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Most conifer guides available for the Pacific Northwest focus on native species observed in the wild. Native and Ornamental Conifers in the Pacific Northwest presents an integrated perspective for understanding and identifying conifers in any landscape where native and ornamental species grow alongside each other. It is suitable for landscape designers, horticulturalists, arborists, gardeners, environmental scientists, and botanists.

Based on her experiences teaching workshops on conifer identification and cultivation, Elizabeth Price has developed Jargon-free photographic charts, which allow for side-by-side comparison of conifer features and guide the reader to species identification. The charts are detailed enough for specialists yet accessible to amateurs.

The book includes extensive material on the characteristics, botany, and natural history of conifer plant families, genera, and species, all illustrated with original photographs. Research across many disciplines is blended with direct observation and personal experience, creating a book that goes beyond identification and is both rigorous and engaging.

In Nature on the Edge, ecologist Bruce Byers offers readers new perspectives on two iconic California coastal regions, San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate and the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. While many people—in California and elsewhere—are familiar with these two areas, they may not know that they are part of a network of international biosphere reserves organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Nature on the Edge traces the history of nature conservation in these places and introduces the committed individuals who led those efforts and model effective action.
 
In compelling dispatches from the edge of the continent, Byers explores topics ranging from butterflies to scrub jays, from salmon to whales. He describes the natural history, ecology, and evolution of key species and ecosystems in scientifically sound but accessible language, and notes that despite all we know, fascinating ecological mysteries still abound. Byers also surveys ecocentric philosophies and worldviews rooted in these places and argues for their importance in developing a more harmonious and sustainable relationship between humans and our home planet.
 
UNESCO biosphere reserves are laboratories for understanding how humans affect ecosystems and models for how we can heal the human-nature relationship. While the biosphere concept and network has existed for fifty years now, it is still not well-known by the general public. Today, the US has twenty-eight biosphere reserves. By focusing on two beloved sites in California, Byers draws attention to the important work being done in these reserves around the world, with the goal of inspiring readers to reflection, action, and hope in the face of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental challenges.
 

In Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico, artisanal fishing families and staff of Loreto Bay National Park face an array of choices as tourism, environmental concerns, and economic precarity challenge livelihoods and natural resource availability. In Net Values, Nicole D. Peterson offers a critical examination of how the idea of “choice” is understood, and what it means for policies, planning, and programs to ignore the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts surrounding these choices.

Anchored by more than twenty years of research, Peterson provides insight into the fishing community of Loreto and reveals an important role in decision-making that diverges from previous studies. She argues that decisions about fishing, natural resource management, and other aspects of life are influenced by context, values, and expectations in ways that go beyond the typical psychological or cognitive theories of choice. Instead, Net Values highlights the ways that choices are constrained and enabled by values and expectations of cultures, histories, relationships, and experiences, both personal and shared. Peterson answers questions such as “why do the fishermen fish?” or “what is the marine park staff doing?” These decisions and choices are related to the larger implication addressed by this book: that in order to make effective policies around natural resource management and other issues, we must understand how those potential policies interact with the decision processes already underway.

Divided into five chapters, Net Values is rich in ethnographic detail, drawing from real people to inform the narratives, chapters, and theoretical elaboration. Peterson’s interactions with fishers such as Don Javier and his family and friends support the ideas offered around choice, values, and strategies, connecting ideas to real experiences.