Book Description

Since the 1992 Earth Summit, there have been increased efforts on an international scale to address global climate change. Reducing the increased levels of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases," which are believed to be contributing to this climatic change, will require major effort on the part of the world's governments. This means that the environmental, economic, social, and political consequences of climate change must be understood, and that strategies to mitigate climate change must also address these issues.The workshop detailed in this book concentrated on how economic principles and analysis could contribute to the planning of forestry projects aimed at affecting terrestrial carbon balances. More than 30 international scientists came together for one week near Stockholm, Sweden and divided into working groups charged with addressing a specific issue and preparing a paper within this time frame. This book contains the majority of papers presented at this meeting, and includes both the working group papers and the individually presented papers. ... Read more

Book Description

Over the past decade, a sea change has occurred in the field of forestry. A vastly increased understanding of how ecological systems function has transformed the science from one focused on simplifying systems, producing wood, and managing at the stand-level to one concerned with understanding and managing complexity, providing a wide range of ecological goods and services, and managing across broad landscapes.

Creating a Forestry for the Twenty-first Century is an authoritative and multidisciplinary examination of the current state of forestry and its relation to the emergent field of ecosystem management. Drawing upon the expertise of top professionals in the field, it provides an up-to-date synthesis of principles of ecosystem management and their implications for forest policy. Leading scientists, including Malcolm Hunter, Jr., Bruce G. Marcot, James K. Agee, Thomas R. Crow, Robert J. Naiman, John C. Gordon, R.W. Behan, Steven L. Yaffee, and many others examine topics that are central to the future of forestry:

• new understandings of ecological processes and principles, from stand structure and function to disturbance processes and the movement of organisms across landscapes
• challenges to long-held assumptions: the rationale for clearcutting, the wisdom of short rotations, the exclusion of fire
• traditional tools in light of expanded goals for forest landscapes
• managing at larger spatial scales, including practical information and ideas for managing large landscapes over long time periods
• the economic, organizational, and political issues that are critical to implementing successful ecosystem management and developing institutions to transform knowledge into action

Book Description

Principles of forestry are introduced with emphasis on actual field practices, both traditional and modern. The fourth edition includes expanded treatments of small private forest owners, reflecting changing patterns in ownership; more informtion on new advances in timber volumes, growth, cut, and management; updated coverage of forest instruments; and more on pollution damage, reflecting current problems. Each significant field practice is illustrated with photos, drawings, and tables for easier comprehension. ... Read more

Book Description

Nestled in four counties of Northwestern Pennsylvania are the 513,000 acres of the Allegheny National Forest, so designated by a proclamation signed by U.S. President Calvin Coolidge in 1923. A Guide to the Allegheny National Forest is the most current and comprehensive visitor’s guide ever written for this national treasure. Designed in a handy pocketbook format, the guide briefly explores the human and geological history of the forest and includes hints on how to enjoy the forest safely. The book then describes the three distinct natural areas of the forest and features the activities available in each of these areas. The three sections highlight the hiking trails, campgrounds (developed, dispersed, and primitive), recreation areas, picnic areas, snowmobile and ATV access sites, and the swimming, boating, and canoeing opportunities available in these areas. They also includes trail maps, directions to ranger stations, addresses and phone numbers for lodging, rentals, and attractions in the area, even information on educational programs available in the forest. No other book so completely and comprehensively facilitates your next trip to the forest. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A concise, easy-to-read, straightforward and friendly guide
Written by Tom Dwyer, A Guide To The Allegheny National Forest is a marvelous pocket reference packed with history, detailed commentaries, maps, area-specific information and much more concerning this grand, 513,000 acre historic forest that makes Pennsylvania truly sylvan. Of especial note are the many hiking trail descriptions in this concise, easy-to-read, straightforward and friendly guide. If you are planning a vacation, hike, or just a plain day off to enjoy the beauty of the Allegheny National Forest, you should consult A Guide To The Allegheny National Forest without delay! ... Read more

Book Description

Natural History/Regional

A grand story of a surprising chapter in environmental and cultural history.

