When American explorers crossed the Texas Panhandle, they dubbed it part of the ""Great American Desert."" A ""sea of grass,"" the llano appeared empty, flat, and barely habitable. Contemporary developments - cell phone towers, oil rigs, and wind turbines - have only added to this stereotype. Yet in this lyrical ecomemoir, Shelley Armitage charts a unique rediscovery of the largely unknown land, a journey at once deeply personal and far-reaching in its exploration of the connections between memory, spirit, and place. Armitage begins her narrative with the intention to walk the llano from her family farm thirty meandering miles along the Middle Alamosa Creek to the Canadian River. Along the way, she seeks the connection between her father and one of the area's first settlers, Ysabel Gurule, who built his dugout on the banks of the Canadian. Armitage, who grew up nearby in the small town of Vega, finds this act of walking inseparable from the act of listening and writing. ""What does the land say to us?"" she asks as she witnesses human alterations to the landscape - perhaps most catastrophic the continued drainage of the land's most precious resource, the Ogallala Aquifer. Yet the llano's wonders persist: dynamic mesas and canyons, vast flora and fauna, diverse wildlife, rich histories. Armitage recovers the voices of ancient, Native, and Hispano peoples, their stories interwoven with her own: her father's legacy, her mother's decline, a brother's love. The llano holds not only the beauty of ecological surprises but a renewed realization of kinship in a world ever changing. Reminiscent of the work of Terry Tempest Williams and John McPhee, Walking the Llano is both a celebration of an oft-overlooked region and a soaring testimony to the power of the landscape to draw us into greater understanding of ourselves and others by experiencing a deeper connection with the places we inhabit.

Tembeli is a beautiful island in Muzanga located somewhere in the heart of the Niger Delta, an island so lavishly blessed by nature with natural and material resources. The people lived in perfect harmony until Oilgate, a multinational Oil company struck its first oil well in Tembeli. Ever since then, things have never been the same in Tembeli.For long, the people found it themselves in a period of no peace. Faced with intimidation and marginalization by the military government of Muzanga, who felt that their crude oil revenue base was being threatened by Tembeli's outcry for environmental violations by Oilgate, the people vowed to defend their kingdom with the last drop of their blood. This is a story that was never told and will touch even a heart as cold as steel.

The book is designed to provide a review on the methods and current status of conservation of the tropical plant species. It will also provide the information on the richness of the tropical plant diversity, the need to conserve, and the potential utilization of the genetic resources. Future perspectives of conservation of tropical species will be discussed. Besides being useful to researchers and graduate students in the field, we hope to create a reference for a much wider audience who are interested in conservation of tropical plant diversity.

A new colouring book from New York Times bestselling illustrator, Kerby Rosanes.

Fragile World features over 55 endangered and vulnerable creatures to colour. Showcasing some of the most threatened animals from around the globe in their natural habitats, from the Tapanuli Orangutan to the Hawksbill Turtle, and many more. With a section of facts and information at the back explaining the inspiration and rationale behind each illustration, this book will raise awareness of our fragile world and inspire conservation.

Kerby's incredible artwork will provide a remarkable way to learn about our planet's rich diversity and fragile ecosystems ­- all of which can be brought to life with colour.

Matthew Dickerson takes his readers from an Applachian trout stream in western North Carolina where wild trout are reduced to sipping cigarette butts, up through his home state of Vermont where development and the ski industry threaten the state's iconic pastoral riversides, and finally into western Maine to a once dead river that has returned to life. The tale takes us not only to the three eponymous rivers, but to other nearby streams and waters. Though neither an historical nor as scientific text, the writing is informed by both, and as readers are drawn through the tale, they will grow in their own understanding of both stream ecology and the history of human habitation and consumption. The book is illustrated by original prints from Vermont artist Courtney Allenson.

"Over 50 years in the life of a 'commons ecologist'; the quest for unappropriated government land ("Commons"). What was the "FLPMA"? Was it the greatest bloodless land reform in the 20th century? Does it possess 21st century environmental ideas that may save Earth's biodiversity?"--T.p.

