Conservation Science

From the stars they came to study us. Instead, they discovered what it truly means to be human. When five advanced alien scientists crash-land on Earth, their mission of passive observation becomes a desperate year-long struggle to understand humanity's true nature. Disguised as humans and embedded in key positions across society—a political consultant, an environmental researcher, a university professor, a military contractor, and a hospital doctor—they discover that Earth's inhabitants are far more complex than their data suggested. Led by Captain Zara, the youngest commander in her ...

Moral Ground brings together the testimony of over eighty visionaries, theologians and religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturalists, activists, and writers to present a diverse and compelling call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibility to our planet. In the face of environmental degradation and global climate change, scientific knowledge alone does not tell us what we ought to do.

The biggest “tragedy of the commons” is the misconception that commons are failures - relics from another era rendered unnecessary by the market and state. Think Like a Commoner dispels such prejudices by explaining the rich history and promising future of the commons - an ageless paradigm of cooperation and fairness that is re-making our world.

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.

Retired Maine Game Warden John Ford has seen it all. He's been shot at by desperate prison escapees, been outwitted by wily trappers, and rescued scores of animals. As a tenacious and successful warden, he was always willing to spend the time needed to nab violators of the state's fish and game laws.

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.

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.

In this highly original work of lyrical reportage, Elizabeth Rush guides listeners through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving firsthand accounts from those facing this choice with profiles of wildlife biologists and other members of the communities both currently at risk and already displaced, Rising privileges the voices of those usually kept at the margins.

The Adirondack region of New York's rural North Country forms the nation's largest State Park, with a territory as large as Vermont. Planning experts view the APA as a triumph of sustainability that balances human activity with the preservation of wild ecosystems. The truth isn't as pretty. The story of the APA, told here for the first time, is a complex, troubled tale of political dueling and communities pushed to the brink of violence.

A youth movement is reenergizing global environmental activism. The "climate generation"—late millennials and iGen, or Generation Z—is demanding that policy makers and government leaders take immediate action to address the dire outcomes predicted by climate science. Those inheriting our planet's environmental problems expect to encounter challenges, but they may not have the skills to grapple with the feelings of powerlessness and despair that may arise when they confront this seemingly intractable situation.

Indigenous peoples have faced the end of the world before. Now, humankind is on a collective march toward the abyss. Global pandemics, extreme weather, and massive wildfires define this era many now call the Anthropocene. From Brazil comes Ailton Krenak, renowned Indigenous activist and leader, who demonstrates that our current environmental crisis is rooted in society’s flawed concept of “humanity” - that human beings are superior to other forms of nature and are justified in exploiting it as we please.

In this collection of natural-history essays, biologist Joan Maloof embarks on a series of lively, fact-filled expeditions into forests of the eastern United States. Through Maloof's engaging, conversational style, each essay offers a lesson in stewardship as it explores the interwoven connections between a tree species and the animals and insects whose lives depend on it - and who, in turn, work to ensure the tree's survival.

Very few individuals can truthfully say that their work impacts every person on Earth. Forrest Galante is one of them. As a wildlife biologist and conservationist, Galante devotes his life to studying, rediscovering, and protecting our planet’s amazing life-forms. Part memoir, part biological adventure, Still Alive celebrates the beauty and determined resiliency of our world, as well as the brave conservationists fighting to save it.

Nature writer David Gessner chronicles the year-long odyssey of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped from Central Park Zoo and captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of followers around the world. Though he'd spent his life in a cage, Flaco learned to survive in New York City by eating rats, squirrels, and birds. He was an immigrant coming from elsewhere to make it in the big city. Central Park, the island of green in an urban sea, was his new home territory.

A collection of 13 award-winning short stories concerning the true adventures of California fish and game wardens and the wildlife-destroying outlaws they pursue. These stories illustrate the wide variety of wildlife-related problems wardens face in California, which has a greater diversity of wildlife and wildlife habitat than any other state and is second only to Alaska in its vast expanses of wilderness.

Who can forget the sense of wonder with which they discovered the creatures of the deep? In this vibrant hymn to the sea, Callum Roberts - one of the world’s foremost conservation biologists - leads listeners on a fascinating tour of mankind’s relationship to the sea, from the earliest traces of water on Earth to the oceans as we know them today. In the process, Roberts looks at how the taming of the oceans has shaped human civilization and affected marine life. Like Four Fish and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Ocean of Life takes a long view to tell a story in which each one of us has a role to play.

Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity...doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to doing nothing (at least as capitalism defines it). Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have.

The term "guerrilla" may bring to mind a small band of armed soldiers, moving in the dead of night on a stealth mission. In the case of guerilla gardening, the soldiers are planters, the weapons are shovels, and the mission is to transform an abandoned lot into a thing of beauty. Once an environmentalist's nonviolent direct action for inner-city renewal, this approach to urban beautification is spreading to all types of people in cities around the world.

Our insatiable demand for animals - for jewelry, pets, medicine, meat, trophies, and fur - is driving a worldwide poaching epidemic, threatening the continued existence of countless species. Rachel Nuwer, an award-winning science journalist with a background in ecology, takes listeners on a narrative journey to the front lines of the trade: to killing fields in Africa, traditional medicine black markets in China, and wild meat restaurants in Vietnam. Through exhaustive first-hand reporting that took her to 10 countries, Nuwer explores the forces currently driving the demand.

Perhaps more than any other scientist of our century, Edward O. Wilson has scrutinized animals in their natural settings, tweezing out the dynamics of their social organization, their relationship with their environments, and their behavior, not only for what it tells us about the animals themselves, but for what it can tell us about human nature and our own behavior. He has brought the fascinating and sometimes surprising results of these studies to general readers through a remarkable collection of books.