“Stitching the West Back Together makes a powerful argument for the importance of private lands in biodiversity conservation and the interdependence of public and private lands in the sustainability of working landscapes, which in turn is inextricably linked with the conservation of biodiversity in the West. What is unique about this book is that it addresses the problem and the potential solutions together and in a holistic way, giving an honest and balanced overview. An exciting contribution to the collaborative conservation literature, this book provides hope, tools, and recommendations that will help advance the use of collaborative conservation in the western United States.”
— Pelayo Alvarez, conservation program director, California Rangeland Conservation Coalition
“Substantial, useful, and accessible, this book gives novel voice to people who have been at the heart of collaborative initiatives, allowing them to tell their stories in a powerful way. It is also one of the rare books that brings together work in forests and rangelands. Compelling.”
— Robin Reid, Center for Collaborative Conservation, Colorado State University
“Stitching the West Back Together is an excellent read and a highly important contribution. This book fills a glaring gap, helping us to understand the transformation of the West and the way we foster that transformation. Chapters from both non-academic practitioners as well as academics involved in on-the-ground conservation effectively connect theory and practice, and make this book exceptional. Stitching the West Back Together will be extremely useful for university faculty and students, rural communities and civic groups, public land managers, and private businesses in forestry, farming, and ranching. Not only does it chart the contours of a changing West, it provides the depth and detail needed to inspire real change and action.”
— Laurie Yung, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana
“In the magnificent, hard-pressed lands west of the Mississippi, the war to define good stewardship intensifies every year. Stitching the West Back Together offers, instead, a peace process: practical, community-based, and frequently inspiring. Can healthy terrain yield healthy profit? Almost certainly, according to these well-chosen case studies, which argue for a new public policy of interdependence and cooperation, fueled by redoubled respect for the history and ecology of this most difficult, subtle, and underappreciated of US regions.”
— Anne Matthews, author of "Where the Buffalo Roam: Restoring America’s Great Plains"
“The book urges conservationists, government employees, tribal officials, and private landowners to meet at the ‘Radical Center,’ where goals are ambitious and, most importantly, shared: building a West that is ecologically, aesthetically and culturally healthy. . . . Each chapter moves deftly from data to ‘how-to,’ and offers a bullet-point list of lessons. Readers facing specific challenges can find stories that speak to their needs, but people with more general interests will also find the book as a whole accessible and even inspiring. Both will come away with new ideas for entrepreneurial approaches to conservation. With sections by an impressive range of scholars and practitioners, Stitching embodies its own lesson—that success is achieved by working with a diversity of approaches.”
— Caroline Tracey, High Country News
“This work reviews recent developments regarding attempts to conserve working landscapes in the western United States. Individual chapters (fourteen total) in the five parts . . . are written by authors ranging from graduate students and academics to practitioners and activists. . . . The argument for collaborative conservation, including working landscapes to prevent urbanization and sprawl, sounds like a win-win situation for everyone, except for developers. . . . An intriguing start for those wanting to explore issues related to options for collaborative conservation and land management in the checkerboard landscapes of the West in further detail. . . . Recommended.”
— B. Blossey, Cornell University, Choice
“An excellent resource. . . . While collaborative conservation is not a panacea, Stitching the West Back Together offers additional evidence that it may offer the best hope to shape vibrant economies, livable communities, and healthy landscapes. The case studies and historical narratives presented in this book should inspire, inform, and invigorate similar efforts throughout the American West. The chapters are concise, well written, and appropriately illustrated with maps and other images. The editors are to be commended for this contribution to the theory and practice of collaborative conservation and large landscape conservation.”
— Matthew J. McKinney, University of Montana, Ecology
“Stitching the West Back Together provides an overview of the amazing variety of social partnerships, coalitions or organizations (termed ‘community-based collaborative conservation groups’ [CBCCs] in the book), and conservation approaches that aim to save working landscapes of the American West. . . . Despite the breadth of the topic and the variety of local CBCCs and their conservation activities, the book is easy to follow, thanks to an organization that really works.”
— Szabolcs Lengyel, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Conservation Biology