front cover of Thing
Thing
Inside the Struggle for Animal Personhood
Sam Machado
Island Press, 2023
Happy has lived at the Bronx Zoo for most of her 48 years, and for more than a decade has remained largely isolated and lonely. Like all elephants, Happy has a complex mind and a deep social, intellectual, and emotional life; she desires to make choices and has a sense of self-recognition. But like all nonhuman animals, Happy is considered a thing in the eye of the law, with no fundamental rights. Due to a series of groundbreaking legal cases, however, this is beginning to change—and Happy’s liberation is at the forefront. A vibrant and personal graphic novel, Thing: Inside the Struggle for Animal Personhood traces this moving story and makes the legal and scientific case for animal personhood.  

Led by lawyer Steven M. Wise and aided by some of the world’s most respected animal behavior and cognition scientists, the Nonhuman Rights Project has filed cases on behalf of nonhuman animals like Happy since 2013. Through this work, they have forced courts to consider the evidence of their clients’ cognitive abilities and their legal arguments for personhood, opening the door for similar cases worldwide. In Thing, comic artists Sam Machado and Cynthia Sousa Machado bring together Wise’s groundbreaking work and their powerful illustrations in the first graphic nonfiction book about the animal personhood movement. Beginning with Happy’s story and the central ideas behind animal rights, Thing then turns to the scientists that are revolutionizing our understanding of the minds of nonhuman animals such as great apes, elephants, dolphins, and whales. As we learn more about these creatures’ inner lives and autonomy, the need for the greater protections provided by legal rights becomes ever more urgent. 

With cases like Happy’s growing in number and spanning from Argentina to India, nations around the world are beginning to recognize the rights of animals. Combining legal and social history, innovative science, and illustrated storytelling, Thing presents a visionary new way of relating to the nonhuman world.
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The Florida Panther
Life And Death Of A Vanishing Carnivore
David Maehr
Island Press, 1997

When the first field study of the Florida panther took place in 1973, so little was known about the animal that many scientists believed it was already extinct. During more extensive research conducted from 1981 to 1986, panthers were proven to exist, but the handful of senile, anemic, and parasite-infested specimens that were captured indicated a grim future. During those early years a remarkably enduring image of the panther was born, and despite voluminous data gathered over the next decade that showed the panther to be healthy, long-lived, and reproducing, that earlier image has yet to be dispelled.

For nine years, biologist David S. Maehr served as project leader of the Florida Panther Study Project, helping to gather much of the later, surprisingly positive data. In The Florida Panther, he presents the first detailed portrait of the animal -- its biology, natural history, and current status -- and a realistic assessment of its prospects for survival.

Maehr also provides an intriguing look at the life and work of a field biologist: how captures are made, the intricacies of radio-telemetry tracking, the roles of various team members. He describes the devastating intrusion of politics into scientific work, as he discusses the widespread problems caused by the failure of remote and ill-informed managers to provide needed support and to communicate effectively to the public the goals and accomplishments of the scientists. He examines controversial efforts to establish a captive breeding program and to manipulate the Florida panther's genetic stock with the introduction of relatives from west Texas.

Protection of high-quality habitat, much of it in the hands of private landowners, is the key to the long-term survival of the Florida panther. Unless agency decisionmakers and the public are aware of the panther's true situation, little can be done to save it. This book will play a vital role in correcting widespread misconceptions about the panther's current condition and threats to its survival.

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Large Mammal Restoration
Ecological And Sociological Challenges In The 21St Century
David Maehr
Island Press, 2001

Evidence is mounting that top carnivores and other large mammals play a pivotal role in regulating ecosystem health and function, yet those are the species that are most likely to have been eliminated by past human activities. In recent decades, numerous efforts have been undertaken to return some of the species that were previously extirpated on local or regional scales.

Large Mammal Restoration brings together for the first time detailed case studies of those efforts, from restoring elk in Appalachia to returning bison herds to the Great Plains to the much-publicized effort to bring back the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park. Together these case studies offer important lessons and new ways of thinking for wildlife managers and conservation biologists involved with restoration programs. Sections examine:

  • approaches to determining the feasibility of a restoration program
  • critical hands-on aspects of restoring large mammals
  • obtaining public input into the process and gaining community support for programs
  • the potential of some species to return without direct human intervention, and what can be done to facilitate that natural colonization
An introductory chapter by Reed F. Noss explores some of the reasons for restoring large mammals, as well as some of the ecological and social complications, and a concluding overview by David S. Maehr discusses the evolutionary importance of large mammal restoration. Contributors include Paul C. Paquet, Barbara Dugelby, Steven H. Fritts, Paul R. Krausman, Larry D. Harris, Johnna Roy, and many others.

Large Mammal Restoration brings together in a single volume essential information on the lessons learned from previous efforts, providing an invaluable resource for researchers and students of conservation biology and wildlife management as well as for policymakers, restoration advocates, and others involved with the planning or execution of a restoration program.


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The Divided City
Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America
Alan Mallach
Island Press, 2018

Who really benefits from urban revival? Cities, from trendy coastal areas to the nation’s heartland, are seeing levels of growth beyond the wildest visions of only a few decades ago. But vast areas in the same cities house thousands of people living in poverty who see little or no new hope or opportunity. Even as cities revive, they are becoming more unequal and more segregated. What does this mean for these cities—and the people who live in them?

In The Divided City, urban practitioner and scholar Alan Mallach shows us what has happened over the past 15 to 20 years in industrial cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore, as they have undergone unprecedented, unexpected revival. He draws from his decades of experience working in America’s cities, and pulls in insightful research and data, to spotlight these changes while placing them in their larger economic, social, and political context. Mallach explores the pervasive significance of race in American cities and looks closely at the successes and failures of city governments, nonprofit entities, and citizens as they have tried to address the challenges of change.

The Divided City offers strategies to foster greater equality and opportunity. Mallach makes a compelling case that these strategies must be local in addition to being concrete and focusing on people’s needs—education, jobs, housing and quality of life. Change, he argues, will come city by city, not through national plans or utopian schemes.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive, grounded picture of the transformation of America’s older industrial cities. It is neither a dystopian narrative nor a one-sided "the cities are back" story, but a balanced picture rooted in the nitty-gritty reality of these cities. The Divided City is imperative for anyone who cares about cities and who wants to understand how to make today’s urban revival work for everyone. 

[more]

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Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World
Learning to Thrive Without Growth
Alan Mallach
Island Press, 2023
Over the past hundred years, the global motto has been “more, more, more” in terms of growth – of population, of the built environment, of human and financial capital, and of all manner of worldly goods. This was the reality as the world population boomed during the 1960s and 1970s. But reality is changing in front of our eyes. Growth is already slowing down, and according to the most sophisticated demographers, the earth’s population will begin to decline not hundreds of years from now, but within the lifetimes of many of the people now living on the planet.
 
In Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World, urban policy expert Alan Mallach seeks to understand how declining population and economic growth, coupled with the other forces that will influence their fates, particularly climate change, will affect the world’s cities over the coming decades. What will it mean to have a world full of shrinking cities? Does it mean that they are doomed to decline in more ways than simply population numbers, or can we uncouple population decline from economic decay, abandoned buildings and impoverishment?
 
Mallach has spent much of the last thirty or more years working in, looking at, thinking, and writing about shrinking cities—from Trenton, New Jersey, where he was director of housing and economic development, to other American cities like Detroit, Flint, and St. Louis, and from there to cities in Japan and Central and Eastern Europe. He has woven together his experience, research, and analysis in this fascinating, realistic yet hopeful look at how smaller, shrinking cities can thrive, despite the daunting challenges they face.
 
[more]

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Defending the Environment
Civil Society Strategies to Enforce International Environmental Law
Linda Malone
Island Press, 2006

Defending the Environment provides the means for nongovernmental organizations, community groups, and individuals to bring environmental and public health problems to the attention of international courts, tribunals, and commissions, or to their domestic counterparts. It suggests specific strategies and provides detailed information for taking action. This revised and updated edition also contains new case studies of the application of those strategies that has occurred in recent years.

Each chapter provides a description of the institutional mechanisms that can potentially receive, review, and remedy the alleged violation, along with a set of guidelines that explain how the reader can employ a particular strategy, and an example that indicates the effectiveness of a given strategy. In addition, the book offers an appendix that lists individuals and organizations who can assist with the various strategies described.

Defending the Environment represents the first concise, comprehensive guide to international environmental law and institutions that offers readers hands-on strategies for addressing environmental and public health problems.

[more]

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Brilliant Green
The Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence
Stefano Mancuso
Island Press, 2018
Are plants intelligent? Can they solve problems, communicate, and navigate their surroundings? Or are they passive, incapable of independent action or social behavior? Philosophers and scientists have pondered these questions since ancient Greece, most often concluding that plants are unthinking and inert: they are too silent, too sedentary -- just too different from us. Yet discoveries over the past fifty years have challenged these ideas, shedding new light on the extraordinary capabilities and complex interior lives of plants.

In Brilliant Green, Stefano Mancuso, a leading scientist and founder of the field of plant neurobiology, presents a new paradigm in our understanding of the vegetal world. Combining a historical perspective with the latest in plant science, Mancuso argues that, due to cultural prejudices and human arrogance, we continue to underestimate plants. In fact, they process information, sleep, remember, and signal to one another -- showing that, far from passive machines, plants are intelligent and aware. Through a survey of plant capabilities from sight and touch to communication, Mancuso challenges our notion of intelligence, presenting a vision of plant life that is more sophisticated than most imagine.

Plants have much to teach us, from network building to innovations in robotics and man-made materials -- but only if we understand more about how they live. Part botany lesson, part manifesto, Brilliant Green is an engaging and passionate examination of the inner workings of the plant kingdom.

Financial support for the translation of this book has been provided by SEPS: Segretariato Europeo Per Le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche.
[more]

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Green Growth That Works
Natural Capital Policy and Finance Mechanisms Around the World
Lisa Ann Mandle
Island Press, 2019
Rapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being. It has lifted millions out of poverty, raised standards of living, and increased life expectancies. But economic development comes at a significant cost to natural capital—the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, farmland—that support all life on earth, including our own. The dilemma of our times is to figure out how to improve the human condition without destroying nature’s. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One answer is inclusive green growth—the efficient use of natural resources. Inclusive green growth minimizes pollution and strengthens communities against natural disasters while reducing poverty through improved access to health, education, and services. Its genius lies in working with nature rather than against it.

Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. The authors present six mechanisms that demonstrate a range of approaches used around the globe to conserve and restore earth’s myriad ecosystems, including:
  • Government subsidies
  • Regulatory-driven mitigation
  • Voluntary conservation
  • Water funds
  • Market-based transactions
  • Bilateral and multilateral payments
Through a series of real-world case studies, the book addresses questions such as: How can we channel economic incentives to make conservation and restoration desirable? What approaches have worked best? How can governments, businesses, NGOs, and individuals work together successfully?

Pioneered by leading scholars from the Natural Capital Project, this valuable compendium of proven techniques can guide agencies and organizations eager to make green growth work anywhere in the world.
 
[more]

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Wildlife and Society
The Science of Human Dimensions
Michael J. Manfredo
Island Press, 2008
Winner of The Wildlife Society's 2009 Wildlife Publication Award for outstanding edited book
 
As human populations around the world continue to expand, reconciling nature conservation with human needs and aspirations is imperative. The emergence in recent decades of the academic field of human dimensions of fish and wildlife management is a proactive response to this complex problem.
 
Wildlife and Society brings together leading researchers in the range of specialties that are relevant to the study of human dimensions of fish and wildlife work around the globe to provide theoretical and historical context as well as a demonstration of tools, methodologies, and idea-sharing for practical implementation and integration of practices.
 