By 1910, the forest region of the Great Lakes states was largely denuded, logged over by industrialists who coveted its timber, particularly the giant white pine. After unsuccessful attempts to farm this cutover region of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, a group of visionaries began to dream of restoring the North Woods as a place of solace and beauty, of recreation and retreat, for the benefit of people ever more remote from the splendors of nature. What ensued was an extraordinary campaign to recreate the original Midwest forest-the Great Lakes Crusade that James Kates chronicles in this enlightening, deeply interesting, and entertaining account of a "natural" wonderland remade from the ground up.

The forest might seem a strange focus for great feats of social engineering, but in the cutover region, this is what we have: a planned landscape, a "wilderness" more naturalistic than natural, produced by a massive coordination of economic and political powers, technical mastery, and propaganda. As Kates describes this vast effort, we see how the challenges that taxed the expertise of foresters, land economists, game managers, and regional planners were only one part of the enormous task. Kates tells of the equally arduous undertaking of selling reforestation to the public, a campaign in which the experts and their allies in the mass media invoked popular myths of frontier individualism to create consensus about the need for a new "wilderness," one geared to the material and psychological needs of an integrated industrial nation and its increasingly affluent middle class. This renaissance raises the question that informs this book and resounds through our time: What meaning does the forest hold for us, that it should be construed as indispensable to the American way of life?

A longtime journalist, James Katesworked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the former Milwaukee Journal, and has published in American Journalism,Michigan Historical Review, and Wisconsin Magazine of History. He is currently an editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Published in cooperation with the Center for American Places ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The book rocks!!
great book that explains what the north country went through. ... Read more

Book Description

Just over two decades ago, research findings that environmentally hazardous facilities were more likely to be sited near poor and minority communities gave rise to the environmental justice movement. Yet inequitable distribution of the burdens of industrial facilities and pollution is only half of the problem; poor and minority communities are often denied the benefits of natural resources and can suffer disproportionate harm from decisions about their management and use.

Justice and Natural Resources is the first book devoted to exploring the concept of environmental justice in the realm of natural resources. Contributors consider how decisions about the management and use of natural resources can exacerbate social injustice and the problems of disadvantaged communities. Looking at issues that are predominantly rural and western - many of them involving Indian reservations, public lands, and resource development activities - it offers a new and more expansive view of environmental justice.

The book begins by delineating the key conceptual dimensions of environmental justice in the natural resource arena. Following the conceptual chapters are contributions that examine the application of environmental justice in natural resource decision-making. Chapters examine:

• how natural resource management can affect a range of stakeholders quite differently, distributing benefits to some and burdens to others
• the potential for using civil rights laws to address damage to natural and cultural resources
• the unique status of Native American environmental justice claims
• parallels between domestic and international environmental justice
• how authority under existing environmental law can be used by Federal regulators and communities to address a broad spectrum of environmental justice concerns

Book Description

"It was strangely like war. They attacked the forest as if it were an enemy to be pushed back from the beachheads, driven into the hills, broken into patches, and wiped out. Many operators thought they were not only making lumber but liberating the land from the trees. . ."from The Last Wilderness, by Murray Morgan, 1976

Derrick Jensen, prize-winning author of A Language Older than Words and The Culture of Make Believe, and George Draffan, activist, researcher, and co-author with Jensen of Railroads & Clearcuts, collaborate again to expose the escalating global war on trees. Ever since Gilgamesh cut down the ancient cedar forests of Mesopotamia, civilizations and empires have foundered and collapsed in the wake of widespread deforestation. Today, with three quarters of the world’s original forests gone and the pace of cutting, clearing, processing, and pulping ever accelerating, Jensen and Draffan lay bare the stark scenario we face—we being not only people, but the nonhuman fabric of life itself—unless deforestation is slowed and stopped. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the relationship between deforestation and our ecological crisis as well as an essential "handbook" for forest and anti-globalization activists. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Excellent handbook for forest education!!!
I am impressed with how concise, clear, and well researched this book is. I have bought it for all of my friends and I recommend it to forest activists everywhere. This book covers the worldwide forest crisis and how that impacts everyone from the most endangered species to the drinking water in your home. It also covers the entire history of deforestation from the rise of civilization in the Middle East through the present day. The authors' directness and honesty are refreshing. Most writers who pretend to be confronting these problems shy away from spelling out the connections between the corporations and those in government that not only allow but also encourage the destruction to continue. Thank you Jensen and Draffan for this beautifully written tool for forest education!

