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Windswept beaches, rolling hill country, steep slopes, broad green river valleys, beaver ponds, dense cedar swamps, spectacular water falls, iron forges, and tranquil villages are all part of New Jersey's landscape.There is no better way to appreciate and understand this landscape than to walk through it. For years, hikers have treasured Kevin Dann's 25 Walks in New Jersey. Now Kevin Dann and Gordon Miller expanded that classic guide. In addition to revising and updating the original twenty-five walks, they have included five new walks in Salem, Bridgeton, Burlington, Allaire State Park, and Moore's Beach.

The thirty walks range from two-hour jaunts over level terrain to more taxing full-day hikes. Walks in the Kittatiny Ridge, the Highlands, the Piedmont, the Delaware River Valley, the Pinelands, Cape May, along the Atlantic Coast, and communities of historical interest are all included. For each trip, the authors guide the walker along the way, pointing out distinctive rock formations, plant communities, and wildlife as well as noting the ways human activity has shaped the landscape. They provide clear maps to the route, directions, and hours of operation.

Nature writer Candice Andrews weaves together contemporary observations and historical reminisces in Beyond the Trees: Stories of Wisconsin Forests. Readers will journey to some of the most pristine and notable places in the Upper Midwest—Wisconsin’s state and national forests.

The diversity of landscapes evoked in Beyond the Trees is matched only by the characters who inhabit them. Traverse the footsteps of Ojibwe hunters and early explorers in the remote woods of Brule River State Forest. Trek past the remains of bygone logging and CCC camps in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Glimpse into the world of Great Lakes shipping in Point Beach State Forest. Walk on trails named after John Muir and Increase Lapham in the Kettle Moraine State Forest, and experience urban green space at Milwaukee’s Havenwoods State Forest. From orchids to oak savanna, beaver to brook trout, and white-tailed deer to timber wolves, discover Wisconsin’s wildlife and flora and fauna. Archival images, informative sidebars, locator maps, and contact information for Wisconsin state and national forests round out this unique book.

Exploring the Big Woods: A Guide to the Last Great Forest of Eastern Arkansas is both a natural history and a guide to one of the last remnants of Mississippi bottomland forest, an ecosystem that once stretched from southern Illinois to the Gulf Coast.

Crossed by the White River and its tributaries, which periodically flood and release nutrients, the Big Woods is one of the few places in the Mississippi River Valley where this life-giving flood cycle persists. As a result, it is home to an unusual abundance of animals and plants.

Immense cypresses, hickories, sweetgums, oaks, and sycamores; millions of migrating waterfowl; incredible scenery; and the complex relationship between humans and nature are all to be discovered here.

Exploring the Big Woods will introduce readers to the natural features, plants, animals, and hiking and canoeing trails going deep into the forests and swamps of this rare and beautiful natural resource.

The national forests lay across America's diverse ecological and political geography, their 191 million acres ocuppying about 10 percent of the nation's land base. On the occasion of the centennial of the National Forest System, Origins of the National Forests examines the issues that have confronted the development, management, and use of the national forests since their inception in 1891.
The national forests are a major source of wood, water, minerals, forage, animal life and habitat, and wilderness. Yet questions of who controls and who benefits from the resources have posed problems and conflicts from the origins of the Forest Service to the present. Based on a 1991 Forest History Society conference, the essays collected here discuss a range of important topics surrounding our national forests, including the relationship between the federal and state systems that regulate the forests; the privately owned lands within the forests that are governed by federal statutes, state laws, and county ordinances; the ill-defined rights of those who lived on the land long before it was a national forest and were forced off the land; and the effect of early policymaking decisions made within the framework of the emerging Conservation Movement.

