Winner, Wildlife Publications Award — Outstanding Book Category, The Wildlife Society, 2004
Texas Tech University President's Book Award, 2005

Shallow wetlands that occur primarily in semi-arid to arid environments, playas are keystone ecosystems in the western Great Plains of North America. Providing irreplaceable habitat for native plants and animals, including migratory birds, they are essential for the maintenance of biotic diversity throughout the region. Playas also serve to recharge the aquifer that supplies much of the water for the Plains states. At the same time, however, large-scale habitat changes have endangered playas across the Great Plains, making urgent the need to understand their ecology and implement effective conservation measures.

This book provides a state-of-the-art survey of all that is currently known about Great Plains playa ecology and conservation. Loren Smith synthesizes his own extensive research with other published studies to define playas and characterize their origin, development, flora, fauna, structure, function, and diversity. He also thoroughly explores the human relationship with playas from prehistoric times, when they served as campsites for the Clovis peoples, to today's threats to playa ecosystems from agricultural activities and global climate change. A blueprint for government agencies, private conservation groups, and concerned citizens to save these unique prairie ecosystems concludes this landmark study.

Wetlands and riparian areas between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada are incredibly diverse and valuable habitats. More than 80 percent of the wildlife species in this intermountain region depend on these wetlands—which account for less than 2 percent of the land area—for their survival. At the same time, the wetlands also serve the water needs of ranchers and farmers, recreationists, vacation communities, and cities. It is no exaggeration to call water the "liquid gold" of the West, and the burgeoning human demands on this scarce resource make it imperative to understand and properly manage the wetlands and riverine areas of the Intermountain West.

This book offers land managers, biologists, and research scientists a state-of-the-art survey of the ecology and management practices of wetland and riparian areas in the Intermountain West. Twelve articles examine such diverse issues as laws and regulations affecting these habitats, the unique physiographic features of the region, the importance of wetlands and riparian areas to fish, wildlife, and livestock, the ecological function of these areas, their value to humans, and the methods to evaluate these habitats. The authors also address the human impacts on the land from urban and suburban development, mining, grazing, energy extraction, recreation, water diversions, and timber harvesting and suggest ways to mitigate such impacts.

Louisiana's Chenier Plain is a 2,200-square-mile region of marshes and oak-covered ridges (cheniers) that stretches along the Gulf of Mexico from Sabine Lake to Vermilion Bay. Its inhabitants, some 6,000 people of Cajun and other ancestries, retain strong economic and cultural ties to the land and its teeming wildlife. They call it paradise...but it is a vulnerable paradise. In this multifaceted study, Gay Gomez explores the interaction of the land, people, and wildlife of the Chenier Plain, revealing both the uniqueness of the region and the challenges it faces.

After describing the geography and history of the Chenier Plain, Gomez turns to the lifeways of its people. Drawing on their words and stories, she tells how the chenier dwellers combine modern occupations with traditional pursuits such as alligator and waterfowl hunting, fur trapping, and fishing. She shows how these traditions of wildlife use provide both economic incentives for conservation and a source of personal and place identity. This portrait of a "working wetland" reveals how wildlife use and appreciation can give rise to a stewardship that balances biological, economic, and cultural concerns in species and habitat protection.