I've had better.
I hated this book. While reading through it, I often had to put it down for a moment because it was so frustrating to me. The book is a giant rant from two very angry and disconcerted environmentalists. Their anger is directed towards 'they' and 'them' - the bad guys of the BLM and US Forest Service. Quite often there is name-calling, sarcasm and bad language. I found this unprofessional and, more importantly, extremely distracting. I sympathize with the authors' frustration, but accusing senators of genocide(71), using the 'f' word(63), oversimplifying through what reads like a child's tantrum ("Life doesn't matter.")(68), and blowing off progressive programs already in action by other organizations such as the EPA ("Big deal. People continue to get poisoned.")(127), are all things that don't work to get yourself taken very seriously as an author.
Perhaps the authors' laid-back style of writing is what makes their book so appealing to others. Maybe some readers find it easy to relate to the authors' negative feelings and exasperation. While I admire how thoroughly the book appears to have been researched, and while I enjoyed the up-to-date facts and figures, I thought the book could have greatly improved with increased structure, more focus, less careless accusations tossed around(73!), and better solutions proposed. It doesn't seem right that the authors have even wrote this book, griping about how other organizations aren't performing up to their expectations, yet not offering up any solutions of their own without being extremely vague and only restating what has already been suggested by others before them.

Global Chainsaw Massacre
A concisely worded, hard-hitting, well-researched book, Strangely Like War reveals the obscured and absurd connection between rabid consumption, relentlessly extractive industrial forestry, and the consequent genocide of those who are pushed from the land to which they belong. Already well-versed in this subject, authors Draffan and Jensen have provided us with a sobering expose of global deforestation, the political corruption that aids and abets it, and a stirring portrait of various indigenous peoples who have suffered (and still suffer) genocide as a result. Arguing from a position outside strict environmentalism, Strangely Like War levels a broader critique of globalization: "this parasitic, monetized, commodity-driven, inequitable, monocultural socioeconomic system", sometimes referred to simply as Western Civilization (altho geography no longer has anything to do with it). Along side everything else Jensen has every written, this book is a soulfully critical masterpiece that should not be overlooked.

A MUST READ

Environmental Wakeup
In our profit-driven consuming culture, where it is fair to say that most people have "Gone to Sleep", authors of the newly released, Strangely Like War, Derrick Jensen, and George Draffan, scrutinize a widely held concept and statement in the first paragraph guaranteed to wake you up, "Gone Extinct. Such a passive way to put it, as though we know no cause, can assign no responsibility." A brilliant opening, that arouses questions of responsibility we would be unwise, or mulish to ignore. There is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other. And Jensen and Draffan, explicitly detail the relevance in a superb and courageous undertaking of the severe and consequently destructive myths of the transnational timber industry when this fundamental premise is ignored.

As the authors state in their book, "The problem is not and has never been a lack of accounting methodologies or industrial know-how; the problems are denial, recalcitrance, and apathy. The solution isn't technical, but political. The solution isn't even political but social. The solution isn't even social but psychological. The solution isn't even psychological but perceptual. The solution isn't even perceptual but spiritual. The problem is our entire way of living and relating to the world."

I highly recommend this startling and fact-driven book; it will impel you to action, and simultaneously rouse a fire in your heart to make a difference.

a tragically flawed diatribe
As a wilderness advocate and a lawyer, I find much to admire here, but the flaws far outweigh the strengths. As the authors show, the ongoing destruction of American and global forests is a national disgrace. The authors bring an obvious passion and knowledge to the subject. Unfortunately, they also bring sloppy documentation, unfounded accusations, and overheated rhetoric. They accuse former Senator Slade Gorton of "genocide" because he was pro-logging. They accuse the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council of "corruption" --with no discussion, no documentation, and no sign that they even bothered to phone any of the organizations before they blasted away. They accuse the Sierra Club of trying to expel members who spoke out against the war in Iraq, which is a grotesque distortion: the Sierra Club actually opposed Bush's unilateral invasion, but you wouldn't know that from this book.

