Conservation Science

Despite the undeniable fact that Indigenous communities are among the most affected by climate devastation, Indigenous science is nowhere to be found in mainstream environmental policy or discourse. And while holistic land, water, and forest management practices born from millennia of Indigenous knowledge systems have much to teach all of us, Indigenous science has long been ignored, otherized, or perceived as "soft"--the product of a systematic, centuries-long campaign of racism, colonialism, extractive capitalism, and delegitimization.

Fungi are everywhere. Most are harmless, some are helpful. A few are killers. Collectively, infectious fungi are the most devastating agents of disease on Earth, and a fungus that can persist in the environment without its host is here for the long haul. In gripping, accessible prose, Emily Monosson documents how changing climate, trade, and travel are making us all more vulnerable to invasion.

The incredible true story of the entrepreneur turned conservationist - the founder of the iconic company The North Face who used his fortune to protect more than 25 million acres of land from development and exploitation and “foster peace between people and wild nature”.

Ten thousand years after humans figured out how to stop wandering and plant crops, veteran investigative journalist Mark Schapiro plunges into the struggle already underway for control of seeds, the ground-zero ingredient for our food. Three-quarters of the seed varieties on Earth in 1900 had become extinct by 2015. In Seeds of Resistance, Schapiro takes us onto the frontlines of a struggle over the seeds that remain, one that will determine the long-term security of our food supply in the face of unprecedented climate volatility. More than half of all commercially-traded seeds have fallen under the control of just three multinational agri-chemical companies....

Author Kevin Grange—former paramedic and park ranger at Yellowstone and Grand Teton—comes face-to-face with North America’s most fearsome predator, Ursus Arctos. His quest takes him from his home in the Tetons to an eerie, mist-shrouded island of gigantic bruins; from the Bear Center at Washington State University—where scientists believe the secrets of hibernation might help treat diabetes, heart disease, and obesity in humans—to the dark underbelly of for-profit wildlife parks, illegal animal trade and black markets hawking bear bile.

The conception and building of the Appalachian Trail is a story of unforgettable characters who explored it, defined it, and captured national attention by hiking it. From Grandma Gatewood—a mother of eleven who thru-hiked in canvas sneakers and a drawstring duffle—to Bill Bryson, author of the best-selling A Walk in the Woods, the AT has seized the American imagination like no other hiking path. The 2,000-mile-long hike from Georgia to Maine is not just a trail through the woods, but a set of ideas about nature etched in the forest floor.

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Wangari Maathai has been fighting for environmental responsibility and democracy in her native Kenya for over 35 years. Unbowed recounts the incredible journey that culminated in her appointment to Parliament in 2002. Despite repeated jailings, beatings, and other obstacles along the way, Maathai created the Green Belt Movement and never relented in her goal to bring democracy to Kenya.

Mary Oliver has published fifteen volumes of poetry and five books of prose in the span of four decades, but she rarely performs her poetry in live readings. Now, with the arrival of At Blackwater Pond, Mary Oliver has given her audience what they've longed to hear: the poet's voice reading her own work.

In 2019, fifty-seven scientists and crew set out onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Their destination: Thwaites Glacier. Their goal: to learn as much as possible about this mysterious place, never before visited by humans, and believed to be both rapidly deteriorating and capable of making a catastrophic impact on global sea-level rise. In The Quickening, Elizabeth Rush documents their voyage, offering the sublime alongside the workaday moments of this groundbreaking expedition.

A chic Parisienne, Françoise never expected to find herself living on a South African game reserve. But then, she fell in love with conservationist Lawrence Anthony, and everything changed. After Lawrence’s death, Françoise faced the daunting responsibility of running Thula Thula without him. Poachers attacked their rhinos, their security team wouldn’t take orders from a woman, and the authorities were threatening to cull their beloved elephant family. On top of that, the herd’s feisty new matriarch, Frankie, didn’t like her.

This book is a second volume of true stories from a retired Kentucky game warden. Some are stories of adventure while chasing poachers. Others contain humor from the daily routine of an officer enforcing wildlife and boating laws in the bluegrass state. The author adds a few accounts of growing up with an outdoorsman father whose influence caused him to become a game warden.

The complex ecosystem of the Amazon covers an area about the size of the continental US. Approximately one of every four flowering plant species on earth resides in the Amazon. A single Amazonian river may contain more fish species than all the rivers in Europe combined. The rain forest, which contains approximately 390 billion trees, plays a vital role in stabilizing the global climate by absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide - or releasing it into the atmosphere if the trees are destroyed.

In The Soil Will Save Us, journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.

Politicians, ecologists, and government wildlife officials are fighting a desperate rearguard action to halt the onward reach of Asian carp, four troublesome fish now within a handful of miles from entering Lake Michigan. From aquaculture farms in Arkansas to the bayous of Louisiana; from marshlands in Indiana to labs in Minnesota; and from the Illinois River to the streets of Chicago where the last line of defense has been laid to keep Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, Overrun takes us on a firsthand journey into the heart of a crisis.

Through fascinating and accessible interviews with celebrity chefs, ranchers, farmers, and top scientists, this remarkable book, soon to be a full-length documentary film narrated by Woody Harrelson, will teach you how to become an agent in humanity's single most important and time sensitive mission. Reverse climate change and effectively save the world - all through the choices you make in how and what to eat.

A lifelong acolyte of the natural world, Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important role they play in preserving the environment—by storing the carbon emissions that accelerate climate change. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are crucial to the earth’s survival, and in four illuminating parts, Proulx documents their systemic destruction in pursuit of profit. Proulx describes the fens of 16th-century England, Canada’s Hudson Bay lowlands, Russia’s Great Vasyugan Mire, and America’s Okeefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

If forests are the lungs of the planet, then animals migrating across oceans, streams, and mountains—eating, pooping, and dying along the way—are its heart and arteries, pumping nitrogen and phosphorus from deep-sea gorges up to mountain peaks, from the Arctic to the Caribbean. Without this conveyor belt of crucial, life-sustaining nutrients, the world would look very different.

During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot in an industrial section of Austin, Texas. The property—a brownfield site bisected with an abandoned petroleum pipeline and littered with concrete debris and landfill trash—was an unlikely site for a home. Along with his son, Brown had explored similar empty lots around Austin, so-called “ruined” spaces once used for agriculture and industry awaiting their redevelopment as Austin became a 21st century boom town.

That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. The question we now face is: Can we change nature, this time in order to save it? Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction, takes a hard look at the new world we are creating.

Ruppel Shell follows the elusive eel from Maine to the Sargasso Sea, stalking riversides, fishing holes, laboratories, restaurants, courtrooms, and America's first commercial eel "family farm." This is an enthralling, globe-spanning look at an animal that you may never come to love, but which will never fail to astonish you.