Conservation Science

When Arjan Dwarshuis first heard of the “Big Year”—the legendary record for birdwatching—he was twenty years old, it was midnight, and he was sitting on the roof of a truck in the Andean Mountains. In that moment he promised himself that, someday, somehow, he would become a world-record-holding birder. Ten years later, he embarked on an incredible, arduous, and perilous journey that took him around the globe; over uninhabited islands, through dense unforgiving rainforests, across snowy mountain peaks and unrelenting deserts—in just a single year.

Bottled & Sold shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last 100 years - and why we are poorer for it. It's a big story and water is big business. Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than 30 billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales. Are there legitimate reasons to buy all those bottles?

The last decade has seen an explosion of urban beekeeping in the US, Canada, and Europe, a well-intentioned response to perceived threats to the global honey bee population. Many thousands of people have taken up this seemingly environmentally friendly hobby, tending backyard and rooftop hives (or paying a company to do so) and encouraging honey bees to make honey and pollinate flowers. What could be wrong with that? Quite a lot, in fact. In The Honey Trap, scientist and author Dana Church demonstrates that despite reports to the contrary, honey bees are nowhere near extinction.

Journalist Dom Phillips traveled deep into the Amazon rainforest searching for solutions to the problem of deforestation, a threat to the local ecosystem, native tribes, and the global climate. When he was murdered in the Javari Valley by a group of environmental criminals, a cohort of journalists and activists took up his work to finish his book and share his important message.

Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.

In this dynamic account, award-winning author Paul Fleischman arms teens with the basic tools to uncover vested interests and falsehoods by vetting sources, following the money, and checking references so that they can make informed decisions about what actions to take in the worldwide battle against climate change, overconsumption, and dwindling resources.

A lyrical exploration of the world’s wildest, most forbiddingly remote places—and the humans who have always been there, by an award-winning and critically acclaimed writer From the blacksand beaches of Iceland, to river crossings deep in the Amazon jungle, to the barren beauty of Antarctica...

The Accidental Ecosystem tells the story of how cities across the United States went from having little wildlife to filling, dramatically and unexpectedly, with wild creatures. Today, many of these cities have more wild animals living in them than at any time in at least the past 150 years. Why have so many cities—the most artificial and human-dominated of all Earth's ecosystems—grown rich with wildlife, even as wildlife has declined in most of the rest of the world? And what does this paradox mean for people, wildlife, and nature on our increasingly urban planet?

In Curlew Moon, Mary Colwell takes us on a 500 mile journey on foot from the west coast of Ireland to the east coast of England, to discover what is happening to this beautiful and much-loved bird. She sets off in early spring, when the birds are arriving on their breeding grounds, watches them nesting in the hills of Wales and walks through England when the young are hatching. She finishes her walk on the coast of Lincolnshire when the fledglings are trying out their wings. This is also the place many curlews will return to for the winter months.

In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion's share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world's megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk.

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".

The complete text of the landmark encyclical letter from Pope Francis that, as Time magazine reported, “rocked the international community” In the Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, the beloved Pope exhorts the world to combat environmental degradation and its impact on the poor...

In Once and Future Giants, science writer Sharon Levy digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene large animal ("megafauna") extinction events worldwide, showing that understanding this history - and our part in it - is crucial for protecting the elephants, polar bears, and other great creatures at risk today. These surviving relatives of the Ice Age beasts now face an intensified replay of that great die-off, as our species usurps the planet's last wild places while driving a warming trend more extreme than any in mammalian history.

From Dr. Tim Flannery, one of the world's foremost experts on conservation and ecology, comes a book of immeasurable importance. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as a "powerful and persuasive" work that is "sure to provoke strong reaction", The Weather Makers is among the finest examinations of climate change ever written.

As a mother of two children and a fur baby, I am always thinking of ways to make this world a better place for my kids. One big thing I noticed is how much trash we throw away and accumulate on this earth. After doing some research, I found that composting organic waste versus landfilling can reduce more than 50 percent of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a growing crisis in our oceans as rates of infectious disease outbreaks are on the rise. A warmer world is a sicker world for humans and wild biota. Marine epidemics have caused mass die-offs of wildlife from the bottom to the top of the food chains, impacting the health of ocean ecosystems as well as lives on land. Fueled by a warming ocean and accelerated by sewage dumping, unregulated aquaculture, and drifting plastic, ocean outbreaks are sentinels of impending global environmental disaster.

Sharks are some of the most fascinating and ecologically important, yet most threatened and misunderstood animals on Earth. More often feared than revered, their role as predators of the deep has earned them a reputation as a major threat to humans. But the truth is that sharks are not a danger to us—they’re in danger from us. In Why Sharks Matter, marine conservation biologist Dr. David Shiffman urges us to overcome our misconceptions and embrace sharks as the imperiled and elegant ocean guardians they really are.

A powerful feminist nature writing by the pioneer of women's big wave surfing in Ireland. Easkey Britton provides a rare female perspective on surfing, exploring the mental skills it fosters and the need to recognize the value of the ocean and of nature's cycles in our lives. This is an incredibly inspiring exploration of the sea's role in the wellness of people and the planet, beautifully written by Easkey Britton - surfer, scientist, and social activist. For Easkey, the sea is a source of mental and physical well-being.

How can we begin to talk about what is happening to the world? We are facing a global emergency. Temperatures are rising. Mass species extinction has begun. The time for denial is over. It is time to act. Letters to the Earth is the beginning of a new story. It is an invitation to act and an opportunity to extend the invitation. These letters are the result of a callout from Culture Declares Emergency to the public to write a response to climate and ecological emergency.

As climate change and development pressures overwhelm the environment, our emotional relationships with Earth are also in crisis. Pessimism and distress are overwhelming people the world over. In this maelstrom of emotion, solastalgia, the homesickness you have when you are still at home, has become, writes Glenn A. Albrecht, one of the defining emotions of the 21st century.