Chapters document the progress on key issues and offer a multifaceted presentation of this truly interdisciplinary field. The book
 
• presents an overview of the changing culture of fish and wildlife management;
• considers social factors creating change in fish and wildlife conservation;
• explores how to build the social component into the philosophy of wildlife management;
• discusses legal and institutional factors;
• examines social perspectives on contemporary fish and wildlife management issues.
 
Wildlife and Society is uniquely comprehensive in its approach to presenting the past, present, and future of human dimensions of fish and wildlife research and application. It offers perspectives from a wide variety of academic disciplines as well as presenting the views of practitioners from the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. It is an important new reference for anyone concerned with fish and wildlife management or environmental conservation and protection.
[more]

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Inside Passage
A Journey Beyond Borders
Richard Manning
Island Press, 2000
“This book is about an idea that rests at the junction of what we call wilderness and civilization. Simply, it is a call for rethinking, and more importantly, reconstructing, our relationship with nature.” --from Inside PassageProtecting land in parks, safe from human encroachment, has been a primary strategy of conservationists for the past century and a half. Yet drawing lines around an area and calling it wilderness does little to solve larger environmental problems. As author Richard Manning puts it in a knowingly provocative way: “Wilderness designation is not a victory, but acknowledgement of defeat.”In Inside Passage, Manning takes us on a thought-provoking tour of the lands along the Pacific Northwest's Inside Passage -- from southeast Alaska down through Puget Sound, and then on to the northern Oregon coast and the Columbia River system -- as he explores the dichotomy between “wilderness” and “civilization” and the often disastrous effects of industrialization.Through vivid description and conversations with people in the region, Manning brings new insights to the area's most pressing environmental concerns -- the salmon crisis, deforestation, hydroelectric dams, urban sprawl -- and examines various innovative ways they are being addressed. He details efforts to restore degraded ecosystems and to integrate economic development with environmental protection, and looks at powerful new tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that are increasingly being used to further conservation efforts.Throughout, Manning focuses on the hopeful possibility that we can redesign the human enterprise to a scale more appropriate to the nature that holds it, that rather than drawing borders around nature, we might instead start placing borders on human behavior. Perhaps, he suggests, we can begin to behave in all places as if all places matter to us as much as wilderness, and, in the process, claim all of nature as our own.Inside Passage is a wide-ranging and thoughtful exploration by a gifted writer, and an important work for anyone interested in the Pacific Northwest, or concerned about the future of our relationship to the natural world.
[more]

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Parks and Carrying Capacity
Commons Without Tragedy
Robert E. Manning
Island Press, 2007
Parks and Carrying Capacity is an important new work for faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and researchers in outdoor recreation, park planning and management, and natural resource conservation and management, as well as for professional planners and managers involved with park and outdoor recreation related agencies and nongovernmental organizations.
[more]

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Satellites in the High Country
Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man
Jason Mark
Island Press, 2015
In New Mexico's Gila Wilderness, 106 Mexican gray wolves may be some of the most monitored wildlife on the planet. Collared, microchipped, and transported by helicopter, the wolves are protected and confined in an attempt to appease ranchers and conservationists alike. Once a symbol of the wild, these wolves have come to illustrate the demise of wilderness in this Human Age, where man's efforts shape life in even the most remote corners of the earth. And yet, the howl of an unregistered wolf—half of a rogue pair—splits the night. If you know where to look, you'll find that much remains untamed, and even today, wildness can remain a touchstone for our relationship with the rest of nature. 

In Satellites in the High Country, journalist and adventurer Jason Mark travels beyond the bright lights and certainties of our cities to seek wildness wherever it survives. In California's Point Reyes National Seashore, a battle over oyster farming and designated wilderness pits former allies against one another, as locals wonder whether wilderness should be untouched, farmed, or something in between. In Washington's Cascade Mountains, a modern-day wild woman and her students learn to tan hides and start fires without matches, attempting to connect with a primal past out of reach for the rest of society. And in Colorado's High Country, dark skies and clear air reveal a breathtaking expanse of stars, flawed only by the arc of a satellite passing—beauty interrupted by the traffic of a million conversations. These expeditions to the edges of civilization's grid show us that, although our notions of pristine nature may be shattering, the mystery of the wild still exists — and in fact, it is more crucial than ever.

But wildness is wily as a coyote: you have to be willing to track it to understand the least thing about it. Satellites in the High Country is an epic journey on the trail of the wild, a poetic and incisive exploration of its meaning and enduring power in our Human Age.
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Killed by a Traffic Engineer
Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System
Wes Marshall
Island Press, 2024
In the US we are nearing four million road deaths since we began counting them in 1899. The numbers are getting worse in recent years, yet we continue to accept these deaths as part of doing business. There has been no examination of why we engineer roads that are literally killing us.  

Fixing the carnage on our roadways requires a change in mindset and a dramatic transformation of transportation. This goes for traffic engineers in particular because they are still the ones in charge of our streets.

In Killed by a Traffic Engineer, civil engineering professor Wes Marshall shines a spotlight on how little science there is behind the way that our streets are engineered, which leaves safety as an afterthought. While traffic engineers are not trying to cause deliberate harm to anyone, he explains, they are guilty of creating a transportation system whose designs remain largely based on plausible, but unproven, conjecture.

Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, Killed by a Traffic Engineer shows how traffic engineering “research” is outdated and unexamined (at its best) and often steered by an industry and culture considering only how to get from point A to B the fastest way possible, to the detriment of safety, quality of life, equality, and planetary health. Marshall examines our need for speed and how traffic engineers disconnected it from safety, the focus on capacity and how it influences design, blaming human error, relying on faulty data, how liability drives reporting, measuring road safety outcomes, and the education (and reeducation) of traffic engineers.

Killed by a Traffic Engineer is ultimately hopeful about what is possible once we shift our thinking and demand streets engineered for the safety of people, both outside and inside of cars. It will make you look at your city and streets—and traffic engineers— in a new light and inspire you to take action.
[more]

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Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries
New Tools to End Hunger
Katie S. Martin
Island Press, 2021
In the US, there is a wide-ranging network of at least 370 food banks, and more than 60,000 hunger-relief organizations such as food pantries and meal programs. These groups provide billions of meals a year to people in need. And yet hunger still affects one in nine Americans. What are we doing wrong?

In Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries, Katie Martin argues that if handing out more and more food was the answer, we would have solved the problem of hunger decades ago. Martin instead presents a new model for charitable food, one where success is measured not by pounds of food distributed but by lives changed. The key is to focus on the root causes of hunger. When we shift our attention to strategies that build empathy, equity, and political will, we can implement real solutions. 

Martin shares those solutions in a warm, engaging style, with simple steps that anyone working or volunteering at a food bank or pantry can take today. Some are short-term strategies to create a more dignified experience for food pantry clients: providing client choice, where individuals select their own food, or redesigning a waiting room with better seating and a designated greeter. Some are longer-term: increasing the supply of healthy food, offering job training programs, or connecting clients to other social services. And some are big picture: joining the fight for living wages and a stronger social safety net.

These strategies are illustrated through inspiring success stories and backed up by scientific research. Throughout, readers will find a wealth of proven ideas to make their charitable food organizations more empathetic and more effective. As Martin writes, it takes more than food to end hunger. Picking up this insightful, lively book is a great first step.
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A New War on Cancer
The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention
Kristina Marusic
Island Press, 2023
For more than fifty years, we have been waging, but not winning, the war on cancer. We’re better than ever at treating the disease, yet cancer still claims the lives of one in five men and one in six women in the US. The astonishing news is that up to two-thirds of all cancer cases are linked to preventable environmental causes. If we can stop cancer before it begins, why don’t we?

That was the question that motivated Kristina Marusic’s revelatory inquiry into cancer prevention. In searching for answers, she met remarkable doctors, scientists, and advocates who are upending our understanding of cancer and how to fight it. They recognize that we will never reduce cancer rates without ridding our lives of the chemicals that increasingly trigger this deadly disease.

Most never imagined this role for themselves. One scientist grew up without seeing examples of Indian-American women in the field, yet went on to make shocking discoveries about racial disparities in cancer risk. Another leader knew her calling was children’s health, but realized only later in her career that kids can be harmed by invisible pollutants at their daycares. Others uncovered surprising links between cancer and the everyday items that fill our homes and offices.

For these individuals, the fight has become personal. And it certainly is personal for Berry, a young woman whose battle with breast cancer is woven throughout these pages. Might Berry have dodged cancer had she not grown up in Oil City, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of refineries? There is no way to know for sure. But she is certain that, even with the best treatment available, her life was changed irrevocably by her diagnosis. Marusic shows that, collectively, we have the power to prevent many cases like Berry’s. The war on cancer is winnable—if we revolutionize the way we fight.
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Plant Reintroduction in a Changing Climate
Promises and Perils
Joyce Maschinski
Island Press, 2011
Considered an essential conservation tool, plant reintroductions have been conducted for many of the world's rarest plant species. The expertise and knowledge gained through these efforts constitute an essential storehouse of information for conservationists faced with a rapidly changing global climate.

This volume presents a comprehensive review of reintroduction projects and practices, the circumstances of their successes or failures, lessons learned, and the potential role for reintroductions in preserving species threatened by climate change. Contributors examine current plant reintroduction practices, from selecting appropriate source material and recipient sites to assessing population demography.

The findings culminate in a set of Best Reintroduction Practice Guidelines, included in an appendix. These guidelines cover stages from planning and implementation to long-term monitoring, and offer not only recommended actions but also checklists of questions to consider that are applicable to projects around the world.

Traditional reintroduction practice can inform managed relocation-the deliberate movement of species outside their native range-which may be the only hope for some species to persist in a natural environment. Included in the book are discussions of the history, fears, and controversy regarding managed relocation, along with protocols for evaluating invasive risk and proposals for conducting managed relocation of rare plants.

Plant Reintroduction in a Changing Climate is a comprehensive and accessible reference for practitioners to use in planning and executing rare plant reintroductions.
[more]

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Planning for Community Resilience
A Handbook for Reducing Vulnerability to Disasters
Jaimie Hicks Masterson
Island Press, 2015
How can we plan and design stronger communities? From New Orleans to Galveston to the Jersey Shore, communities struck by natural disasters struggle to recover long after the first responders have left. Globally, the average annual number of natural disasters has more than doubled since 1980. These catastrophes are increasing in number as well as in magnitude, causing greater damage as we experience rising sea levels and other effects of climate change.

Communities can reduce their vulnerability to disaster by becoming more resilient—to not only bounce back more readily from disasters but to grow stronger, more socially cohesive, and more environmentally responsible. To be truly resilient, disaster preparation and response must consider all populations in the community. By bringing together natural hazards planning and community planning to consider vulnerabilities, more resilient and equitable communities are achievable.

In Planning for Community Resilience the authors describe an inclusive process for creating disaster-resilient communities. Based on their recovery work after Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Texas, they developed a process that relies on the Disaster Impacts Model. This handbook guides any community through the process of determining their level of hazard exposure, physical vulnerability, and social vulnerability with the goal of determining the best planning strategy.

Planning for Community Resilience will be invaluable to professionals working to protect their community from disturbance, including city planners, elected officials, floodplain managers, natural hazard managers, planning commissioners, local business leaders, and citizen organizers.
[more]

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People Cities
The Life and Legacy of Jan Gehl
Annie Matan
Island Press, 2016
“A good city is like a good party—you stay for longer than you plan,” says Danish architect Jan Gehl. He believes that good architecture is not about form, but about the interaction between form and life. Over the last 50 years, Gehl has changed the way that we think about architecture and city planning—moving from the Modernist separation of uses to a human-scale approach inviting people to use their cities. 

