Conservation Environment

Cute and cuddly yet powerful and fierce, polar bears are loved by people around the world. But the great bear of the north is in trouble. Its habitat is disappearing, and its food supply is dwindling. Learn more about these amazing animals, their Arctic homes, what the eat, and what you can do to help.

Many people think penguins live only in cold, icy places. But the Galapagos penguins live in the blazing heat of the tropics. While this may seem like paradise, the Galapagos penguins are always on the lookout for ways to stay cool and comfortable. Learn more about these adorable animals, including how they got to the tropics, what they eat, other challenges they face in their lives, and what you can do to help.

Leatherback sea turtles face one of their lives’ biggest challenges as soon as they’re hatched. Crawling out of their eggs on the sandy shore, they hurry to the sea in a race to escape those who see them as a tasty meal. If they survive and thrive, they can grow longer than an adult male is tall and weigh as much as a small car!

Grab an old pair of jeans and get to work. Create a fashionable pocket purse. Braid a belt. Decorate your room with denim. Learn how to make all of these projects and more when you reuse what you already have. Who knew you could do so much with an old pair of jeans?

Learn about endangered and threatened animals.

You can't recycle a banana peel...can you? Learn about how composting your food scraps, egg cartons, and other wastes helps make Earth a greener place.

What’s that red-haired animal swinging through the rain forest’s trees seemingly without a care in the world? It’s an orangutan! Aside from all that red hair, these beautiful beasts look almost human, but they’re a lot stronger. Learn more about these colorful animals, including how they live, how clever they are, how they’re dealing with a shrinking habitat, and what you can do to help.

A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil—the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wrought Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water...

Award-winning journalist Eugene Linden has written numerous critically acclaimed works on the environment. In The Ragged Edge of the World, Linden recounts his experiences in locales ranging from Vietnam to Antarctica, offering an intimate look at creatures and cultures struggling to adapt to globalization.

America’s public lands include more than 600 million acres of forests, plains, mountains, wetlands, deserts, and shorelines. In this book, John Leshy, a leading expert in public lands policy, discusses the key political decisions that led to this, beginning at the very founding of the nation. He traces the emergence of a bipartisan political consensus in favor of the national government holding these vast land areas primarily for recreation, education, and conservation of biodiversity and cultural resources.

The bee recalls us to our Soul. One wing in the wild world and one in the domestic, she offers herself as a creator of relationships, a guide, and a teacher of the complex and intriguing mysteries of the Universe. The bee is a companion, a counsellor, an ally. She unites the personal and the universal.

Ecological Intelligence argues that "green" labels and recycling programs may do more harm than good by feeding a vital lie, lulling us into the illusion that we are doing enough already while ignoring the adverse impact of the far vaster proportion of what we buy and do.

Before 1910 the American chestnut was one of the most common trees in the eastern United States. An important natural resource, chestnut wood was preferred for woodworking, fencing, and building construction, as it was rot resistant and straight grained. The hearty and delicious nuts also fed wildlife, people, and livestock.

Yellowstone is America's premier national park. Today Yellowstone is often a byword for conservation, natural beauty, and a way for everyone to enjoy the great outdoors. But it was not always this way. Wonderlandscape presents a new perspective on Yellowstone, the emotions that various natural wonders and attractions evoke, and how this explains the park's relationship to America as a whole.

When we humans love foods, we love them a lot. In fact, we have often eaten them into extinction, whether it is the megafauna of the Paleolithic world or the passenger pigeon of the last century. In Lost Feast, food expert Lenore Newman sets out to look at the history of the foods we have loved to death and what that means for the culinary paths we choose for the future.

Critically acclaimed children’s author Jonah Winter reimagines a true story from 1987. The small Long Island town of Islip has a big problem - 3,168 tons of garbage and no place to put it! So workers pile the smelly refuse on a large barge, hire a tug boat, and send the stuff south to find a final resting place. But as the barge travels from North Carolina to New Orleans and from Mexico to Belize - nobody wants Islip’s rotting mountain of garbage.

The cod is a large, ugly fish that spends its life with its big mouth wide open for food. For centuries, so many cod lived in the Atlantic Ocean they couldn’t swim without bumping into each other. They were so plentiful that they became the most important fish in many cultures. Best-selling author Mark Kurlansky brings history to life with this entertaining story of how a single fish changed the world.

There is no animal in the world that can run faster than a cheetah. Yet, no matter how quickly they run from trouble, cheetahs may not roam the African plains forever. They have lost much of their habitat to farmland, and some are killed by farmers who worry about their livestock. But cheetahs have important friends - like Dr. Laurie Marker and the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. Rosanna Hansen - who spent time working at the CCF - shares the fascinating story of cheetah preservation in this book young listeners will find irresistible.

These are the adventures and discoveries of the scientists who revealed the secrets of the Komodo dragon. This strange creature inspired myth and legend, luring brave souls into the forests of Indonesia to see if the tales were true. In the end, it attracted scientists, who unraveled the mysteries of how such a remarkable creature could exist, how it uses the deadly germs in its saliva to its advantage, and how those microbes may lead to cures for stubborn diseases.

This beautiful tale follows a raindrop’s journey on Earth, from the time of the dinosaurs to the creation of the earliest cities and beyond. It explains how Earth has depended on the same water supply throughout its existence by flowing and falling all around us, fueling and forming much of what we have seen and used for millions of years.