There's lots of outrage here, and most of it is justifiably directed at governments and corporations for destroying our ancient forests. There are all kinds of assertions, figures and facts thrown around, too. But good luck in sorting out what's accurate and what isn't. Crucial distinctions are ignored -- Clinton looks as bad as Bush, the Sierra Club looks like a clone of the Nature Conservancy -- and the truth is a lot more subtle and interesting than that. The book also suffers from the authors' refusal to focus, leading to the glib, drive-by shooting quality of the book's chapter titled "Corruption." (Everyone is, apparently, save the good folks at Chelsea Green Publishing.)

This is radical-green rant posing as scholarship. There's much better stuff out there, starting with The Final Forest, by a Seattle reporter, a well-focused, thoroughly documented book from a writer who had the sense and the decency to actually talk to his subjects. It won a Pulitzer. This book won't. ... Read more

Book Description

Eastern Old-Growth Forests is the first book devoted exclusively to old growth throughout the East. Authoritative essays from leading experts examine the ecology and characteristics of eastern old growth, explore its history and value-both ecological and cultural- and make recommendations for its preservation.

The book provides a thorough over-view of the importance of old growth in the East including its extent, qualities, and role in wildlands restoration. It will serve a vital role in furthering preservation efforts by making eastern old-growth issues better known and understood. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

excellent material for all forest activists
Forest activists often hear the argument, "What is Old Growth?" This book helps to distinguish these valuable ecosystems. The book covers everything from fauna and flora that habitat these areas to the spiritual value of the remaining old growth in the Eastern United States.

This book is essential for activists and ecologists everywhere. ... Read more

Book Description

One of America's leading fire scholars tracks down more of the history and lore of fire in a collection that focuses on wildland fire and its management.This new collection features thirty-two original articles and substantial revisions of previous pieces to address many issues that have sparked public concern in the wake of disastrous wildfires in the West, such as fire ecology, federal fire management, and questions relating to fire suppression. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

useful to those who think AND do
This is a good collection of essays on the world of wildland fire, from history to philosophy to grubbing in the dirt. It is not for those who are not already part of wildland fire; you have to DO it to get it, I guess. If you get it, the essays on prescribed fire are thoughtful criticisms of the status quo, and are strong calls for those of us who use prescribed fire to stop taking it for granted before we lose it. Those essays are highly recommended for all thinking firefighters and fire managers.

Chasing not smoke but meaning
This may be the most confusing book I've ever read. It isn't that
there isn't useful information in it, it's just it's scattered, repetitious, and intermixed with large blocks of what I assume Mr. Pyne thinks is relevant philosophy. You'll find yourself skipping over a great many paragraphs of this last.

The other major failing it that, while the author devotes a great deal of (scattered) space to his criticisms of existing wildfire control practices, he never makes clear what methodology he is in favor of.

Save your time and money and skip this one. I wish I had. ... Read more

Book Description

While most efforts at biodiversity conservation have focused primarily on protected areas and reserves, the unprotected lands surrounding those area?the "matrix"?are equally important to preserving global biodiversity and maintaining forest health. In Conserving Forest Biodiversity, leading forest scientists David B. Lindenmayer and Jerry F. Franklin argue that the conservation of forest biodiversity requires a comprehensive and multiscaled approach that includes both reserve and nonreserve areas. They lay the foundations for such a strategy, bringing together the latest scientific information on landscape ecology, forestry, conservation biology, and related disciplines as they examine:

• the importance of the matrix in key areas of ecology such as metapopulation dynamics, habitat fragmentation, and landscape connectivity
• general principles for matrix management
• using natural disturbance regimes to guide human disturbance
• landscape-level and stand-level elements of matrix management
• the role of adaptive management and monitoring
• social dimensions and tensions in implementing matrix-based forest management