At a time when growing numbers are populating cities, planning urban spaces to be humane, safe, and open to all is ever-more critical. With the help of Jan Gehl, we can all become advocates for human-scale design. Jan’s research, theories, and strategies have been helping cities to reclaim their public space and recover from the great post-WWII car invasion. His work has influenced public space improvements in over 50 global cities, including New York, London, Moscow, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Sydney, and the authors’ hometown of Perth.

While much has been written by Jan Gehl about his approach, and by others about his influence, this book tells the inside story of how he learned to study urban spaces and implement his people-centered approach.

People Cities discusses the work, theory, life, and influence of Jan Gehl from the perspective of those who have worked with him across the globe. Authors Matan and Newman celebrate Jan's role in changing the urban planning paradigm from an abstract, ideological modernism to a people-focused movement. It is organized around the creation of that movement, using key periods in Jan’s working life as a structure.

People Cities will inspire anyone who wants to create vibrant, human-scale cities and understand the ideas and work of an architect who has most influenced how we should and can design cities for people. 
[more]

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Seeds of Sustainability
Lessons from the Birthplace of the Green Revolution in Agriculture
Pamela A. Matson
Island Press, 2012
Seeds of Sustainability is a groundbreaking analysis of agricultural development and transitions toward more sustainable management in one region. An invaluable resource for researchers, policymakers, and students alike, it examines new approaches to make agricultural landscapes healthier for both the environment and people.
 
The Yaqui Valley is the birthplace of the Green Revolution and one of the most intensive agricultural regions of the world, using irrigation, fertilizers, and other technologies to produce some of the highest yields of wheat anywhere. It also faces resource limitations, threats to human health, and rapidly changing economic conditions. In short, the Yaqui Valley represents the challenge of modern agriculture: how to maintain livelihoods and increase food production while protecting the environment.
 
Renowned scientist Pamela Matson and colleagues from leading institutions in the U.S. and Mexico spent fifteen years in the Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico addressing this challenge. Seeds of Sustainability represents the culmination of their research, providing unparalleled information about the causes and consequences of current agricultural methods. Even more importantly, it shows how knowledge can translate into better practices, not just in the Yaqui Valley, but throughout the world.
[more]

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Resilience Matters 2017
Laurie Mazur
Island Press, 2017
This free e-book collects articles, op-eds, and other short-form writing from the Island Press Urban Resilience Project. Written by a diverse group of activists, academics, and practitioners, this contributed volume addresses various dimensions of resilience—economic, ecological, and social.
[more]

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A Pivotal Moment
Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge
Laurie Ann Mazur
Island Press, 2010
With contributions by leading demographers, environmentalists, and reproductive health advocates, A Pivotal Moment offers a new perspective on the complex connection between population dynamics and environmental quality. It presents the latest research on the relationship between population growth and climate change, ecosystem health, and other environmental issues. It surveys the new demographic landscape—in which population growth rates have fallen, but human numbers continue to increase. It looks back at the lessons of the last half century while looking forward to population policies that are sustainable and just.
A Pivotal Moment embraces the concept of “population justice,” which holds that inequality is a root cause of both rapid population growth and environmental degradation. By addressing inequality—both gender and economic—we can reduce growth rates and build a sustainable future.
[more]

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Completing Our Streets
The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks
Barbara McCann
Island Press, 2013
Across the country, communities are embracing a new and safer way to build streets for everyone—even as they struggle to change decades of rules, practice, and politics that prioritize cars. They have discovered that changing the design of a single street is not enough: they must upend the way transportation agencies operate. Completing Our Streets begins with the story of how the complete streets movement united bicycle riders, transportation practitioners and agencies, public health leaders, older Americans, and smart growth advocates to dramatically re-frame the discussion of transportation safety. Next, it explores why the transportation field has been so resistant to change—and how the movement has broken through to create a new multi-modal approach.

In Completing Our Streets, Barbara McCann, founder of the National Complete Streets Coalition, explains that the movement is not about street design. Instead, practitioners and activists have changed the way projects are built by focusing on three strategies: reframe the conversation; build a broad base of political support; and provide a clear path to a multi-modal process. McCann shares stories of practitioners in cities and towns from Charlotte, North Carolina to Colorado Springs, Colorado who have embraced these strategies to fundamentally change the way transportation projects are chosen, planned, and built.

The complete streets movement is based around a simple idea: streets should be safe for people of all ages and abilities, whether they are walking, driving, bicycling, or taking the bus. Completing Our Streets gives practitioners and activists the strategies, tools, and inspiration needed to translate this idea into real and lasting change in their communities.
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In the Thick of It
My Life in the Sierra Club
Michael McCloskey
Island Press, 2005

In an age when many of the major environmental policies established over the past four decades are under siege, Michael McCloskey reminds us of better days. . .days when conservation initiatives were seen not as political lightning rods, but as opportunities to cope with disturbing threats to the quality of our environment.

In 1961, a young let's-get-it-done McCloskey was hired as the Sierra Club's first field representative for the Northwest. From there, for nearly forty years, he rose to guide the oldest and most powerful environmental organization in the world. He helped to pave the way for the original Wilderness Act in 1964, and as the club's conservation director worked to see it implemented. He successfully lobbied for the creation of new national parks and wilderness areas, the North Cascades and Redwood National Park among them. As executive director, he was present at the creation of Earthday in 1970, directed lobbying for the enactment of over one hundred environmental laws, and watched Sierra Club membership rise from about 70,000 to more than 500,000. In the nineties, he led the Sierra Club in mounting fights against attempts to undercut EPA regulations and against trade agreements that curtailed environmental programs.

His tenure was no walk in the park or smooth glide across a placid mountain lake. The large and very public Sierra Club was fraught with brush fires, seismic tremors, and pitched battles, both within and without. He survived the ouster of his mentor, the charismatic but controversial David Brower, succeeding him as the second executive director in the club's history, and put the Sierra Club back on firm financial footing. Under less than ideal political circumstances, McCloskey helped to keep the environmental agenda moving steadily forward, even in the face of Ronald Reagan's virulently pro-development Interior Secretary James Watt (whom he was instrumental in expelling from office).

In the Thick of It describes not only McCloskey's life as an environmental activist; it reveals the inner workings and politics of one of the nation's most influential environmental nonprofit organizations during an era of ground-breaking environmental legislation. In addition to sharing the details of battles exhilaratingly won and disappointingly lost on the environmental front, he demonstrates how it is indeed possible to turn idealism and hope into practical action that can make an impact at the national level. With this book McCloskey offers not only invaluable insight into the past, but also inspiration to carry into the future.

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Conservation for Cities
How to Plan & Build Natural Infrastructure
Robert I. McDonald
Island Press, 2015
It's time to think differently about cities and nature. Understanding how to better connect our cities with the benefits nature provides will be increasingly important as people migrate to cities and flourish in them. All this urban growth, along with challenges of adapting to climate change, will require a new approach to infrastructure if we're going to be successful. Yet guidance on how to plan and implement projects to protect or restore natural infrastructure is often hard to come by.

With Conservation for Cities, Robert McDonald offers a comprehensive framework for maintaining and strengthening the supporting bonds between cities and nature through innovative infrastructure projects. After presenting a broad approach to incorporating natural infrastructure priorities into urban planning, he focuses each following chapter on a specific ecosystem service. He describes a wide variety of benefits, and helps practitioners answer fundamental questions: What are the best ecosystem services to enhance in a particular city or neighborhood? How might planners best combine green and grey infrastructure to solve problems facing a city? What are the regulatory and policy tools that can help fund and implement projects? Finally, McDonald explains how to develop a cost-effective mix of grey and green infrastructure and offers targeted advice on quantifying the benefits.

Written by one of The Nature Conservancy's lead scientists on cities and natural infrastructure, Conservation for Cities is a book that ecologists, planners, and landscape architects will turn to again and again as they plan and implement a wide variety of projects.
[more]

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Positive Impact Forestry
A Sustainable Approach To Managing Woodlands
Thomas J. McEvoy
Island Press, 2004

Positive Impact Forestry is a primer for private woodland owners and their managers on managing their land and forests to protect both ecological and economic vitality. Moving beyond the concept of "low impact forestry," Thom McEvoy brings together the latest scientific understanding and insights to describe an approach to managing forests that meets the needs of landowners while at the same time maintaining the integrity of forest ecosystems. "Positive impact forestry" emphasizes forestry's potential to achieve sustainable benefits both now and into the future, with long-term investment superseding short-term gain, and the needs of families -- especially future generations -- exceeding those of individuals.


Thom McEvoy offers a thorough discussion of silvicultural basics, synthesizing and explaining the current state of forestry science on topics such as forest soils, tree roots, form and function in trees, and the effects of different harvesting methods on trees, soil organisms, and sites. He also offers invaluable advice on financial, legal, and management issues, ranging from finding the right forestry professionals to managing for products other than timber to passing forest lands and management legacies on to future generations.


Positive Impact Forestry helps readers understand the impacts of deliberate human activities on forests and offers viable strategies that provide benefits without damaging ecosystems. It speaks directly to private forest owners and their advisers and represents an innovative guide for anyone concerned with protecting forest ecosystems, timber production, land management, and the long-term health of forests.


Named the "Best Forestry Book for 2004" by the National Woodlands Owners Association


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Owning and Managing Forests
A Guide to Legal, Financial, and Practical Matters
Thomas J. McEvoy
Island Press, 2006

Owning and Managing Forests is both an accessible overview of the privileges, rights, and obligations that accompany forest ownership and a guidebook to help active forest owners and managers use laws to their advantage and avoid the pitfalls of expensive and exhausting litigation. The book is a revised, expanded, and updated edition of Legal Aspects of Owning and Managing Woodlands, published in 1998 by Island Press and named Best Forestry Book of the Year by the National Woodland Owners Association.

This edition provides current information on recent changes in property, environmental, and tax laws, while also discussing new directions in forest management. It offers expanded treatment of topics including private property, searching property records, easements, estate planning, timber sale contracts, working with forestry professionals, and how to pass woodlands intact to future generations. The book also describes the many different facets of trusts, changes in forestland taxation methods, and new licensing and certification options. Included, too, is a section on avoiding disputes and how to use alternative dispute resolution methods to avoid costly, troubling, and time-consuming court battles.

Owning and Managing Forests provides clear and concise descriptions of often confusing concepts and difficult subjects, and addresses issues in a competent yet conversational tone. Anyone involved with owning or managing forestland will find the book an essential guide and reference.

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Diatoms to Dinosaurs
The Size And Scale Of Living Things
Christopher McGowan
Island Press, 1994

In Diatoms to Dinosaurs, Chris McGowan takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the natural world, and examines life in all its various forms. He imparts the excitement of discovery and the joy of understanding as he demonstrates the central importance of size and scale to the survival of living organisms.

McGowan investigates a wide range of size-related phenomena, from the gliding mechanism of diatoms to blood pressure problems of dinosaurs. Questions asked -- and answered -- include:

  • Will we ever see giant insects the size of pterodactyls?
  • Why are ants so much stronger relative to body size than elephants?
  • What do a clam, a condor, a tortoise, and a sturgeon have in common?
  • How did the skeleton of a 28-ton Apatosaurus support its weight?
  • How can blood get from the heart to the head of a giraffe without rupturing blood vessels?
The author explicates the scientific concepts -- both physical and biological -- needed to inform the relevant phenomena: area/volume relations, metabolism and other basic physiology, kinetic energy, inertial forces, the biology of senescence, boundary layers, and Reynolds numbers. Numerous illustrations scattered throughout the text make the biophysical principles easily comprehensible to readers, regardless of their scientific sophistication.
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The Essential Ian McHarg
Writings on Design and Nature
Ian L. McHarg
Island Press, 2006

The Essential Ian McHarg brings together a series of short essays that reveal the full range of Ian McHarg's thoughts on design and nature. Adapted from the comprehensive book of his work, To Heal the Earth, these carefully selected essays provide an ideal reader for undergraduate and graduate students in planning and landscape architecture.

