In Wild Winter, John D. Burns, bestselling author of The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales, sets out to rediscover Scotland's mountains, remote places and wildlife in the darkest and stormiest months. He traverses the country from the mouth of the River Ness to the Isle of Mull, from remote Sutherland to the Cairngorms, in search of rutting red deer, pupping seals, minke whales, beavers, pine martens, mountain hares and otters. In the midst of the fierce weather, John's travels reveal a habitat in crisis, and many of these wild creatures prove elusive as they cling on to life in the challenging Highland landscape. As John heads deeper into the winter, he notices the land fighting back with signs of regeneration. He finds lost bothies, old friendships and innovative rewilding projects, and - as Covid locks down the nation - reflects on what the outdoors means to hillwalkers, naturalists and the folk who make their home in the Highlands. Wild Winter is a reminder of the wonder of nature and the importance of caring for our environment. In his winter journey through the mountains and bothies of the Highlands, John finds adventure, humour and a deep sense of connection with this wild land.

This book was originally marketed with this words: "A rare tale of travel and Adventure. Thrilling experiences in distant lands, among strange people. A book for boys, old and young."The description of the book is no exaggeration. Paul Boyton (1848-1924) was clearly a remarkable and fearless man and indeed had adventures that can only be described as thrilling. He discovered and started working with a rubber suit, similar to modern drysuits . It allowed the wearer to float on his or her back, using a double-sided paddle to propel themself, feet-forward. Eventually, he was to found the first "amusement park" featuring performing sea lions and water chutes.

Young Julianna was different from the other kids. She suffered from a strange form of arthritis that sometimes left her hurting and bedridden for days a time. But she never let it stop her from living life to the fullest - thanks largely to the secret weapon she had in her Uncle Bob.

When she was little, Uncle Bob filled Julianna's head with positive thoughts - while filling her room with wild souvenirs from his exotic world travels. There was the painted wolf skull from Siberia; a jagged, blood-stained rock from Mount Everest; and a faceless voodoo doll from Africa. He whetted her appetite for adventure and convinced her that nothing was beyond her reach. Then, when she was sixteen, he invited her along on his far-flung adventures. To the teenager, Uncle Bob was Superman and James Bond combined. But even as she grew up to realize that he wasn't really magic, there was something magical about her favorite uncle.

Bob Harris lived life by his own rules, and it took him on great adventures and to the heights of success. Parts of that life were also shrouded in mystery. Now nearing eighty, he reveals his true identity to his beloved Julianna - imparting wisdom, inspiration, strength, and some real surprises, too. Bob's story is a testament to the power of the American dream - and to his personal passion to live life boldly.

Wood was essential to the survival of the Venetian Republic. To build its great naval and merchant ships, maintain its extensive levee system, construct buildings, fuel industries, and heat homes, Venice needed access to large quantities of oak and beech timber. The island city itself was devoid of any forests, so the state turned to its mainland holdings for this vital resource. "A Forest on the Sea" explores the history of this enterprise and Venice's efforts to extend state control over its natural resources.

Karl Appuhn explains how Venice went from an isolated city completely dependent on foreign suppliers for wood to a regional state with a sophisticated system of administering and preserving forests. Intent on conserving this invaluable resource, Venice employed specialized experts to manage its forests. The state bureaucracy supervised this work, developing a philosophy about the environment--namely, a mutual dependence between humans and the natural world--that was far ahead of its time. Its efforts kept many large forest preserves under state protection, some of which still stand today.

"A Forest on the Sea" offers a completely novel perspective on how Renaissance Europeans thought about the natural world. It sheds new light on how cultural conceptions about nature influenced political policies for resource conservation and land management in Venice.

This book comments on growing authoritarianism in democracy and suggests how it ought to be instead. It asks if some degree of authoritarianism is the need of the hour to address potentially existential issues facing the human race. Readers are encouraged to analyse the state of democracy in their own countries and verify if it meets their expectations, or if it is just a myth or an imposter, or a necessary but imperfect compulsion in the absence of a perfect alternative. The book presents a commentary on the state of democracy in some of the world's leading democracies. It aims to challenge the human mind, which seems to be getting accustomed to not having to think, thanks to a constant bombardment of information-real and fake and in-between-that it receives through social and print media, which is freely accessible through smartphone to which it has become addicted. It discusses how the drivers of capitalism - through their business-like connections with powerful and influential politicians and celebrities-could be cleverly manipulating the gullible human mind and exploiting the system to their own material benefit.