Conserving Forest Biodiversity presents strategies for enhancing matrix management that can play a vital role in the development of more effective approaches to maintaining forest biodiversity. It examines the key issues and gives practical guidelines for sustained forest management, highlighting the critical role of the matrix for scientists, managers, decisionmakers, and other stakeholders involved in efforts to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem processes in forest landscapes. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Facts over rhetoric
With Bush touring the West talking about logging as the solution to preventing ever larger forest fires, this book provides ample documentation that FIRE SUPRESSION and MONOCULTURE REPLANTING are the real causes of the current explosive environment.

I first saw this book at the top of Mt. Harkness. The fire watchman there pointed it out to me, as we both struggled to peer at Mt. Shasta through the smoky haze created by the Biscuit and Fremont fires.

The differences in the trees and ground cover between now and the last century is striking. Most of the photos taken in the late 1800's show trees devoid of branches below 20 feet, and very little ground cover. Photos of the same area taken recently show thickly limbed trees down to ground level, with dense underbrush. Without hundreds of little fires to regularly clear out the low limbs and undergrowth, the forests become dense tinderboxes. When a fire finally breaks through fire suppression, it kills the trees instead of burning their limbs.

Will add fuel to debates over prescribed fires
This unusual photographic interpretation of ecological changes brought about by forest fires in the Sierra Nevada since 1849 will provide a guide which should intrigue both California residents and any interested in forestry issues, park management or ecosystems. Chapters use historical photographs to document changes which have taken place over the past 150 years, from early settlements to modern times. Fire In Sierra Nevada Forests will add fuel to debates over prescribed fires and logging issues. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A must buy
I am a recent graduate from college holding a diploma in forestry. I found this book to be essential in my studies and highly recommend to both students and any persons interested in the study of forestry. It contains all the essential termonology used for forestry with detailed information on their meaning. It is an all accounts a must have book.

An Essential Guide to Understanding Forestry
For most of my life, I have had a deep interest in the subject of forestry, and while time and circumstances have dictated that attending a school of forestry was not possible, I have still maintained my interest by purchasing and reading materials about forestry. It holds a very big interest with me and having "The Dictionary of Forestry" in my library was an absolute must. John A. Helms, the editor, has put together a fantastic reference book for anyone who is a student, or anyone who has an abiding interest in this field. This reference has helped me when reading other books about forest and related topics, such as "Young Men and Fire." When I come to a term such as "smokejumper", I go to the reference in the this dictionary and get helpful information. In this case, when I looked up "smokejumper", I was referenced to "helijumper", where an apt description was told. There are many other terms that have been helpful, such as fire tools (the pulaski), or "fire behavior" where I find such terms as "blowup", or "backfire" which Dodge used in "Young Men and Fire" (actually it was termed an escape fire). Also, such defintiions about fire suppression, such as "mop-up" and "direct attack." While I may never get to attend a forestry school, I have this great reference dictionary to satiate my appetite for a great interest of mine - forestry. I appreciate the many people who put this book together and I want you to know that I consider it as essential in my library. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (2)

What can I say? It's great!
Having actually lived in the country and visited the Amazon rain forest, this depiction of the destruction of the Atlantic rainforest and the effects there is highly factual and rather interesting. It is one of the only successful ecological histories about a forest! If you want a good read about the disappearance of one of Brazil's most historical aspects, then this book is for you.

