, wolf 302 began to mature, and, much to McIntyre's surprise, became the leader of a new pack in his old age. But in a year when game was scarce, could the aging wolf provide for his family? Had he changed enough to live up to the legacies of the great alpha males before him? Recounted in McIntyre's captivating storytelling voice and peppered with fascinating insights into wolf behavior, The Redemption of Wolf 302 is a powerful coming-of-age tale that will strike a chord with anyone who has struggled to make a change, big or small. "With this third installment of Rick McIntyre's magnum opus, the scope and ambition of the project becomes clear: nothing less than a grand serialization of the first twenty years of wolves in Yellowstone, a kind of lupine Great Expectations."-Nate Blakeslee, New York Times-bestselling author of American Wolf
There has been a deluge of material on biodiversity, starting from a trickle back in the mid-1980's. However, this book is entirely unique in its treatment of the topic. It is unique in its meticulously crafted, scientifically informed, philosophical examination of the norms and values that are at the heart of discussions about biodiversity. And it is unique in its point of view, which is the first to comprehensively challenge prevailing views about biodiversity and its value. According to those dominant views, biodiversity is an extremely good thing - so good that it has become the emblem of natural value. The book's broader purpose is to use biodiversity as a lens through which to view the nature of natural value. It first examines, on their own terms, the arguments for why biodiversity is supposed to be a good thing. This discussion cuts a very broad and detailed swath through the scientific, economic, and environmental literature. It finds all these arguments to be seriously wanting. Worse, these arguments appear to have consequences that should dismay and perplex most environmentalists. The book then turns to a deeper analysis of these failures and suggests that they result from posing value questions from within a framework that is inappropriate for nature's value. It concludes with a novel suggestion for framing natural value. This new proposal avoids the pitfalls of the ones that prevail in the promotion of biodiversity. And it exposes the goals of conservation biology, restoration biology, and the world's largest conservation organizations as badly ill-conceived.
An in-depth look at the history of the environment. Is it possible for the economy to grow without the environment being destroyed? Will our lifestyles impoverish the planet for our children and grandchildren? Is the world sick? Can it be healed? Less than a lifetime ago, these questions would have made no sense. This was not because our ancestors had no impact on nature-nor because they were unaware of the serious damage they had done. What people lacked was an idea: a way of imagining the web of interconnection and consequence of which the natural world is made. Without this notion, we didn't have a way to describe the scale and scope of human impact upon nature. This idea was "the environment." In this fascinating book, Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Soerlin trace the emergence of the concept of the environment following World War II, a period characterized by both hope for a new global order and fear of humans' capacity for almost limitless destruction. It was at this moment that a new idea and a new narrative about the planet-wide impact of people's behavior emerged, closely allied to anxieties for the future. Now we had a vocabulary for talking about how we were changing nature: resource exhaustion and energy, biodiversity, pollution, and-eventually-climate change. With the rise of "the environment," the authors argue, came new expertise, making certain kinds of knowledge crucial to understanding the future of our planet. The untold history of how people came to conceive, to manage, and to dispute environmental crisis, The Environment is essential reading for anyone who wants to help protect the environment from the numerous threats it faces today. |
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