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The Good Garden
How to Nurture Pollinators, Soil, Native Wildlife, and Healthy Food—All in Your Own Backyard
Chris McLaughlin
Island Press, 2023
What makes a garden good? For Chris McLaughlin, it’s about growing the healthiest, most scrumptious fruits and veggies possible, but it’s also about giving back. How can your little patch of Earth become a sanctuary for threatened wildlife, sequester carbon, and nurture native plants?

McLaughlin gives you all the tricks and tips you need to grow the sustainable garden of your dreams. Drawing from established traditions, such as permaculture and French intensive gardening, and McLaughlin’s hard-earned experience, The Good Garden is a joyful guide for newbies and experienced gardeners alike. It will teach you the fundamentals, including how to choose the right plant varieties for your microclimate, and proven methods to fight pests without chemicals. You will also discover the nuances of developing a green thumb, from picking species to attract specific types of pollinators to composting techniques based on time available. Lovely four-color photography will show you good gardening in action.

Most importantly, The Good Garden will help you foster a sense of meaning in your garden. Maybe the goal is to reduce food miles and plastic waste by growing delicious berries. Maybe it’s to meet neighbors who also care about the planet through a seed-swap.  Maybe it’s a quiet moment patting the bunny whose manure will replace toxic fertilizers in the soil. A good garden offers endless possibilities and The Good Garden offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.
 
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Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans
Karen McLeod
Island Press, 2009
Conventional management approaches cannot meet the challenges faced by ocean and coastal ecosystems today. Consequently, national and international bodies have called for a shift toward more comprehensive ecosystem-based marine management. Synthesizing a vast amount of current knowledge, Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans is a comprehensive guide to utilizing this promising new approach.
 
At its core, ecosystem-based management (EBM) is about acknowledging connections. Instead of focusing on the impacts of single activities on the delivery of individual ecosystem services, EBM focuses on the array of services that we receive from marine systems, the interactive and cumulative effects of multiple human activities on these coupled ecological and social systems, and the importance of working towards common goals across sectors. Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans provides a conceptual framework for students and professionals who want to understand and utilize this powerful approach. And it employs case studies that draw on the experiences of EBM practitioners to demonstrate how EBM principles can be applied to real-world problems.
 
The book emphasizes the importance of understanding the factors that contribute to social and ecological resilience —the extent to which a system can maintain its structure, function, and identity in the face of disturbance. Utilizing the resilience framework, professionals can better predict how systems will respond to a variety of disturbances, as well as to a range of management alternatives. Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans presents the latest science of resilience, while it provides tools for the design and implementation of responsive EBM solutions.
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Expanding Partnerships in Conservation
Jeffrey A. McNeely
Island Press, 1995

Protected areas around the globe national parks, wildlife reserves, biosphere reserves will prosper only if they are supported by the public, the private sector, and the full range of government agencies. Yet such support is unlikely unless society appreciates the importance of protected areas to its own interest, and the protected areas are well-managed and contribute to the national welfare in a cost-effective way.

A crucial foundation for success is full cooperation between individuals and institutions. Based on papers presented at the IVth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas, Expanding Partnerships in Conservation explores how new and stronger partnerships can be formed between managers of protected areas and other sectors of society. It describes a range of activities currently underway in many parts of the world that are intended to improve conservation efforts at the international, national, and local levels.

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Land Conservation Financing
Mike McQueen
Island Press, 2003

Written by two of the nation's leading experts on land conservation, Land Conservation Financing provides a comprehensive overview of successful land conservation programs -- how they were created, how they are funded, and what they've accomplished -- along with detailed case studies from across the United States.

The authors present important new information on state-of-the-art conservation financing, showcasing programs in states that have become the nation's leaders in open-space protection: California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Jersey. They look at key local land protection efforts by examining model programs in DeKalb County, Georgia; Douglas County, Colorado; Jacksonville, Florida; Lake County, Illinois; Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; Marin County, California; the St. Louis metro area in Missouri and Illinois, and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The authors then examine how hundreds of communities have created hundreds of millions of dollars in funding by developing successful campaigns to win land conservation ballot measures. They offer case studies and pull together lessons learned as they lay out how to run a successful campaign. The authors also consider the role of private foundations, which have made immense contributions to land conservation over the past two decades.

The book concludes with an examination of the emerging concept of green infrastructure -- a strategic approach to conservation that involves planning and managing a network of parks, natural areas, greenways, and working lands that can help support native species, maintain ecological processes, and contribute to the health and quality of life for America's people and its communities.

Land Conservation Financing is an indispensable resource for land conservationists in the public and private sectors who are looking for a detailed, national portrait of the state of land conservation in America today.

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The Past and Future City
How Historic Preservation is Reviving America's Communities
Stephanie Meeks
Island Press, 2016
At its most basic, historic preservation is about keeping old places alive, in active use, and relevant to the needs of communities today. As cities across America experience a remarkable renaissance, and more and more young, diverse families choose to live, work, and play in historic neighborhoods, the promise and potential of using our older and historic buildings to revitalize our cities is stronger than ever.
 
This urban resurgence is a national phenomenon, boosting cities from Cleveland to Buffalo and Portland to Pittsburgh. Experts offer a range of theories on what is driving the return to the city—from the impact of the recent housing crisis to a desire to be socially engaged, live near work, and reduce automobile use. But there’s also more to it. Time and again, when asked why they moved to the city, people talk about the desire to live somewhere distinctive, to be some place rather than no place. Often these distinguishing urban landmarks are exciting neighborhoods—Miami boasts its Art Deco district, New Orleans the French Quarter. Sometimes, as in the case of Baltimore’s historic rowhouses, the most distinguishing feature is the urban fabric itself.

While many aspects of this urban resurgence are a cause for celebration, the changes have also brought to the forefront issues of access, affordable housing, inequality, sustainability, and how we should commemorate difficult history. This book speaks directly to all of these issues.
 
In The Past and Future City, Stephanie Meeks, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, describes in detail, and with unique empirical research, the many ways that saving and restoring historic fabric can help a city create thriving neighborhoods, good jobs, and a vibrant economy. She explains the critical importance of preservation for all our communities, the ways the historic preservation field has evolved to embrace the challenges of the twenty-first century, and the innovative work being done in the preservation space now.
 
This book is for anyone who cares about cities, places, and saving America’s diverse stories, in a way that will bring us together and help us better understand our past, present, and future. 
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Ecosystem Management
Adaptive, Community-Based Conservation
Gary Meffe
Island Press, 2002

Today's natural resource managers must be able to navigate among the complicated interactions and conflicting interests of diverse stakeholders and decisionmakers. Technical and scientific knowledge, though necessary, are not sufficient. Science is merely one component in a multifaceted world of decision making. And while the demands of resource management have changed greatly, natural resource education and textbooks have not. Until now.

Ecosystem Management represents a different kind of textbook for a different kind of course. It offers a new and exciting approach that engages students in active problem solving by using detailed landscape scenarios that reflect the complex issues and conflicting interests that face today's resource managers and scientists. Focusing on the application of the sciences of ecology and conservation biology to real-world concerns, it emphasizes the intricate ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional matrix in which natural resource management functions, and illustrates how to be more effective in that challenging arena.

Each chapter is rich with exercises to help facilitate problem-based learning. The main text is supplemented by boxes and figures that provide examples, perspectives, definitions, summaries, and learning tools, along with a variety of essays written by practitioners with on-the-ground experience in applying the principles of ecosystem management.

Accompanying the textbook is an instructor's manual that provides a detailed overview of the book and specific guidance on designing a course around it.

Ecosystem Management grew out of a training course developed and presented by the authors for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at its National Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. In 20 offerings to more than 600 natural resource professionals, the authors learned a great deal about what is needed to function successfully as a professional resource manager. The book offers important insights and a unique perspective dervied from that invaluable experience.

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Correction Lines
Essays on Land, Leopold, and Conservation
Curt Meine
Island Press, 2004
The last fifteen years have been a period of dramatic change, both in the world at large and within the fields of ecology and conservation. The end of the Cold War, the dot-com boom and bust, the globalizing economy, and the attacks of September 11, among other events and trends, have reshaped our worldview and the political environment in which we find ourselves. At the same time, emerging knowledge, needs, and opportunities have led to a rapid evolution in our understanding of the scientific foundations and social context of conservation.
 
Correction Lines is a new collection of essays from one of our most thoughtful and eloquent writers on conservation, putting these recent changes into perspective and exploring the questions they raise about the past, present, and future of the conservation movement. The essays explore interrelated themes: the relationship between biological and social dimensions; the historic tension between utilitarian and preservationist approaches; the integration of varied cultural perspectives; the enduring legacy of Aldo Leopold; the contrasts and continuities between conservation and environmentalism; the importance of political reform; and the need to "retool" conservation to address twentyfirst-century realities.
 
Collectively the essays assert that we have reached a critical juncture in conservation—a "correction line" of sorts. Correction Lines argues that we need a more coherent and comprehensive account of the past if we are to understand our present circumstances and move forward under unprecedented conditions.
 
Meine brings together a deep sense of history with powerful language and compelling imagery, yielding new insights into the origins and development of contemporary conservation. Correction Lines will help us think more clearly about the forces that have changed, and are changing, conservation, and inspire us to address current realities and future needs.
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Wallace Stegner and the Continental Vision
Essays on Literature, History, and Landscape
Curt Meine
Island Press, 1997
Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) was, in the words of historian T. H. Watkins, "a walking tower of American letters." Winner of the Pulitzer prize and the National Book Award for fiction, founder of the Stanford Writing Program, recipient of three Guggenheim fellowships and innumerable honorary degrees, Stegner was both a brilliant writer and an exceptional teacher.Wallace Stegner and the Continental Vision brings together leading literary critics, historians, legal scholars, geographers, scientists, and others to present a multifaceted exploration of Stegner's work and its impact, and a thought-provoking examination of his life. Contributors consider Stegner as writer, as historian, and as conservationist, discussing his place in the American literary tradition, his integral role in shaping how Americans relate to the land, and his impact on their own personal lives and careers. They present an eclectic mix of viewpoints as they explore aspects of Stegner's work that they find most intriguing, inspiring, and provocative: Jackson J. Benson on the personal qualities that so distinctively shaped Stegner's writings Walter Nugent on the historical context of Stegner's definition of the West T. H. Watkins on Stegner's contributions to the modern conservation movement Terry Tempest Williams on Stegner's continuing importance as an "elder" in the community of writers he nurtured Other contributors include Dorothy Bradley, John Daniel, Daniel Flores, Melody Graulich, James R. Hepworth, Richard L. Knight, Curt Meine, Thomas R. Vale, Elliott West, and Charles F. Wilkinson.Wallace Stegner and the Continental Vision is an illuminating look at Stegner's many and varied contributions to American literature and society. Longtime admirers of Stegner will appreciate it for the new perspectives it provides, while readers less familiar with him will find it a valuable and accessible introduction to his life and work.
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Last Stand of the Red Spruce
Robert A. Mello
Island Press, 1988
Here is a vitally important book for anyone who is concerned with acid rain and the fate of our forests. In his fascinating investigation into the decline of the red spruce on Camel Hump in Vermont, Robert A. Mello explores an ecological mystery. He presents, in clear, concise, non-technical language, both sides of an issue which has split the scientific community.Last Stand of the Red Spruce tells us the the time is long past-due to take action on acid rain. Mello urges pressure for legislation to preserve our health and warns us that we can no longer be complacent.
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The Global Citizen
Ellen Meloy
Island Press, 1991
In The Global Citizen, Donella Meadows challenges us to view the world as an interconnected system for which we are all responsible. This collection of the best of Meadows's environmental writings demonstrates her rare ability to discuss complex issues such as population, poverty and development, and solid waste disposal in a clear, concise, engaging way for a wide audience.
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The Takings Issue
Constitutional Limits On Land Use Control And Environmental Regulation
Robert Meltz
Island Press, 1999
As challenges to land use and environmental controls by landowners and the property-rights movement have become more frequent, the concept of "takings" -- government action that excessively limits a property-owner's use of private land -- has become both increasingly familiar to the public, and increasingly problematic for planners, local officials, and anyone involved with making day-to-day decisions about land use. A vast and diverse body of case law has come into existence over the past several decades, and the controversy generated by recent legal decisions has resulted in a significant level of ideological bias in much of what has been written on the topic.This volume is an objective and authoritative examination that considers all aspects of the takings issue. It is a much-needed guide and overview that introduces and explains issues surrounding regulatory takings on the local, state, and federal level for anyone involved with private land and government limitation of its permissible use. The authors describe where the law is now, predict where it might go in the future, and review conflict-reducing solutions to a variety of situations. They condense an immense amount of information into a clear and accesible format, making the book equally valuable for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.The Takings Issue addresses procedural hurdles involved in getting a takings issue heard by a court, examines what does and does not constitute a taking, and considers the remedies available to landowners involved in takings actions. It treats concerns such as zoning, dedications and exactions, subdivision platting, and other local issues in some detail, and also considers state and federal issues involving industrial site approval, endangered species and wetlands protection, restrictions on access to resources on federal lands, and other topics.The book is an essential reference for planners, land use lawyers, developers, and students of planning and law, as well as for policymakers and citizens involved with takings issues.
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Green Versus Gold
Sources In California's Environmental History
Carolyn Merchant
Island Press, 1998