Impressive environmental history of Brazil
This book is bound to change your view of Brazilian history, and of environmental history. A must read for anyone interested in either. A good Portuguese language translation is available. ... Read more

Book Description

New information on managing forested wetlands is often developed in isolation of other activities occurring in the region. Although many excellent texts exist on the ecology of southern forested wetlands none present both the ecological and management aspects of these important ecosystems. Compiled by members of the Consortium for Research on Southern Forested Wetlands, this book includes contributions from many experts in the field. It is a collaboration of those working to conserve, study, and manage these economically and environmentally influential areas.Southern Forested Wetlands: Ecology and Management is a textbook for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students as well as a first-rate reference for scientists and managers. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Visit the Redwoods!
It's urgent that you and your children visit the redwoods! This book will inspire you to do so. Joan, the author, takes you on a journey through the redwood forest and through your conscience. Her artistic expression of her humanity in words and in nature drawings often made me laugh with the insights ("Humboldt County, Log it or Leave it - a bumper sticker she saw), yet also cry with the vulgarities. It's a wonderful read, but one should also be aware of the astounding photography in the middle section. I kept referring back to the photos the whole time while reading the book. I'll offer TWO of my FAVORITE QUOTES that epitomize the book's strenghts: "Like Kristi, and many other residents of various watersheds who have suffered loss of private property and peace of mind, Mike seemes strangely perfect to be one of the people who have no choice but to stand up to MAXXAM. He can't sell his house because he would have to disclose the danger it is in. He can't rent it out for the same reason. His insurance company has canceled his house insurance. He doesn't have the money to buy a new house and walk away from the situation. Right now his house stands abandoned, simply a liability, while Mike is forced to rent at his own expense in Rio Dell." (p.145) ALSO, Joan includes her 12-year-old son in her adventures. At the end of the book they have this conversation: "At one point he said, 'I forgot what I was going to say.' 'Well, it'll come back to you,' I reassured. 'Yes, but I was just making conversation before. This was something I really wanted to say.'" (p.259) I'm not ruining the end for you by saying that you'll really want to say something, do something, express something when you finish this book!

required reading
This journal is a tough analysis of an unscrupulous corporate raider's methods of mining the temperate old growth redwood rain forests of Humboldt County, California. Joan and Doug's curiosity and observations lead her and us through all the resent events and to many victims of such a mass liquidation of forest, soil, waterways and wildlife. As a resident of the area, I have read news accounts regarding the Headwaters Forest, but none have even come close to the articulate passion that Joan has focused on to repeatedly hit her mark. The natural descriptions of the remaining groves and wildlife are tender and capable of grinding the callousness from even the hardest of hearts. I find myself walking in circles of despair for all of the destruction that has already taken place. Doug's photo journal validates every accusation made against this corporations blatant grab for money at the expense our community, our children's future and everything sacred. Read this book, then make it required reading for all of your friends and family.

I'm speechless, so to speak
No book has ever moved me the way this one has, I have tears in my eyes as I write this. I've just read many of the other reviews, and I don't have the way with words that some do, but they tell it like it is. Joan tells it like it is. Books don't get any better, and this one will change your life, like someone said it isn't all about happiness, and I have become informed and aware of too much to not so something about what is being done to our Redwood Forests, and what is being allowed to be done to our envirnment and watersheds. It's a true story, happening right now, this book documents it succinctly with amazing one of a kind pictures. It will open your eyes. Something needs to be done about Charles Hurwitz from Houston, Texas and his company MAXXAM. He is savaging The last of the Virgin Redwood Rainforest in California. I cannot beleive the CDF and the department of Forestry are "letting him get away with it." Not to mention the way he "aquired" the land, which is explained in the book. Please read this book. This book will light a fire in you, and like me you will have to do something. There are several websites listed in the back to point you in the right direction. I beleive this book is THE BEST one on the subject and if you plan on reading only one this should definitely be it. It has the most facts, information, and insight and is so well written, I couldn't say enough. And 57 pages of priceless color pictures! I am buying used copies for people, I would give one to EVERYONE if I could, and I have only said that about 2 books, and I read alot. The book is priceless. Thank You Joan

Tall tree politics.
I read this book after visiting Arcata this summer. While there, I went on a BLM ranger-guided hike into the Headwaters, the "lush, mysterious, ancient, holy" (p. 82) subject of Dunning's book. I wanted to see for myself what all of the protesting was about. Enjoy this book, then experience the Headwaters' redwoods.