Contributors. Ron Arnold, Pamela A. Conners, Mary S. Culpin, Stanley Dempsey, Peter Gillis, Donn E. Headley, Robert L. Hendricks, Stephen Larrabee, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Dennis L. Lynch, Michael McCarthy, Char Miller, Joseph A. Miller, James Muhn, Kevin Palmer, Donald Pisani, John F. Reiger, William Rowley, Michael Ryan, William E. Shands, Harold K. Steen, Richard White, Gerald W. Williams

The subject of historic struggle and contemporary dispute, public lands in the United States are treasured spaces. In Public Lands, Public Debates, environmental historian Char Miller explores the history of conservation thinking and the development of a government agency with stewardship at its mission.

 

Owned in common, our national forests, monuments, parks, and preserves are funded through federal tax receipts, making these public lands national in scope and significance. Their controversial histories demonstrate their vulnerability to shifting tides of public opinion, alterations in fiscal support, and overlapping authorities for their management—including federal, state, and local mandates, as well as critical tribal prerogatives and military claims.

 

Miller takes the Forest Service as a gauge of the broader debates in which Americans have engaged since the late nineteenth century. In nineteen essays,he examines critical moments of public and private negotiation to help explain the particular, and occasionally peculiar, tensions that have shaped the administration of public lands in the United States.

 

 “Watching democracy at work can be bewildering, even frustrating, but the only way individuals and organizations can sift through the often messy business of public deliberation is to deliberate...”

The Iowa state preserves system was created in 1965; a decade later, thirty preserves had been dedicated, including “six native prairies, a native White Pine stand, the state's only Sphagnum bog, a Balsam Fir stand, some of the oldest exposed rock outcrops in the world, an ancient fort, a fen, several Indian mound groups and a historical cemetery.” This new guide to all ninety Iowa state preserves—biological, geological, archaeological, historical, and scenic—describes the state's most treasured prairies and forests, quartzite outcrops and ice caves, and Indian mounds and wetlands as well as such historic sites as Fort Atkinson and Montauk.

Each entry includes two-color, progressively scaled maps giving the location of the preserve within the state, within its county, relative to a nearby town (with a recommended driving route), and on the local landscape (using USGS 7.5-minute topo maps). Also included are written directions (using 911 street names and signs); a description of the preserve's size, features, and history; a list of nearby or similar preserves, parks, natural areas, and other attractions; recommended readings; and contact information. (There are a few exceptions for privately owned or fragile preserves.) For travelers, a map in the introduction numbers all the preserves both geographically and alphabetically by name.

Although the preserves system emphasizes preservation rather than recreation, some preserves do have formal trails; some allow hunting, horseback riding, and canoeing; a few have museums or nature centers. This comprehensive guide allows visitors to plan active and informative visits to sites that highlight Iowa's natural and cultural heritage.

Jim Furnish joined the U.S. Forest Service in 1965, enthusiastic and naive, proud to be part of such a storied and accomplished agency. Nothing could have prepared him for the crisis that would soon rock the agency to its foundation, as a burgeoning environmental movement challenged the Forest Service’s legacy and legitimacy.

The Forest Service stumbled in responding to a wave of lawsuits from environmental groups in the late 20th Century—a phenomenon best symbolized by the spotted owl controversy that shut down logging on public forests in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s. The agency was brought to its knees, pitted between a powerful timber industry that had been having its way with the national forests for decades, and organized environmentalists who believed public lands had been abused and deserved better stewardship.

Toward a Natural Forest offers an insider’s view of this tumultuous time in the history of the Forest Service, presenting twin tales of transformation, both within the agency and within the author’s evolving environmental consciousness. While stewarding our national forests with the best of intentions, had the Forest Service diminished their natural essence and ecological values? How could one man confront the crisis while remaining loyal to his employer?

In this revealing memoir, Furnish addresses the fundamental human drive to gain sustenance from and protect the Earth, believing that we need not destroy it in the process. Drawing on the author’s personal experience and his broad professional knowledge, Toward a Natural Forest illuminates the potential of the Forest Service to provide strong leadership in global conservation efforts. Those interested in our public lands—environmentalists, natural resource professionals, academics, and historians—will find Jim Furnish’s story deeply informed, thought-provoking, and ultimately inspiring.