While the state of California remains one of the most striking and varied landscapes in the world, it has experienced monumental changes since European settlers first set foot there. The past two centuries have witnessed an ongoing struggle between environment and economy, nature and humanity that has left an indelible mark on the region.

Green Versus Gold provides a compelling look at California's environmental history from its Native American past to conflicts and movements of recent decades. Acclaimed environmental historian Carolyn Merchant has brought together a vast storehouse of primary sources and interpretive essays to create a comprehensive picture of the history of ecological and human interactions in one of the nation's most diverse and resource-rich states.

For each chapter, Merchant has selected original documents that give readers an eyewitness account of specific environments and periods, along with essays from leading historians, geographers, scientists, and other experts that provide context and analysis for the documents. In addition, she presents a list of further readings of both primary and secondary sources. Among other topics, chapters examine:

California's natural environment and Native American lands the Spanish and Russian frontiers environmental impacts of the gold rush the transformation of forests and rangelands agriculture and irrigation cities and urban issues the rise of environmental science and contemporary environmental movement.

Merchant's informed and well-chosen selections present a unique view of decades of environmental change and controversy. Historians, educators, environmentalists, writers, students, scientists, policy makers, and others will find the book an enlightening and important contribution to the debate over our nation's environmental history.

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Building Community Food Webs
Ken Meter
Island Press, 2021
Our current food system has decimated rural communities and confined the choices of urban consumers. Even while America continues to ramp up farm production to astounding levels, net farm income is now lower than at the onset of the Great Depression, and one out of every eight Americans faces hunger. But a healthier and more equitable food system is possible. In Building Community Food Webs, Ken Meter shows how grassroots food and farming leaders across the U.S. are tackling these challenges by constructing civic networks. Overturning extractive economic structures, these inspired leaders are engaging low-income residents, farmers, and local organizations in their quest to build stronger communities.

Community food webs strive to build health, wealth, capacity, and connection. Their essential element is building greater respect and mutual trust, so community members can more effectively empower themselves and address local challenges. Farmers and researchers may convene to improve farming practices collaboratively. Health clinics help clients grow food for themselves and attain better health. Food banks engage their customers to challenge the root causes of poverty. Municipalities invest large sums to protect farmland from development. Developers forge links among local businesses to strengthen economic trade. Leaders in communities marginalized by our current food system are charting a new path forward.

Building Community Food Webs captures the essence of these efforts, underway in diverse places including Montana, Hawai‘i, Vermont, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, and Minnesota. Addressing challenges as well as opportunities, Meter offers pragmatic insights for community food leaders and other grassroots activists alike.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
A Framework For Assessment
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2003

Ecosystems and Human Well-being is the first product of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a four-year international work program designed to meet the needs of decision-makers for scientific information on the links between ecosystem change and human well-being. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will provide information requested by governments, through four international conventions, as well as meeting needs within the private sector and civil society. Ecosystems and Human Well-being offers an overview of the assessment, describing the conceptual framework that is being used, defining its scope and providing a baseline of understanding that all participants need to move forward.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focuses on how humans have altered ecosystems, and how changes in ecosystems have affected human well-being. The assessment also evaluates how ecosystem changes may affect people in future decades and what responses can be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management and thereby contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. The assessment was launched by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June 2001, and the primary assessment reports will be released by Island Press in 2005.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment series is an invaluable new resource for professionals and policy-makers concerned with international development, environmental science, environmental policy, and related fields. It will help both in choosing among existing options and in identifying new approaches for achieving integrated management of land, water, and living resources while strengthening regional, national, and local capacities. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment series will also improve policy and decision-making at all levels by increasing collaboration between natural and social scientists, and between scientists and policy-makers. Ecosystems and Human Well-being is an essential introduction to the program.


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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Current State and Trends: Findings of the Condition and Trends Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the last 50 years than in any comparable period of human history. We have done this to meet the growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel. While changes to ecosystems have enhanced the well-being of billions of people, they have also caused a substantial and largely irreversible loss in diversity of life on Earth, and have strained the capacity of ecosystems to continue providing critical services. Among the findings: Approximately 60% of the services that support life on Earth are being degraded or used unsustainably. The harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years. Only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: crops, livestock, aquaculture, and the sequestration of carbon. The capacity of ecosystems to neutralize pollutants, protect us from natural disasters, and control the outbreaks of pests and diseases is declining significantly. Terrestrial and freshwater systems are reaching the limits of their ability to absorb nitrogen. Harvesting of fish and other resources from coastal and marine systems is compromising their ability to deliver food in the future. Richly illustrated with maps and graphs, Current State and Trends presents an assessment of Earth's ability to provide twenty-four distinct services essential to human well-being. These include food, fiber, and other materials; the regulation of the climate and fresh water systems; underlying support systems such as nutrient cycling; and the fulfillment of cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic values. The volume pays particular attention to the current health of key ecosystems, including inland waters, forests, oceans, croplands, and dryland systems, among others. It will be an indispensable reference for scientists, environmentalists, agency professionals, and students.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Multiscale Assessments: Findings of the Sub-Global Assessments Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
One of the major innovations of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is the incorporation of local and regional assessmentsù33 in allùin a global portrait of the planetÆs health. It is the first global assessment of ecosystems to include not only a diversity of ecosystems, but to draw on a wide range of cultural orientations and intellectual traditions, including those of indigenous peoples. The Sub-global Assessments Working Group integrated information from multiple sources and found that biophysical factors such as land-use change, climate change and variability, pollution, and invasive species have a significant effect on human well-being across cultures. For example, in places where there are no other social safety nets, diminished human well-being tends to increase immediate dependence on ecosystem services, which can damage the capacity of those local ecosystems, which in turn appears to increase the probability of natural disaster or conflict. Representing the baseline and framework for ongoing assessments of ecosystem and human well-being on a variety of scales around the world, Multiscale Assessments provides students, researchers, and policy-makers with the most comprehensive methodology for assessing ecosystems at local, national, and regional scales.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Our Human Planet: Summary for Decision Makers
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
Our Human Planet summarizes the findings of the four working groups and serves as a reference guide to the four main volumes in the MA series. It presents the key findings of each of the working groups, providing an overview of the framework used by the assessment, and will serve as a guide for assessment, planning, and management for the future.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Policy Responses: Findings of the Responses Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
With the knowledge of possible outcomes, what kind of actions should we take? The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scored 74 response options for dealing with declines in ecosystem services and biodiversity, and managing drivers such as climate change and nutrient loading. This third volume in the MA series analyzes the track record of past policies and the potential of new ones. The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services can be met only with significant policy and institutional changes. However, a difficult set of obstacles stand in the way. Policy makers must keep in mind that there are both trade-offs and synergies between human well-being, ecosystems, and ecosystem services, and that decisions regarding these tradeoffs are difficult and often contentious. The Responses volume ultimately establishes which policy options have the greatest chance to overcome the obstacles and generate positive outcomes. It will serve as an invaluable guide to the creation of stronger policy frameworks for the future.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Scenarios: Findings of the Scenarios Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
Scenarios are an invaluable tool for analyzing complex systems and understanding possible outcomes. This second volume of the MA series explores the implications of four different approaches for managing ecosystem services in the face of growing human demand for them: The Global Orchestration approach, in which we emphasize equity, economic growth, and public goods, reacting to ecosystem problems when they reach critical stages. Order from Strength, which emphasizes security and economic growth. Adapting Mosaic, which emphasizes proactive management of ecosystems, local adaptation, and flexible governance. TechnoGarden, a globalized approach with an emphasis on green technology and a proactive approach to managing ecosystems. The Scenarios volume will help decision-makers and managers identify development paths that better maintain the resilience of ecosystems, and can reduce the risk of damage to human well-being and the environment.
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Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism
Char Miller
Island Press, 2001
Gifford Pinchot is known primarily for his work as first chief of the U. S. Forest Service and for his argument that resources should be used to provide the "greatest good for the greatest number of people." But Pinchot was a more complicated figure than has generally been recognized, and more than half a century after his death, he continues to provoke controversy.

Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, the first new biography in more than three decades, offers a fresh interpretation of the life and work of the famed conservationist and Progressive politician. In addition to considering Gifford Pinchot's role in the environmental movement, historian Char Miller sets forth an engaging description and analysis of the man -- his character, passions, and personality -- and the larger world through which he moved.


Char Miller begins by describing Pinchot's early years and the often overlooked influence of his family and their aspirations for him. He examines Gifford Pinchot's post-graduate education in France and his ensuing efforts in promoting the profession of forestry in the United States and in establishing and running the Forest Service. While Pinchot's twelve years as chief forester (1898-1910) are the ones most historians and biographers focus on, Char Miller also offers an extensive examination of Pinchot's post-federal career as head of The National Conservation Association and as two-term governor of Pennsylvania. In addition, he looks at Pinchot's marriage to feminist Cornelia Bryce and discusses her role in Pinchot's political radicalization throughout the 1920s and 1930s. An epilogue explores Gifford Pinchot's final years and writings.


Char Miller offers a provocative reconsideration of key events in Pinchot's life, including his relationship with friend and mentor John Muir and their famous disagreement over damming Hetch Hetchy Valley. The author brings together insights from cultural and social history and recently discovered primary sources to support a new interpretation of Pinchot -- whose activism not only helped define environmental politics in early twentieth century America but remains strikingly relevant today.

