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Lake Okoboji in northwest Iowa is the jewel of the Iowa Great Lakes. A region of wetlands formed by prairie potholes, the area is rich with lakes, sloughs, fens, creeks, prairies, and kettleholes. In this readable and beautifully illustrated volume, Michael Lannoo presents an extensive natural history of Okoboji and its cherished wetlands that examines that world of our grandparents, compares it to today's world, and extrapolates to the world of our grandchildren.

During the vast stretches of early geologic time, the islands of the Caribbean archipelago separated from continental land masses, rose and sank many times, merged with and broke from other land masses, and then by the mid-Cenozoic period settled into the current pattern known today. By the time Native Americans arrived, the islands had developed complex, stable ecosystems. The actions these first colonists took on the landscape—timber clearing, cultivation, animal hunting and domestication, fishing and exploitation of reef species—affected fragile land and sea biotic communities in both beneficial and harmful ways.

On Land and Sea examines the condition of biosystems on Caribbean islands at the time of colonization, human interactions with those systems through time, and the current state of biological resources in the West Indies. Drawing on a massive data set collected from long-term archaeological research, the study reconstructs past lifeways on these small tropical islands. The work presents a wide range of information, including types of fuel and construction timber used by inhabitants, cooking techniques for various shellfish, availability and use of medicinal and ritual plants, the effects on native plants and animals of cultivation and domestication, and diet and nutrition of native populations.

The islands of the Caribbean basin continue to be actively excavated and studied in the quest to understand the earliest human inhabitants of the New World. This comprehensive work will ground current and future studies and will be valuable to archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists, ecologists, Caribbeanists, Latin American historians, and anyone studying similar island environments.

 

This study of the Gamtoos River floodplain in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province traces its transformation from an eighteenth-century natural landscape of thick bush into an agricultural zone now threatened by climate change. The first half of the book explains how missionaries from the London Missionary Society and residents of the Hankey Mission Station introduced irrigation, turning the area into a community of small-scale farmers. Despite early failures, by 1849 they had constructed South Africa’s first major irrigation tunnel and aqueduct. However, conflicts between the missionaries and residents led to the loss of communal lands to privatization, which ultimately impoverished the local farmers. The second half explores efforts to develop the valley for large-scale agriculture, addressing challenges like drought, flash floods, and saline water. By the mid-twentieth century, Afrikaners dominated the area, benefiting from the construction in 1970 of the Kouga Dam, which provided fresh water for the floodplain. This led to the rise of a wealthy white farming community, sustained by apartheid policies and labor from the “Coloured” and African populations. In the early twenty-first century, however, this prosperity has become threatened by severe droughts linked to global climate change. In view of these historical transformations, the Gamtoos River floodplain exemplifies the complex interplay between human ambition, environmental challenges, and sociopolitical forces.