Reclaiming the Last Wild Places

Reclaiming the Last Wild Places

Author: Roger L. DiSilvestro

Publisher:

Published: 1993-06-18

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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In tracing the history of conservation and federal land management in America from the nineteenth century to the present, DiSilvestro highlights the fundamental misconceptions, tactical errors, and fatal compromises that were made along the way.


The Last Wild Places of Kansas

The Last Wild Places of Kansas

Author: George Frazier

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2017-02-16

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 0700624821

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Since the last wild bison found refuge on the back of a nickel, the public image of natural Kansas has progressed from Great American Desert to dust bowl to flyover country that has been landscaped, fenced, and farmed. But look a little harder, George Frazier suggests, and you can find the last places where tenacious stretches of prairie, forest, and wetland cheat death and incubate the DNA of lost, wild America. Documenting three years spent roaming the state in search of these hidden treasures, The Last Wild Places of Kansas is Frazier's idiosyncratic and eye-opening travelogue of nature's secret holdouts in the Sunflower State. These are places where extirpated mammalian species are making comebacks; where flying squirrels leap between centuries-old trees lit by the unearthly green glow of foxfire; where cold springs feed ancient watercress pools; where the ice moon paints the Smoky Hills with memories of the buffalo, wolf, and the lonesome rattle of false indigo; where the blue lid of the sky forms a vacuum seal over treeless pastel hills, orange in winter; where bluestem rises. Some are impossible to find on maps. Most are magnificently bereft of anything beneficial to 99.9 percent of modern America. True wildernesses they may not be, but at the correct angle of light, when the wind blows pollen carrying biological memories of the glaciers, these places are a crack between the worlds, portals to the lost buffalo wilderness. En route Frazier takes us from the unexpected wilds of the Kansas City suburbs to the Cimarron National Grassland in the far southwestern corner of the state. He visits ancient springs, shares a beer with prairie dog hunters, and fails in his mission to canoe the upper Marais des Cygnes—a trip that requires permission from every landowner on the route. Along the way we encounter a host of curious characters—ranchers, farmers, Native Americans, explorers, wildlife experts, and outdoor enthusiasts—all fellow travelers in a quest to know, preserve, and share the last wild places of Kansas.


Salvaging Nature

Salvaging Nature

Author: Marcus Colchester

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 91

ISBN-13: 0788171941

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BG (copy 1): From the John Holmes Library collection.


Biological Diversity

Biological Diversity

Author: L. N. Petrov

Publisher: Nova Publishers

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9781590335284

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One of the cornerstones of life's wonders is the vast array of species filling the planet. From plants to animals to humans, there is no shortage of beings to provide 'spice of life' variety is said to be. Periodically, scientists announce the discovery of a 'new' form of life, so it seems as if Earth is capable of producing new species just to keep us on our toes. At times, the immense breadth of living things can even feel overwhelming, as one pauses to ponder how numerically insignificant humans are when compared to the insect population. Given the biological diversity of the planet, it is incumbent upon humans to safeguard the natural beauty of the environment. To that end, conservation takes on special importance, necessitating the balancing of industrial expansion with preserving the flora and fauna surrounding us. This book is an important tool in understanding and researching the many different life forms spanning the globe. Collected here is a substantial and carefully selected listing of relevant literature on biological diversity and its conservation. Following this bibliography are author, title, and subject indexes to allow for further access to this information. The sheer bulk of the works about biological diversity can be so intimidating that a book such as this one becomes useful in sorting through the resources about the importance of life's variety.


Return of the Bison

Return of the Bison

Author: Roger Di Silvestro

Publisher: Mountaineers Books

Published: 2023-09-01

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1680515845

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Offers a hopeful view of threatened species, grounded in history and science Addresses current conservation trends: wildlife corridors, prairie restoration, cultural restoration for the American Indian community Return of the Bison is the story of how this symbol of the American West was once almost lost to history and of the continuing journey to bring bison back from the brink. Author and naturalist Roger Di Silvestro explores the complex history of the bison’s decimation and how a rising awareness of their possible extinction formed the roots of many modern wildlife conservation approaches. Weaving in natural history and fascinating historical context featuring personalities such as Teddy Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and William T. Hornaday, Di Silvestro traces the decades it took to begin to save the bison, often with little hope and plagued by discouraging setbacks. Di Silvestro explores the key role in the story of America’s Indigenous people, whose fate was intertwined with the bison’s and whose conservation work is important not only for the animal’s recovery but also for their own cultural renewal. Di Silvestro also examines the plight of European bison and the latest challenges facing the species in the US: Are the bison doomed to be treated like cattle, fenced and contained? Or will they be listed as an endangered species, requiring us to treat them like the wild animals they are?