This excellent reference source brings together hard-to-find information on the constituent units of the Russian Federation. The introduction examines the Russian Federation as a whole, followed by a chronology, demographic and economic statistics, and a review of the Federal Government. The second section comprises territorial surveys, each of which includes a current map. This edition includes surveys covering the annexed (and disputed) territories of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as updated surveys of each of the other 83 federal subjects. The third section comprises a select bibliography of books. The fourth section features a series of indexes, listing the territories alphabetically, by Federal Okrug and Economic Area. Users will also find a gazetteer of selected alternative and historic names, a list of the territories abolished, created or reconstituted in the post-Soviet period, and an index of more than 100 principal cities, detailing the territory in which each is located.

Provide the applications of remote sensing in all fields through varied case studies and spatial data analysis Includes soil and land degradation, micro climates, watershed management and planning Covers remote sensing applications in broad areas of agriculture, hydrology, land use, resource analysis and urban problems Discusses usage of GPS enabled smart phones and digital gadgets used for mapping and spatial analysis Explores applications of remote sensing in disaster management and planning

A modern edition of Scott's record of his last journey to the Antarctic.

This book presents both state-of-the art knowledge from Recent coral reefs (1.8 million to a few centuries old) gained since the eighties, and introduces geologists, oceanographers and environmentalists to sedimentological and paleoecological studies of an ecosystem encompassing some of the world's richest biodiversity. Scleractinian reefs first appeared about 300 million years ago. Today coral reef systems provide some of the most sensitive gauges of environmental change, expressing the complex interplay of chemical, physical, geological and biological factors. The topics covered will include the evolutionary history of reef systems and some of the main reef builders since the Cenozoic, the effects of biological and environmental forces on the zonation of reef systems and the distribution of reef organisms and on reef community dynamics through time, changes in the geometry, anatomy and stratigraphy of reef bodies and systems in relation to changes in sea level and tectonics, the distribution patterns of sedimentary (framework or detrital) facies in relation to those of biological communities, the modes and rates of reef accretion (progradation, aggradation versus backstepping; coral growth versus reef growth), the hydrodynamic forces controlling water circulation through reef structures and their relationship to early diagenetic processes, the major diagenetic processes affecting reef bodies through time (replacement and diddolution, dolomitization, phosphatogenesis), and the record of climate change by both individual coral colonies and reef systems over the Quaternary.
* state-of-the-art knowledge from Recent corals reefs
* introduction to sedimentological and paleoecological studies of an ecosystems encompassing some of the world's richest biodiversity.
* authors are internationally regarded authorities on the subject
* trustworthy information

In Asia and the Pacific, climate change is now a well-recognised risk to water security but responses to this risk are either under reported, or continue to be guided by the incremental or business as usual approaches. Water policy still tends to remain too narrow and fragmented, compared to the multi-sectoral and cross-scalar nature of risks to water security. What's more, current water security debates tend to be framed in discipline specific or academic ways, failing to understand decision making and problem-solving contexts within which policy actors and partitioners have to operate on a daily basis. Much of the efforts to date has focussed on assessing and predicting the risks in the context of increasing levels of uncertainty. There is still limited analysis of emerging practices of risks assessment and mitigation in different contexts in Asia and the Pacific. Going beyond the national scales and focussing on several socio-ecological zones, this book captures stories written by engaged scholars on recent attempts to develop cross-sectoral and cross-scaler solutions to assess and mitigate risks to water security across Asia and the Pacific. Identifying lessons from successes and failures, it highlights management and strategic lessons that water and climate leaders of Asia and the Pacific need to consider. This book showcases reflective and analytical thought pieces written by key actors in the climate and water spaces. Several critical socio-ecological zones are covered - from Pakistan in the west to pacific islands in the east. The chapters clearly identify strategies for improvement based on the analysis of emerging responses to climate risks to water security and gaps in current practices. The book will include an editorial introduction and a final synthesis chapter to ensure clear articulation of common themes and to highlight the overall messages of the book.

A detailed description of Hovell and Hume's early 19th Century explorations in Victoria, Australia (now the location of Melbourne).