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Nature's Fading Chorus
Classic And Contemporary Writings On Amphibians
Gordon Miller
Island Press, 2000
Naturalists in every age have been intrigued by frogs, toads, and salamanders. They have seen these amphibians in a variety of guises -- as beings with magical powers or implicit moral lessons, as the products of spontaneous generation, as heralds of the seasons, as evidence of evolution or material for biological experiments, or, most recently, as ecological barometers for the biosphere.Nature's Fading Chorus presents an anthology of writings on amphibians drawn from the entire Western natural history tradition, beginning with Aristotle's Inquiry Concerning Animals written in the fourth century B.C.E., and continuing through recent scientific accounts of the relatively sudden -- and alarming -- global declines and deformities in amphibian species. The offerings not only reveal much about amphibian life, but also provide fascinating insight into the worldviews of the many writers, scientists, and naturalists who have delved into the subject.The book is divided into five sections. The first three offer selections from the most influential contributors to the Western canon of natural history writing, and contain classic texts that illustrate central themes in the changing understanding of amphibians and of the natural world. The fourth section offers engaging essays by leading twentieth-century nature writers that portray a variety of amphibians in diverse terrains. Part five covers the various aspects of, and research on, the problem of amphibian declines and deformities. Featured are more than thirty-five pieces, including works from Pliny the Elder, Gilbert White, William Bartram, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, George Orwell, Annie Dillard, Terry Tempest Williams, and many others.Arranged chronologically, the writings provide an intriguing look at the ways in which humankind's understanding of its place in nature has changed through the course of Western history, and of the niche amphibians have occupied in that evolution.
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At the Table
The Chef's Guide to Advocacy
Katherine Miller
Island Press, 2023
When Katherine Miller was first asked to train chefs to be advocates, she thought the idea was ludicrous. This was a group known for short tempers and tattoos, not for saving the world. But she quickly learned that chefs and other leaders in the restaurant industry are some of the most powerful forces for change in our troubled food system. Chefs are leading hunger relief efforts, supporting local farmers, fighting food waste, confronting racism and sexism in the industry, and much more.

In At the Table, Miller shares the essential techniques she developed for the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change. Readers will learn how to focus their philanthropic efforts; pinpoint their audience and develop their argument; recruit allies and support action; and maybe most importantly, grab people’s attention in a crowded media landscape.

Miller also shares the moving stories of chefs who used these skills to create lasting change. Tom Colicchio became one of the word’s most respected voices on ending hunger. Bakers Against Racism recruited more than 3,000 people to participate in their global bake sales. Chefs from around the country pushed Congress to provide financial relief to the restaurant industry at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the Table is filled with inspiration for anyone who has ever wanted to make a difference outside the four walls of their restaurant. And most importantly, it offers proven methods to become a successful advocate. You don’t have to be a celebrity chef to change the food system; you just need the will and the tools in this unique guide.
 
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Over the Seawall
Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature
Stephen Robert Miller
Island Press, 2023
In March 2011, people in a coastal Japanese city stood atop a seawall watching the approach of the tsunami that would kill them. They believed—naively—that the huge concrete barrier would save them. Instead they perished, betrayed by the very thing built to protect them. Erratic weather, blistering drought, rising seas, and ecosystem collapse now affect every inch of the globe. Increasingly, we no longer look to stop climate change, choosing instead to adapt to it.

Never have so many undertaken such a widespread, hurried attempt to remake the world. Predictably, our hubris has led to unintended—and sometimes disastrous—consequences. Academics call it maladaptation; in simple terms, it’s about solutions that backfire. Over the Seawall tells us the stories behind these unintended consequences and about the fixes that can do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to the reengineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the artificial ribbon of water supporting both farms and urban centers in parched Arizona, Stephen Robert Miller traces the histories of engineering marvels that were once deemed too smart and too big to fail. In each he takes us into the land and culture, seeking out locals and experts to better understand how complicated, grandiose schemes led instead to failure, and to find answers to the technologic holes we’ve dug ourselves into.

Over the Seawall urges us to take a hard look at the fortifications we build and how they’ve fared in the past. It embraces humanity’s penchant for problem-solving, but argues that if we are to adapt successfully to climate change, we must recognize that working with nature is not surrender but the only way to assure a secure future.
 
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Epicurean Simplicity
Stephanie Mills
Island Press, 2003

"In this book, I relate the pleasures, as well as the virtues and difficulties of a perhaps simpler than average North American life." So begins ecological thinker and writer Stephanie Mills's Epicurean Simplicity, a thoughtful paean to living, like Thoreau, a deliberate life.

Mills's account of the simple life reaches deep into classical sources of pleasure -- good food, good health, good friends, and particularly the endless delights of the natural world. Her musings about the life she desires -- and the life she has created -- ultimately led her to the third century Greek philosopher Epicurus, whose philosophy was premised on the trustworthiness of the senses, a philosophy that Mills wholeheartedly embraces. While later centuries have come to associate Epicurus's name with hedonism, Mills discovered that he extolled simplicity and prudence as the surest means to pleasure, and his thinking offers an important philosophical touchstone for the book.

As the author explains, one of the primary motivations for her pursuit of simplicity is her concern about the impacts of a consumerist lifestyle on the natural world. Mills touches on broad range of topics relating to that issue -- social justice, biological extinctions, the global economy, and also more personal aspects such as friendship, the process of country living, the joys of physical exertion, the challenges of a writer's life, and the natural history and seasonal delights of a life lived close to nature. An overarching theme is the destructiveness of consumerism, and how even a simple life affects a wide range of organisms and adds strain to the earth's systems. The author uses her own experience as an entry point to the discussion with a self-effacing humor and lyrical prose that bring big topics to a personal level.

Epicurean Simplicity is beautifully crafted, fluid, inspiring, and enlightening, examining topics of critical importance that affect us all. It celebrates the pleasures, beauty, and fulfillment of a simple life, a goal being sought by Americans from all walks of life, from harried single parents to corporate CEOs. For fans of natural history or personal narrative, for those concerned about social justice and the environment, and for those who have come to know and love Stephanie Mills through her speaking and writing, Epicurean Simplicity is a rare treasure.

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Simple Pleasures
Thoughts on Food, Friendship, and Life
Stephanie Mills
Island Press, 2012
In Simple Pleasures: Thoughts on Food, Friendship, and Life we have highlighted two chapters from Stephanie Mill’s reflection the pleasures, as well as the virtues and difficulties, of a perhaps simpler than average North American life. It is a thoughtful paean to living, like Thoreau, a deliberate life.  Mill’s writing is beautifully crafted, fluid, inspiring, and enlightening, and these chapters encourage you to take a moment to reflect on your own life. It celebrates the pleasures, beauty, and fulfillment of a simple life, a goal well worth striving for.
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In Praise of Nature
Stephanie Mills
Island Press, 1990

Five thought-provoking essays by Stephanie Mills are followed by reviews and excerpts of the ten most important pieces of related literature written by experts in the various fields. Reviewers include Peter Borrelli, David Brower, Ernest Callenbach, J. Baird Callicott, Lois Gibbs, and others. Following the essays is an annotated bibliography listing over 100 important environmental works.

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Gaslight
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America's Energy Future
Jonathan Mingle
Island Press, 2024
Imagine one day you receive a letter in the mail that informs you that a large energy company is planning to build a massive pipeline through your property. That surveyors will be coming out soon. That they have the legal right to do so, whether you like it or not, because this project is in the “public interest”—because the pipeline will be carrying natural gas, the so-called “bridge fuel” that politicians on both sides of the aisle have been peddling for decades as the path to a clean, green energy future.

This was the gist of the letter that Dominion Energy sent to thousands of residents living along the path of its proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline in 2014, setting off an epic, six-year battle that eventually led all the way to the Supreme Court. That struggle’s epicenter was in the mountains of Virginia, where communities stretching from the Blue Ridge foothills to the Shenandoah Valley and the Allegheny highlands became Dominion’s staunchest foes. On one side was an archetypal Goliath: a power company that commands billions of dollars, the votes of politicians, and the decisions of the federal government. On the other, an army of Davids: lawyers and farmers, conservationists and conservatives, scientists and nurses, innkeepers and lobbyists, families who farmed their land since before the Revolutionary War and those who were not allowed to until after the Civil War.

At stake was not only the future of the communities that lay in the pipeline’s path but the future of American energy. Would the public be swayed by the industry’s decades-long public relations campaign to frame natural gas – a fossil fuel and itself a potent greenhouse gas – as a “solution” to climate change? Or would we recognize it as a methane bomb, capable of not only imperiling local property and upending people’s lives, but of pushing the planet further down the road towards climate chaos?

Vivid and suspenseful, gut-wrenching and insightful, Gaslight is more than the chronicle of a turning point in American history. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the dark, overlooked story of America’s “favorite fossil fuel,” and the immense future stakes of the energy choices we face today.
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Climate Action for Busy People
Cate Mingoya-LaFortune
Island Press, 2024
As unprecedented heat waves, storms of the century, and devastating fires impact cities across the country, the time to create climate resilient communities is now. While large-scale innovations in policy and technology are necessary to preserve the planet, the wisest and most lasting adaptation solutions originate at the local level. However, with something as large as the climate crisis, it can be hard to know where to begin.     

Climate Action for Busy People is a hopeful and realistic roadmap for individuals and groups who want to boost climate preparedness and move the needle towards environmental justice. Drawing from her professional and personal success in climate adaptation and community organizing, Cate Mingoya-LaFortune begins with a brief history of why our communities look the way they do (spoiler, it’s not an accident!) and how that affects how vulnerable we are to climate risks. Each chapter will help readers scale up their actions, from identifying climate solutions that an individual or small group can pull off in a handful of weekends, like tree plantings or depaving parties, to advocating for change at the municipal level through coalition-building and data collection. It’s not too late for people of all ages and skill levels to create climate safe neighborhoods.  

Climate Action for Busy People is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to make lasting and equitable improvements that will make their communities climate resilient.
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Reconstructing Conservation
Finding Common Ground
Ben A. Minteer
Island Press, 2003

In the 1990s, influenced by the deconstructionist movement in literary theory and trends toward revisionist history, a cadre of academics and historians led by William Cronon began raising provocative questions about ideas of wilderness and the commitments and strategies of the contemporary environmental movement. While these critiques challenged some cherished and widely held beliefs -- and raised the hackles of many in the environmental community -- they also stimulated an important and potentially transformative debate about the conceptual foundations of environmentalism.

Reconstructing Conservation makes a vital contribution to that debate, bringing together 23 leading scholars and practitioners -- including J. Baird Callicott, Susan Flader, Richard Judd, Curt Meine, Bryan Norton, and Paul B. Thompson -- to examine the classical conservation tradition and its value to contemporary environmentalism. Focusing not just on the tensions that have marked the deconstructivist debate over wilderness and environmentalism, the book represents a larger and ultimately more constructive and hopeful discussion over the proper course of future conservation scholarship and action.

Essays provide a fresh look at conservation icons such as George Perkins Marsh and Aldo Leopold, as well as the contributions of lesser-known figures including Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye, and Scott Nearing. Represented are a wealth of diverse perspectives, addressing such topics as wilderness and protected areas, cultural landscapes, rural/agrarian landscapes, urban/built environments, and multiple points on the geographic map. Contributors offer enthusiastic endorsements of pluralism in conservation values and goals along with cautionary tales about the dangers of fragmentation and atomism. The final chapter brings together the major insights, arguments, and proposals contained in the individual contributions, synthesizing them into a dozen broad-ranging principles designed to guide the study and practice of conservation.

Reconstructing Conservation assesses the meaning and relevance of our conservation inheritance in the 21st century, and represents a conceptually integrated vision for reconsidering conservation thought and practice to meet the needs and circumstances of a new, post-deconstructivist era.

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Shading Our Cities
A Resource Guide For Urban And Community Forests
Gary Moll
Island Press, 1989

Shading Our Cities is a handbook to help neighborhood groups, local officials, and city planners develop urban forestry projects, not only to beautify their cities, but also to reduce energy demand, improve air quality, protect water supplies, and contribute to healthier living conditions.