Rivers under Siege is a wrenching firsthand account of how human interventions, often well intentioned, have wreaked havoc on West Tennessee's fragile wetlands. For more than a century, farmers and developers tried to tame the rivers as they became clogged with sand and debris, thereby increasing flooding. Building levees and changing the course of the rivers from meandering streams to straight-line channels, developers only made matters worse. Yet the response to failure was always to try to subdue nature, to dig even bigger channels and construct even more levees-an effort that reached its sorry culmination in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' massive West Tennessee Tributaries Project during the 1960s. As a result, the rivers' natural hydrology descended into chaos, devastating the plant and animal ecology of the region's wetlands. Crops and trees died from summer flooding, as much of the land turned into useless, stagnant swamps. The author was one of a small group of state waterfowl managers who saw it all happen, most sadly within the Obion-Forked Deer river system and at Reelfoot Lake. After much trial and error, Johnson and his colleagues in the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency began by the 1980s to abandon their old methods, resorting to management procedures more in line with the natural contours of the floodplains and the natural behavior of rivers. Preaching their new stewardship philosophy to anyone who might listen-their supervisors, duck hunters, conservationists, politicians, federal agencies-they were often ignored. The campaign dragged on for twenty years before an innovative and rational plan came from the Governor's Office and gained wide support. But then, too, that plan fell prey to politics, legal wrangling, self-interest, hardheadedness, and tradition. Yet, despite such heartbreaking setbacks, the author points to hopeful signs that West Tennessee's historic wetlands might yet be recovered for the benefit of all who use them and recognize their vital importance. Jim W. Johnson, now retired, was for many years a lands management biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. He was responsible for the overall supervision and coordination of thirteen wildlife management areas and refuges, primarily for waterfowl, in northwest Tennessee.

""Notes from a Dying Planet" is a concerned, passionate, and informed survey of the environmental problems facing our planet, with gems of succinct essays interspersed with the reality of daily news. Written from the perspective of a very well informed citizen with a solid scientific background, it conveys in clear language the many challenges we face, convinces us of the folly of continuing on our present course, and suggests useful steps that each of us as individuals can take toward making our planet a sustainable habitat for all species." - Jeffrey A. McNeely, Chief Scientist, IUCN-The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland

Internationally respected neuroscientist Paul Brown asks why we are doing so little about overpopulation, global warming and the current mass extinction. He describes how these three threats could end civilization as we know it, and possibly finish off our entire species, by the end of this century. Brown examines the biological and cultural evolution of our species, and how they influence our behavior. He describes some of the proposed solutions to problems like the energy crisis, explains why they're too narrow in scope, and proposes broader approaches. He also takes us week by week through crucial events unfolding around the globe. Written for a lay audience, "Notes from a Dying Planet" provides all the background needed for each topic.

"Paul Brown has written a book that is at once unique, scary, and exciting. It is unique because of the format, scary because the author tries to be honest with the reader, and exciting because if we all become as committed as Brown is we will reverse the environmental trends that are undermining our future." - Lester Brown, Founder and President, Earth Policy Institute, and author of "Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble."

The new edition of Environmental Law provides a comprehensive account of this topical and complex area of law, bringing within one volume the full range of law and legislation in the field.
Written by a group of practicing attorneys, all with specialist experience of environmental law, it aims to cover all aspects of the area including the practice and jurisprudence of the tribunals which administer it in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland.
This title contains detailed coverage of the substantive environmental law areas such as pollution of all kinds, the control and management of waste and hazardous substances, contaminated land issues, and conservation. The book also examines thoroughly the regulation, enforcement of environmental law, and analyses the international and European context and its implications for the UK.
The new edition of this title brings the book up to date with recent legislation such as the Clean Neighborhoods and Environment Act 2005 and considers the impact of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. As central government policy documents have increasingly concentrated on the control of pollution in the planning process, this title analyzes development of planning and social sustainability policies as put forward in the White Paper of May 2007 and the forthcoming Planning Bill.
This book combines valuable analysis with practical guidance on the full range of topics facing the environmental lawyer.

This reader gathers fifteen of the most important essays written in the field of southern environmental history over the past decade. Ideal for course use, the volume provides a convenient entree into the recent literature on the region as it indicates the variety of directions in which the field is growing. As coeditor Paul S. Sutter writes in his introduction, "recent trends in environmental historiography--a renewed emphasis on agricultural landscapes and their hybridity, attention to the social and racial histories of environmental thought and practice, and connections between health and the environment among them--have made the South newly attractive terrain. This volume suggests, then, that southern environmental history has not only arrived but also that it may prove an important space for the growth of the larger environmental history enterprise."

The writings, which range in setting from the Texas plains to the Carolina Lowcountry, address a multiplicity of topics, such as husbandry practices in the Chesapeake colonies and the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. The contributors' varied disciplinary perspectives--including agricultural history, geography, the history of science, the history of technology, military history, colonial American history, urban and regional planning history, and ethnohistory--also point to the field's vitality. Conveying the breadth, diversity, and liveliness of this maturing area of study, "Environmental History and the American South" affirms the critical importance of human-environmental interactions to the history and culture of the region.

Contributors: Virginia DeJohn AndersonWilliam BoydLisa BradyJoshua Blu BuhsJudith CarneyJames Taylor CarsonCraig E. ColtenS. Max EdelsonJack Temple KirbyRalph H. LuttsEileen Maura McGurtyTed SteinbergMart StewartClaire StromPaul SutterHarry WatsonAlbert G. Way