Conservation Science

From best-selling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce.

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.

Leaving from Brooklyn, New York, in August 1911, John Muir, at the age of seventy-three and traveling alone, embarked on an eight-month, 40,000-mile voyage to South America and Africa. The 1911-12 journals and correspondence reproduced in this volume allow us to travel with him up the great Amazon, into the jungles of southern Brazil, to snowline in the Andes, through southern and central Africa to the headwaters of the Nile, and across six oceans and seas in order to reach the rare forests he had so long wished to study.

As climate change has escalated into a crisis, the reuse of existing structures is the only way to even begin to preserve our wood, sand, silicon, and iron, let alone stop belching carbon monoxide into the air. Our housing crisis means that we need usable buildings now more than ever, but architect and critic Aaron Betsky shows that new construction—often seeking to maximize profits rather than resources, often soulless in its feel—is not the answer.

You’ve heard the hard-hitting data and you’ve seen the documentaries. But what will it truly take for humanity to change? We will not tackle the climate catastrophe with data alone – we need new stories and new ways of seeing and thinking. By drawing on traditional eco-philosophies and Buddhist wisdom, Erik Jampa Andersson offers an approach to our environmental emergency that will make us rethink the very nature of our existence on this incredible planet.

In a prizewinning five-year investigation, authors Simen Sætre and Kjetil Østli took an in-depth look at Norway’s role in the global salmon industry and, for the first time, produced a comprehensive evaluation of the detrimental effects of salmon farming. From lice to escapees, from concentrating the waste of sea pens in the fjords through which wild salmon swim to their natal streams to the fact that salmon farming causes a net reduction of protein reaped from the ocean, the results don’t look good.

Like many of us, Lisa Wells has spent years overwhelmed by news of apocalyptic-scale climate change and a coming sixth extinction. She did not need to be convinced of the stakes. But what can be done? Wells embarked on a pilgrimage, seeking answers in dedicated communities - outcasts and visionaries - on the margins of society.

Gerald Durrell's last book, The Aye-Aye and I, records his final animal-collecting expedition, a trip to Madagascar in 1990, and his efforts to save the elusive and mythical lemuroid known as the Aye-Aye. Prompted by the country's radical deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture, Durrell, his wife, and their team of zoologists embark on a mission to capture and conserve the species - distinguished by its "giant, chisel-like teeth", "round, hypnotic eyes", and large "spoon-like ears".

In this inspiring manifesto, an internationally renowned ecologist makes a clear case for why protecting nature is our best health insurance, and why it makes economic sense.

With answers to over 140 everyday green-living questions, Is It Really Green? cuts through the confusion and gives you the facts. Get to the heart of each eco-conundrum, interrogate your instincts, and make informed decisions to reduce your carbon footprint, with help from bite-sized stats and action points. In this complex and shifting landscape where nothing is simple, what we all need is clear facts and careful debate. Let this book be your antidote to the confusion.

If you want to save the planet, but your to-do list is already pretty long, and remembering your reusable coffee cup feels like a Herculean task, then this is the book for you. Covering every aspect of our lives from the stuff we buy and the food we eat, to how we travel, work, and celebrate. This audiobook provides stacks of practical ideas to slot into your daily life, alongside a gentle kick up the butt to put your newfound knowledge into action.

The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.

Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes - epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions - have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them.

As one of the world’s leading field biologists, George Schaller has spent much of his life traversing wild and isolated places in his quest to understand and conserve threatened species - from mountain gorillas in the Virunga to pandas in the Wolong and snow leopards in the Himalaya. Throughout his celebrated career, Schaller has spent more time in Tibet than in any other part of the world, devoting more than thirty years to the wildlife, culture, and landscapes that captured his heart and continue to compel him.

This thoroughly researched and wholly engaging book investigates the economic, ecological, political, and psychological issues behind the Keystone XL pipeline-a project so controversial it has inspired the largest expression of civil disobedience since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. With enough carbon trapped in the Canadian tar sands to plunge the Earth into irreversible climate change, it is the Keystone XL pipeline that will set that carbon free.

This audiobook narrated by Jennifer Woodward explains why acknowledging diverse eco-social relationships can help us overcome the political polarization that undermines our ability to protect the environment.

Once, farmers knew how to make a living hedge and fed their flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts, and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls, and baskets. No place could prosper without its inhabitants knowing how to cut their trees so they would sprout again. This created the healthiest, most sustainable, and most diverse woodlands that we have ever known. In this journey from the English fens to Spain, Japan, and California, William Bryant Logan rediscovers what was once an everyday ecology.

Close to Adam Nicolson’s home in Sussex, there is a forgotten field overrun by bracken and thicketed by brambles. It is the haunt of deer and many birds – nightingales, the occasional cuckoo, ravens, robins, owls and in summer the sweet-singing warblers that come north from Africa to breed in English woods. This gorgeous book charts his attempt to encounter birds, to engage with a marvellous layer of life he had previously almost ignored. He wanted to look and listen, to return to ‘bird school’ and see what it might teach him.

In this Very Short Introduction, Nick Jenkins explores our historic investment in the exploitation of fossil energy resources and their current importance, and discusses the implications of our increasing rate of energy use. He considers the widespread acceptance by scientists and policy makers that our energy systems must reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and looks forward to the radical changes in fuel technology that will be necessary to continue to provide energy supplies in a sustainable manner, and extend access across the developing world.

Dylan Tomine takes us to the far reaches of the planet in search of fish and adventure, with keen insight, a strong stomach, and plenty of laughs along the way. Closer to home, he wades deeper into his beloved steelhead rivers of the Pacific Northwest and the politics of saving them. Tomine celebrates the joy - and pain - of exploration, fatherhood, and the comforts of home waters from a vantage point well off the beaten path. Headwaters traces the evolution of a lifelong angler’s priorities from fishing to the survival of the fish themselves.