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Evolution in a Toxic World
How Life Responds to Chemical Threats
Emily Monosson
Island Press, 2012
With BPA in baby bottles, mercury in fish, and lead in computer monitors, the world has become a toxic place. But as Emily Monosson demonstrates in her groundbreaking new book, it has always been toxic. When oxygen first developed in Earth's atmosphere, it threatened the very existence of life: now we literally can't live without it. According to Monosson, examining how life adapted to such early threats can teach us a great deal about today's (and tomorrow's) most dangerous contaminants. While the study of evolution has advanced many other sciences, from conservation biology to medicine, the field of toxicology has yet to embrace this critical approach.
In Evolution in a Toxic World, Monosson seeks to change that. She traces the development of life's defense systems—the mechanisms that transform, excrete, and stow away potentially harmful chemicals—from more than three billion years ago to today. Beginning with our earliest ancestors' response to ultraviolet radiation, Monosson explores the evolution of chemical defenses such as antioxidants, metal binding proteins, detoxification, and cell death. 
 
As we alter the world's chemistry, these defenses often become overwhelmed faster than our bodies can adapt. But studying how our complex internal defense network currently operates, and how it came to be that way, may allow us to predict how it will react to novel and existing chemicals. This understanding could lead to not only better management and preventative measures, but possibly treatment of current diseases. Development of that knowledge starts with this pioneering book.
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Natural Defense
Enlisting Bugs and Germs to Protect Our Food and Health
Emily Monosson
Island Press, 2017
For more than a century, we have relied on chemical cures to keep our bodies free from disease and our farms free from bugs and weeds. We rarely consider human and agricultural health together, but both are based on the same ecology, and both are being threatened by organisms that have evolved to resist our antibiotics and pesticides. Patients suffer from C.diff, a painful, potentially lethal gut infection associated with multiple rounds of antibiotics; orange groves rot from insect-borne bacteria; and the blight responsible for the Irish potato famine outmaneuvers fungicides. Our chemicals are failing us.

Fortunately, scientists are finding new solutions that work with, rather than against, nature. Emily Monosson explores science’s most innovative strategies, from high-tech gene editing to the ancient practice of fecal transplants. There are viruses that infect and bust apart bacteria; vaccines engineered to better provoke our natural defenses; and insect pheromones that throw crop-destroying moths into a misguided sexual frenzy. Some technologies will ultimately fizzle; others may hold the key to abundant food and unprecedented health. Each represents a growing understanding of how to employ ecology for our own protection.

Monosson gives readers a peek into the fascinating and hopeful world of natural defenses. Her book is full of optimism, not simply for particular cures, but for a sustainable approach to human welfare that will benefit generations to come. 
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Unnatural Selection
How We Are Changing Life, Gene by Gene
Emily Monosson
Island Press, 2015
Gonorrhea. Bed bugs. Weeds. Salamanders. People. All are evolving, some surprisingly rapidly, in response to our chemical age. In Unnatural Selection, Emily Monosson shows how our drugs, pesticides, and pollution are exerting intense selection pressure on all manner of species. And we humans might not like the result.

Monosson reveals that the very code of life is more fluid than once imagined. When our powerful chemicals put the pressure on to evolve or die, beneficial traits can sweep rapidly through a population. Species with explosive population growth—the bugs, bacteria, and weeds—tend to thrive, while bigger, slower-to-reproduce creatures, like ourselves, are more likely to succumb.

Monosson explores contemporary evolution in all its guises. She examines the species that we are actively trying to beat back, from agricultural pests to life-threatening bacteria, and those that are collateral damage—creatures struggling to adapt to a polluted world. Monosson also presents cutting-edge science on gene expression, showing how environmental stressors are leaving their mark on plants, animals, and possibly humans for generations to come. 

Unnatural Selection is eye-opening and more than a little disquieting. But it also suggests how we might lessen our impact: manage pests without creating super bugs; protect individuals from disease without inviting epidemics; and benefit from technology without threatening the health of our children.
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Public Opinion Polling
A Handbook For Public Interest And Citizen Advocacy Groups
Celinda Montana Alliance for Progressive Policy
Island Press, 1987
In Public Opinion Polling, Celinda C. Lake and Pat Callbeck Harper draw on years of experience and hands-on work in polling and interpreting public opinion polls for political candidates and public interest organizations. This handbook offers field-tested, easy-to-use, and cost-effective instructions for constructing and analyzing polls. Helps the user to: define the poll's objectives understand what a sample is write questionnaires that get the information you want conduct efficient interviews. Companion software provides a complete package for conducting polls and analyzing results.
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Private Options
Tools And Concepts For Land Conservation
Montana Land Reliance
Island Press, 1982

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Better Trout Habitat
A Guide to Stream Restoration and Management
Christopher J. Montana Land Reliance
Island Press, 1991

Better Trout Habitat explains the physical, chemical, and biological needs of trout, and shows how climate, geology, vegetation, and flowing water all help to create trout habitat.

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Invasive Alien Species
A New Synthesis
Harold A. Mooney
Island Press, 2005

Invasive alien species are among today's most daunting environmental threats, costing billions of dollars in economic damages and wreaking havoc on ecosystems around the world. In 1997, a consortium of scientific organizations including SCOPE, IUCN, and CABI developed the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP) with the explicit objective of providing new tools for understanding and coping with invasive alien species.

Invasive Alien Species is the final report of GISP's first phase of operation, 1997-2000, in which authorities from more than thirty countries worked to examine invasions as a worldwide environmental hazard. The book brings together the world's leading scientists and researchers involved with invasive alien species to offer a comprehensive summary and synthesis of the current state of knowledge on the subject.

Invasive alien species represent a critical threat to natural ecosystems and native biodiversity, as well as to human economic vitality and health. The knowledge gained to date in understanding and combating invasive alien species can form a useful basis on which to build strategies for controlling or minimizing the effects in the future. Invasive Alien Species is an essential reference for the international community of investigators concerned with biological invasions.


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Invasive Species in a Changing World
Harold A. Mooney
Island Press, 2000
Changing patterns of global commerce are leading to the breakdown of biogeographic barriers that have historically kept the floras and faunas of different continents separate. Some introduced species not only take hold in their new foreign habitat but also become aggressive; these -- invasives -- can exact a serious toll on ecosystem diversity and processes. Global changes -- including changes in atmospheric composition, land use patterns,and fire regimes -- are likely to foster the success of invaders in coming decades.
Invasive Species in a Changing World brings together leading scientists from around the world -- including Carla M. D'Antonio, Jeffrey McNeely, Robert Sutherst, David Richardson, and others -- to examine the invasive species phenomenon and to consider the mutual interactions between global change and invasives that are likely to occur over the next century. Invasive Species in a Changing World: offers a comprehensive look at the status of freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems in relation to invasives; examines physical factors that will influence the future success ofinvading species; considers the tools available to track changing patterns and movements; looks at human dimensions including human health effects, and effects on crops; describes the problem in different parts of the world.
Contributors focus on the proposition that global change will exacerbate the invasive species problem, and set forth the idea that invasives are themselves a global change element that need to be considered in global change scenarios.
Invasive Species in a Changing World provides readers with the background and knowledge they need to begin developing strategies to combat the invasive species problem, and is essential reading for anyone concerned with the impact of invasive species on ecosystem health and functioning.
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Rural Renaissance
Revitalizing America’s Hometowns through Clean Power
L. Michelle Moore
Island Press, 2022
For decades, we’ve heard that local, renewable power is on the horizon, and cheaper technologies will one day revolutionize our energy system. Michelle Moore has spent her career proving this opportunity is already here—and any community, no matter how small, can build their own clean energy future. Rural Renaissance: Revitalizing America’s Hometowns Through Clean Power is the inspiring and practical guide to igniting this transition today.

In Rural Renaissance, Moore argues we don’t have to wait for new legislation or technologies to begin our work. From the White House to her hometown in rural Georgia, Moore has gathered the tools needed to bring the far-reaching benefits of clean power to small communities, particularly in rural America. In this accessible guide, Moore provides an overview of the current energy landscape, including the federal, state, and local policies that will shape each community’s unique approach. Next, she describes five pathways to clean power in rural America and strategies for achieving them, including energy efficiency, renewable power, resilience (including microgrids and battery storage), the electrification of transportation, and finally, broadband internet. Throughout this journey, Moore shares stories of challenges and successes and encourages readers to design programs that address inequality.

Clean energy shouldn’t be reserved for the wealthy or for sleek and modern city centers. Rural Renaissance offers a vision of thriving rural communities where clean power is the spark that leads to greater investment, vitality, and equity. We can start today—and this book provides the toolbox.
 
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Common Ground on Hostile Turf
Stories from an Environmental Mediator
Lucy Moore
Island Press, 2013
In our increasingly polarized society, there are constant calls for compromise, for coming together. For many, these are empty talking points—for Lucy Moore, they are a life's work. As an environmental mediator, she has spent the past quarter century resolving conflicts that appeared utterly intractable. Here, she shares the most compelling stories of her career, offering insight and inspiration to anyone caught in a seemingly hopeless dispute.

Moore has worked on wide-ranging issues—from radioactive waste storage to loss of traditional grazing lands. More importantly, she has worked with diverse groups and individuals: ranchers, environmental activists, government agencies, corporations, tribal groups, and many more. After decades spent at the negotiating table, she has learned that a case does not turn on facts, legal merit, or moral superiority. It turns on people.

Through ten memorable stories, she shows how issues of culture, personality, history, and power affect negotiations. And she illustrates that equitable solutions depend on a healthy group dynamic. Both the mediator and opposing parties must be honest, vulnerable, open, and respectful. Easier said than done, but Moore proves that subtle shifts can break the logjam and reconcile even the most fiercely warring factions.

This book should be especially appealing to anyone concerned with environmental conflicts; and also to students in environmental studies, political science, and conflict resolution, and to academics and professionals in mediation and conflict resolution fields.
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Sustainable Harvest and Marketing of Rain Forest Products
Scott Mori
Island Press, 1992
Based on a Conservation International conference in Panama, Sustainable Harvest and Marketing of Rain Forest Products brings together the world's leading experts on rain forest development and sustainability.
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Restoring Wildlife
Ecological Concepts and Practical Applications
Michael L. Morrison
Island Press, 2009
Restoration plans must take into account the needs of current or desired wildlife species in project areas. Restoring Wildlife gives ecologists, restorationists, administrators, and other professionals involved with restoration projects the tools they need to understand essential ecological concepts, helping them to design restoration projects that can improve conditions for native species of wildlife. It also offers specific guidance and examples on how various projects have been designed and implemented.
The book interweaves theoretical and practical aspects of wildlife biology that are directly applicable to the restoration and conservation of animals. It provides an understanding of the fundamentals of wildlife populations and wildlife-habitat relationships as it explores the concept of habitat, its historic development, components, spatialtemporal relationships, and role in land management. It applies these concepts in developing practical tools for professionals.
Restoring Wildlife builds on the foundation of material presented in Wildlife Restoration, published by Island Press in 2002, offering the basic information from that book along with much updated material in a reorganized and expanded format.
Restoring Wildlife is the only single source that deals with wildlife and restoration, and is an important resource for practicing restorationists and biologists as well as undergraduate and graduate students in wildlife management, ecological restoration, environmental science, and related fields.
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Wildlife Restoration
Techniques for Habitat Analysis and Animal Monitoring
Michael L. Morrison
Island Press, 2002

Wildlife Restoration links restoration ecology and wildlife management in an accessible and comprehensive guide to restoring wildlife and the habitats upon which they depend. It offers readers a thorough overview of the types of information needed in planning a wildlife-habitat restoration project and provides the basic tools necessary for developing and implementing a rigorous monitoring program. The book:

  • explains the concepts of habitat and niche: their historic development, components, spatial-temporal relationships, and role in land management
  • reviews how wildlife populations are identified and counted
  • considers captive breeding, reintroduction, and translocation of animals
  • discusses how wildlife and their habitat needs can be incorporated into restoration planning
  • develops a solid justification for monitoring and good sampling design in restoration projects
  • discusses and critiques case histories of wildlife analysis in restoration projects

The author does not offer a "cookbook" approach, but rather provides basic tools for understanding ecological concepts that can be used to design restoration projects with specific goals for wildlife. He focuses on developing an integrated approach to large-scale landscape restoration. In addition, he provides guidance on where more advanced and detailed literature can be found.