Preserving Public Lands for the Future

Preserving Public Lands for the Future

Author: William R. Lowry

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 1998-10-01

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9781589013957

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Comparing national efforts to preserve public lands, William R. Lowry investigates how effectively and under what conditions governments can provide goods for future generations. Providing intergenerational goods, ranging from balanced budgets to space programs and natural environments, is particularly challenging because most political incentives reward short-term behavior. Lowry examines the effect of institutional structure on the public delivery of these goods. He offers a theoretical framework accounting for both the necessary conditions — public demand, political stability, and official commitment to long-term delivery — and constraining factors — the tensions between public agencies and politicians as well as between different levels of government — that determine the ability of a nation to achieve long-term goals. In support of this argument, Lowry evaluates data on park systems from more than one hundred countries and provides in-depth case studies of four — he United States, Australia, Canada, and Costa Rica — to show how and why the delivery of intergenerational goods can vary. For each of the cases, he reviews background information, discusses constraints on agency behavior, and assesses expansion of the park systems and restoration of natural conditions at specific locations. This extensive comparative analysis of the preservation of public lands offers new insights into the capability of nations to pursue long-term goals.


Conservation

Conservation

Author: Monique Borgerhoff Mulder

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0691186693

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Nearly 90 percent of the earth's land surface is directly affected by human infrastructure and activities, yet less than 5 percent is legally "protected" for biodiversity conservation--and even most large protected areas have people living inside their boundaries. In all but a small fraction of the earth's land area, then, conservation and people must coexist. Conservation is a resource for all those who aim to reconcile biodiversity with human livelihoods. It traces the historical roots of modern conservation thought and practice, and explores current perspectives from evolutionary and community ecology, conservation biology, anthropology, political ecology, economics, and policy. The authors examine a suite of conservation strategies and perspectives from around the world, highlighting the most innovative and promising avenues for future efforts. Exploring, highlighting, and bridging gaps between the social and natural sciences as applied in the practice of conservation, this book provides a broad, practically oriented view. It is essential reading for anyone involved in the conservation process--from academic conservation biology to the management of protected areas, rural livelihood development to poverty alleviation, and from community-based natural resource management to national and global policymaking.


Bioregional Planning

Bioregional Planning

Author: D J Brunckhorst

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-11

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1134433182

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Presenting a pragmatic mixture of science, landscape ecology, ecosystem management, sociology, policy development and methods for transforming social and institutional cultures. Bioregional Planning: Resource Management Beyond the New Millennium is a timely and practical guide for the analysis, planning and development of bioregional projects for a sustainable future. Significantly, this book presents the strategic actions necessary to plan for, manage and adapt to Ecologically Sustainable Development with a view beyond the new millennium and towards the next. Postgraduates, researchers and policy makers in natural resources management, land planning, sustainable agriculture, rural sciences, ecosystem management and conservation biology will find this book captures the essence of bioregional planning succinctly and makes a compelling argument for why it is a key mechanism in the development of effective governance institutions.


The Full Value of Parks

The Full Value of Parks

Author: David Harmon

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780742527157

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Parks are important economic vehicles, generating billions of dollars worldwide in tourism revenue. However, the reasons for that visitation are found in the non-material, non-economic values that parks offer to people: values that are cultural, therapeutic, scientific, spiritual, recreational, educational, and aesthetic/artistic. The Full Value of Parks is the first comprehensive analysis of these important, but intangible, values.


The American Wilderness

The American Wilderness

Author: Thomas R. Vale

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780813923369

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Interpretations of wild nature and wilderness are particularly diverse in the American mind, given our history, our collective economic success, and our diverse social and cultural mix. Although the meanings we attribute to nature reflect our different views of the role humans should play in the natural world, there remains a divide between how we embrace protected landscapes and how we consider natural landscapes, or nature itself. Thomas Vale explores this phenomenon in The American Wilderness: Reflections on Nature Protection in the United States. In his examination of protected landscapes at all scales, from the wooded corners of a city park and the local reserve of wetland, to the vast wilderness of the Everglades and Okeefenokee, to Central Park and Yosemite, Vale argues that nature protection is an act of place-creation, an act that necessarily links humans to nature and depends on a diverse array of human interactions. A rare combination of celebration and criticism, Vale's argument is twofold: landscapes of protected nature in the United States represent a legitimate natural resource, and contrary to expressions in some recent literature, such landscapes bond people to nature. Providing extensive historical and modern data about the national park, national wilderness, and national wildlife refuge systems, Vale argues for the validity of landscape protection and the benefits of achieving both strict preserves and mixed-commodity places in a democratic society. His goal is to unite the often disparate threads of nature protection into a fabric that will enhance an appreciation for the extent and richness of nature protection sentiment and action in the United States.