There are few places today that are truly wild. Macquarie Island is still one such place-a small, wind-blasted rocky outcrop between Tasmania and Antarctica. In exquisite pictures and words, A Hostile Beauty tells the story of this extraordinary Australian outpost teeming with life. Alistair Dermer's stunning photography gives us an up-close look at the lives of the inhabitants: gentle gentoo penguins, engorged elephant-seal bulls and scavenging skuas, and takes us deep into a landscape that is as beautiful and life-giving as it is hostile and pitiless. Let these superb images, from the fury of the squalling Southern Ocean to the warm, trusting eyes of a seal pup, transport you to one of the most remote and spectacular places on Earth.
Galapagos of the Antarctic - Wild Islands South of New Zealand describes the seven oceanic islands groups to the south of New Zealand. Starting at the Chatham Islands, and moving east to west through the Bounty Islands, Antipodes Islands, Campbell Island, Auckland Island, The Snares and Macquarie Island, this book takes the reader on a journey through a unique part of the world, a wonderland of wildlife galore, unique geology and rich human history. Bursting with stunning photographs and illustrations.
"New Zealand's lonely subantarctic islands - the Antipodes, Bounty, Snares, Campbell and Auckland Islands - lie south of New Zealand on the way to Antarctica. ... Today all five island groups are managed as nature reserves, and acknowledged to be of worldwide ecological importance, with their rare species of birds, marine mammals, insects and plants, and some of the last remaining unmodified environments on Eath."--Jacket.
“This bracing history charts the myths, the exploration, and the inhabitants of the all-too-real and wild circumpolar ocean to our south.” —The Sydney Morning Herald, Pick of the Week Unlike the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic Oceans with their long maritime histories, little is known about the Southern Ocean. This book takes readers beyond the familiar heroic narratives of polar exploration to explore the nature of this stormy circumpolar ocean and its place in Western and Indigenous histories. Drawing from a vast archive of charts and maps, sea captains’ journals, whalers’ log books, missionaries’ correspondence, voyagers’ letters, scientific reports, stories, myths, and her own experiences, Joy McCann embarks on a voyage of discovery across its surfaces and into its depths, revealing its distinctive physical and biological processes as well as the people, species, events, and ideas that have shaped our perceptions of it. The result is both a global story of changing scientific knowledge about oceans and their vulnerability to human actions and a local one, showing how the Southern Ocean has defined and sustained southern environments and people over time. Beautifully and powerfully written, Wild Sea will raise a broader awareness and appreciation of the natural and cultural history of this little-known ocean and its emerging importance as a barometer of planetary climate change. “A sensitive portrait of a complex ecosystem, from krill to blue whales, and of the ice, winds, and currents that are critical to the circulation of the world’s oceans.” —Harper’s “Wilderness seekers will rejoice in this stirring portrait . . . McCann deftly navigates both natural glories and archival complexities.” —Nature
Antarctic Climate Evolution is the first book dedicated to furthering knowledge on the evolution of the world's largest ice sheet over its ~34 million year history. This volume provides the latest information on subjects ranging from terrestrial and marine geology to sedimentology and glacier geophysics. - An overview of Antarctic climate change, analyzing historical, present-day and future developments - Contributions from leading experts and scholars from around the world - Informs and updates climate change scientists and experts in related areas of study
This landmark book unveils the history of defending Australia's natural environment and examines the subject's legal and political contexts from the birth of the nation in 1901 until the advent of the so-called modern era of environmental regulation in the late 1960s. It rejects the mythology that Australia lacked environmental law before the late 1960s in revealing how many of today's environmental laws, from pollution control to nature conservation, emerged from precedents or events much earlier in the 20th century. This history however reveals a discrepancy between lawmakers' greater efficacy to exploit rather than protect the environment, a discrepancy that grew as nature's backlash intensified in a rapidly degrading continent colonised to build the Australian nation. In exploring these dynamics, the book offers a rich tapestry of case studies illustrated with historic photographs that show the origins of Australia's environmental laws and how they borrowed from international precedents or furnished lessons for other nations. Through its multi-disciplinary enquiry, the book offers scholars and students of environmental law, legal history and the environmental humanities a unique story about the failures and successes in the making of environmental law.