Dunning's book is about many things. Trees. Community. Redwood politics. Bearing witness. The destruction of "one of the most magnificent ecosystems on Earth" (p. 3). Saying "enough!" Non-violent civil disobedience. Protecting America the beautiful. It is also about Dunning's personal journey, or "metamorphosis" as she calls it (p. 239), from naturalist to activist. "What is an 'environmentalist'," she reflects, "but simply a citizen who has shed denial, who has opened his or her eyes and said, 'it does matter nature does not have an infinite capacity to heal herself, himself, itself . . . I am responsible'" (p.228).

Dunning's book reads like an insightful journal, in which she sets out to tell it like it is. "This book is not about happiness," she warns her reader on the first page. Rather, it is about "yielding to conscience. It is about a forest, and it is about us" (p. 1). She reveals that the destruction of old-growth forests like the Headwaters isn't someone else's problem, but our own. Dunning reports that in 500 years, we have destroyed more than ninety percent of our country's ancient forests, leaving only 3.5 percent to protect (p. 263). By saving the redwoods, we save ourselves. Dunning writes, "I want nothing more than to dissolve the polarity that plagues this county and this country, to bring us all back to center--the owls and the pussycats, the loggers and the environmentalists, the business community, everyone--to put us all in the same life raft, which is our Earth" (p. 61).

Dunning also reports that redwood civil disobedience is nothing new. We learn, for instance, on November 19, 1929, Laura Perrott Mahan (1867-1937) lay down in the area now known as Founder's Grove in California's Avenue of the Giants to halt redwood logging. Dunning also writes, and her collaborator, Doug Thron's photographs show that clear-cutting "is an act of violence that affects trees, rivers, air, water, earth, and every person, owl, toad, or human who lives there" (p. 88). "Our whole earth is suffering from the cumulative effects of a million minute daily actions" (p. 240).

Although much of Dunning's book is downright depressing, her real message is this: "Find a corner of the world and fix it" (p. 240). Turn your driveway into a garden. "For each of us," Dunning says, "regardless of where we live, there is a valley, a mountain range, a beach, a whale, a peregrine, a gnatcatcher, that if we merely give our time as a witness to the loss, will gradually unite the being of its existence with our own, will ground us by putting us in touch with what is wild and speechless, will empower us when we speak out in defense of the powerless" (pp. 14-15). (Those interested in how each of us can make a difference might also enjoy Thomas Berry's, THE GREAT WORK (2000), which I also recommend as one of my favorite books.)

In addition to Thron's amazing color photographs (note the cover photo), Dunning's book is also illustrated with her own drawings of redwoods (p. 17), salamanders (pp. 25, 174, 179, 260), a banana slug (p. 41), flying squirrels (p. 56), frogs (pp. 67, 187) and an owl (p. 103), among other subjects.

In our world of "Cars. Cars. Cars." (p. 124), Dunning's book triumphs in showing the value of silent, "dark, dripping, ancient" (p. 37) redwood forests, that tell us to "Be still." For its insights, photographs, and drawings, this book about the wonders of tall trees should not be missed.

G. Merritt

Well done!
I learned so much by reading this book. Joan Dunning has a way of tackling difficult, cumbersome and emotionally charged subject matter and making it easily digestible. It's a compelling read and the photography by Doug Thron is extraordinary. ... Read more

Book Description

In 1926, park naturalists began writing a compilation of articles about Grand Canyon National Park known as Nature Notes. A splendid selection of favorites is featured in this collection. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The best of Grand Canyon Nature Notes 1926-1935
If you love the Grand Canyon, you will be delighted with this selection of naturalists articles written in the first half of the past century (!). Easy to read, most of the writing consisting of articles of a few lines to a few pages, you can open the book anywhere and transport yourself on or below the rim, at a time when a lot fewer tourists visited the canyon.The book is divided in three parts, Earth sciences (geology, river, sky and seasons), Life science (flora, fish, birds, mammals,) and Human history (archaeology, ethnobotany and history). Nice little B&W drawings throughout the book, this is a very good complement to a visit to the Grand Canyon or to any coffee table picture book on the Grand Canyon usually thin on writing. ... Read more