Wildlife Restoration sets forth a clear explanation of key principles of wildlife biology for the restorationist, and will allow wildlife biologists to bring the insights of their field to restoration projects. It is an essential source of information for everyone involved with studying, implementing, or managing wildlife restoration projects, including students, ecologists, administrators, government agency staff, and volunteer practitioners.

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Wildlife-Habitat Relationships
Concepts and Applications
Michael L. Morrison
Island Press, 2006
Wildlife-Habitat Relationships goes beyond introductory wildlife biology texts to provide wildlife professionals and students with an understanding of the importance of habitat relationships in studying and managing wildlife. The book offers a unique synthesis and critical evaluation of data, methods, and studies, along with specific guidance on how to conduct rigorous studies.

Now in its third edition, Wildlife-Habitat Relationships combines basic field zoology and natural history, evolutionary biology, ecological theory, and quantitative tools in explaining ecological processes and their influence on wildlife and habitats. Also included is a glossary of terms that every wildlife professional should know.
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Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle
Assessing the Impacts of Fertilizer Use on Food Production and the Environment
Arvin Mosier
Island Press, 2004

Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth and development and a key agricultural input-but in excess it can lead to a host of problems for human and ecological health. Across the globe, distribution of fertilizer nitrogen is very uneven, with some areas subject to nitrogen pollution and others suffering from reduced soil fertility, diminished crop production, and other consequences of inadequate supply.

Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle provides a global assessment of the role of nitrogen fertilizer in the nitrogen cycle. The focus of the book is regional, emphasizing the need to maintain food and fiber production while minimizing environmental impacts where fertilizer is abundant, and the need to enhance fertilizer utilization in systems where nitrogen is limited. The book is derived from a workshop held by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) in Kampala, Uganda, that brought together the world's leading scientists to examine and discuss the nitrogen cycle and related problems. It contains an overview chapter that summarizes the group's findings, four chapters on cross-cutting issues, and thirteen background chapters.

The book offers a unique synthesis and provides an up-to-date, broad perspective on the issues of nitrogen fertilizer in food production and the interaction of nitrogen and the environment.

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The Whaling Season
An Inside Account Of The Struggle To Stop Commercial Whaling
Kieran Mulvaney
Island Press, 2003

Despite a decades-long international moratorium on commercial whaling, one fleet has continued to hunt and kill whales in the waters surrounding Antarctica. Refusing to let this defiance go unchallenged, the environmental organization Greenpeace began dispatching expeditions to the region in an effort to intercept the whalers and use nonviolent means to stop their lethal practice.

Over the past decade, Kieran Mulvaney led four such expeditions as a campaigner and coordinator. In The Whaling Season, he recounts those voyages in all their drama, disappointments, strain, and elation, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at the hazards and triumphs of life as an environmental activist on the high seas. The author also explores the larger struggles underlying the expeditions, drawing on the history of commercial whaling and Antarctic exploration, the development of Greenpeace, and broader scientific and political efforts to conserve marine life. He presents a rich portrait of the current struggles and makes an impassioned plea for protection of some of the world’s most spectacular creatures.

For armchair adventurers, polar enthusiasts, and anyone concerned about marine conservation and continued hunting of the world’s whales, The Whaling Season is an engrossing and informative tale of adventure set in one of the Earth’s last great wilderness areas.


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Tech to Table
25 Innovators Reimagining Food
Richard Munson
Island Press, 2021
Imagine eating a burger grown in a laboratory, a strawberry picked by a robot, or a pastry created with a 3-D printer. You would never taste the difference, but these technologies might just save your health and the planet’s. Today, landmark advances in computing, engineering, and medicine are driving solutions to the biggest problems created by industrialized food.

Tech to Table introduces readers to twenty-five of the most creative entrepreneurs advancing these solutions. They come from various places and professions, identities and backgrounds. But they share an outsider’s perspective and an idealistic, sometimes aggressive, ambition to rethink the food system.

Reinvention is desperately needed. Under Big Ag, pollution, climate change, animal cruelty, hunger, and obesity have festered, and despite decades of effort, organic farming accounts for less than one percent of US croplands. Entrepreneurs represent a new path, one where disruptive technology helps people and the environment. These innovations include supplements to lower the methane in cattle belches, drones that monitor irrigation levels in crops, urban warehouses that grow produce year-round, and more.

The pace and breadth of change is astonishing, as investors pump billions of dollars into ag-innovation. Startups are attracting capital and building markets, with the potential to upend conventional agribusiness’s stranglehold on the food system. Not every invention will prosper long-term, but each marks a fundamental change in our approach to feeding a growing population—sustainably.

A revolution in how we grow and eat food is brewing. Munson’s deftly crafted profiles offer a fascinating preview of the coming future of food.
 
 
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Landscape Architecture Theory
An Ecological Approach
Michael Murphy
Island Press, 2016
For decades, landscape architecture was driven solely by artistic sensibilities. But in these times of global change, the opportunity to reshape the world comes with a responsibility to consider how it can be resilient, fostering health and vitality for humans and nature. Landscape Architecture Theory re-examines the fundamentals of the field, offering a new approach to landscape design.

Drawing on his extensive career in teaching and practice, Michael Murphy begins with an examination of influences on landscape architecture: social context, contemporary values, and the practicalities of working as a professional landscape architect. He then delves into systems and procedural theory, while making connections to ecosystem factors, human factors, utility, aesthetics, and the design process. He concludes by showing how a strong theoretical understanding can be applied to practical, every-day decision making and design work to create more holistic, sustainable, and creative landscapes.

Students will take away a foundational understanding of the underpinnings of landscape architecture theory, as well as how it can be applied to real-world designs; working professionals will find stimulating insights to infuse their projects with a greater sense of purpose.
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Justice and Natural Resources
Concepts, Strategies, and Applications
Kathryn Mutz
Island Press, 2001

Just over two decades ago, research findings that environmentally hazardous facilities were more likely to be sited near poor and minority communities gave rise to the environmental justice movement. Yet inequitable distribution of the burdens of industrial facilities and pollution is only half of the problem; poor and minority communities are often denied the benefits of natural resources and can suffer disproportionate harm from decisions about their management and use.

Justice and Natural Resources is the first book devoted to exploring the concept of environmental justice in the realm of natural resources. Contributors consider how decisions about the management and use of natural resources can exacerbate social injustice and the problems of disadvantaged communities. Looking at issues that are predominantly rural and western -- many of them involving Indian reservations, public lands, and resource development activities -- it offers a new and more expansive view of environmental justice.

The book begins by delineating the key conceptual dimensions of environmental justice in the natural resource arena. Following the conceptual chapters are contributions that examine the application of environmental justice in natural resource decision-making. Chapters examine:

  • how natural resource management can affect a range of stakeholders quite differently, distributing benefits to some and burdens to others
  • the potential for using civil rights laws to address damage to natural and cultural resources
  • the unique status of Native American environmental justice claims
  • parallels between domestic and international environmental justice
  • how authority under existing environmental law can be used by Federal regulators and communities to address a broad spectrum of environmental justice concerns
Justice and Natural Resources offers a concise overview of the field of environmental justice and a set of frameworks for understanding it. It expands the previously urban and industrial scope of the movement to include distribution of the burdens and access to the benefits of natural resources, broadening environmental justice to a truly nationwide concern.
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The New Consumers
The Influence Of Affluence On The Environment
Norman Myers
Island Press, 2004

While overconsumption by the developed world's roughly one billion inhabitants is an abiding problem, another one billion increasingly affluent "new consumers" in developing countries will place additional strains on the earth's resources, argue authors Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent in this important new book.

The New Consumers examines the environmental impacts of this increased consumption, with particular focus on two commodities -- cars and meat -- that stand to have the most far-reaching effects. It analyzes consumption patterns in a number of different countries, with special emphasis on China and India (whose surging economies, as well as their large populations, are likely to account for exceptional growth in humanity's ecological footprint), and surveys big-picture issues such as the globalization of economies, consumer goods, and lifestyles. Ultimately, according to the orman Myers and Jennifer Kent, the challenge will be for all of humanity to transition to sustainable levels of consumption, for it is unrealistic to expect "new" consumers not to aspire to be like the "old" ones.

Cogent in its analysis, The New Consumers issues a timely warning of a major and developing environmental trend, and suggests valuable strategies for ameliorating its effects.

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Perverse Subsidies
How Misused Tax Dollars Harm The Environment And The Economy
Norman Myers
Island Press, 2001
Much of the global economy depends upon large-scale government intervention in the form of subsidies, both direct and indirect, to support specific industries or economic sectors. Distressingly, many of these subsidies can be characterized as “perverse” -- rather than helping society achieve a desired goal, they work in the opposite direction, causing damage to both our economies and our environments. Worldwide subsidies have long been thought to total $2 trillion per year, but until now, no attempt has been made to determine what proportion of that actually subverts the public interest.In Perverse Subsidies, leading environmental analyst Norman Myers takes a detailed look at the subject, offering a comprehensive view of subsidies worldwide with a particular focus on the extent, causes, and consequences of perverse subsidies. He defines many different kinds of subsidies, from tax incentives to government handouts, and considers their wide-ranging impacts, as he: examines the role of subsidies in policymaking quantifies the direct costs of perverse subsidies examines the major subsidies in agriculture, energy, road transportation, water, fisheries, and forestry considers the environmental effects of those subsidies offers policy advice and specific recommendations for eliminating harmful subsidies .The book provides a valuable framework for evaluation of perverse subsidies, and offers a dramatic illustration of the scale and dimensions of the problem. It will be the standard reference on those subsidies for government reform advocates, policy analysts, and environmentalists, as well as for scholars and students interested in the interactions between policymaking and environmental issues.
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Planetary Health
Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves
Samuel Myers
Island Press, 2020
Human health depends on the health of the planet. Earth’s natural systems—the air, the water, the biodiversity, the climate—are our life support systems. Yet climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of land and freshwater, pollution and other threats are degrading these systems. The emerging field of planetary health aims to understand how these changes threaten our health and how to protect ourselves and the rest of the biosphere.

Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves provides a readable introduction to this new paradigm. With an interdisciplinary approach, the book addresses a wide range of health impacts felt in the Anthropocene, including food and nutrition, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, dislocation and conflict, and mental health. It also presents strategies to combat environmental changes and its ill-effects, such as controlling toxic exposures, investing in clean energy, improving urban design, and more. Chapters are authored by widely recognized experts.

The result is a comprehensive and optimistic overview of a growing field that is being adopted by researchers and universities around the world. Students of public health will gain a solid grounding in the new challenges their profession must confront, while those in the environmental sciences, agriculture, the design professions, and other fields will become familiar with the human consequences of planetary changes. Understanding how our changing environment affects our health is increasingly critical to a variety of disciplines and professions. Planetary Health is the definitive guide to this vital field.
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