Conservation of the environment Books

Book SynopsisThis unique collection of in-depth case studies from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America demonstrates the importance of women and gender relations in plant genetic resource management and conservation. It provides a state-of-the-art overview of the concepts, relationships and contexts explaining the relatively hidden gender dimensions of people-plant relations. The contributors come from a rich range of disciplines including ethnobotany, geography, agronomy, anthropology, plant breeding, nutrition and development economics. They demonstrate how crucial women are to plant biodiversity management and conservation at household, village, and community levels; and how gender relations have a strong influence on the ways in which local people understand, manage, and conserve biodiversity. Continued access to biological resources is crucial to rural women‘s status and welfare, and their motivations therefore are a principal driving force countering processes of biological erosion. The contributors highlight the gender biases evident in much contemporary scientific research, policy and development practice. And they seek to contribute to a number of important debates, including the determinants of genetic erosion, the significance of gender in indigenous ethno-botanical knowledge systems, indigenous intellectual property rights systems and women‘s entitlements therein, and ecofeminist and other debates about the nature of gender-environment relations.Trade ReviewThis is a very important book. Taken together, the collected papers present a rich picture of the vital role played by peasant women around the world. They are struggling to preserve, in the face of modern agribusiness, the agricultural wisdom of the past and the diversity of plants that have been used for both food and medicine. It is vital that decision makers, especially in the developing world, heed the knowledge of these women who understand so well the art of a sustainable lifestyle. Women and Plants must be in the library of every individual who cares about the future of our planet.' Jane Goodall 'Women and Plants offers a uniquely gender-sensitive perspective on the management of biodiversity. These case studies empirically substantiate a broad range of cultures and ecologies, and offer keen insights for policy development and application.' Professor Nina L. Etkin, Associate Editor, Pharmaceutical Biology 'Focusing on traditional knowledge of indigenous people and local communities, and especially on the relationship between biodiversity and women in traditional societies worldwide, this book provides a well-marked path for the better understanding of biodiversity, its values and its importance for humans while at the same time highlighting community and ecosystem inter-relations.' Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary to the Convention on Biodiversity 'At long last, the predominant role of women in the management of plant genetic resources has begun to be scientifically documented in this highly important book. While men were occupied by hunting and defending their territories, women were most likely domesticating many of the world's crops. Recognition that they hold much of the related knowledge and skills today is clearly overdue. But recognition is not enough - Farmer's Rights as per Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture must be assured now and for the future, if we are to give farmers - both women and men - incentives to continue to be the developers and custodians of the world's genetic resources. All those with responsibilities for promoting the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources should certainly read this book.' Jose Esquinas Alcazar, Secretary of the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization, and Father of 'Farmers' Rights' 'Wonderfully rich in evidence, persuasive in its argument, and wide-ranging in coverage, this timely edited volume on the gendered nature of knowledge about biodiversity enriches both scholarship and policy. It points to the critical need not only of recognizing the specificity of womens knowledge about plant species, but of strengthening their conservation efforts and bringing their interests to bear in arrangements for biodiversity development and benefit sharing.' Bina Agarwal, Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi UniversityTable of Contents Foreword 1. Women and the Plant World: An Exploration - Patricia L. Howard Part 1: Culture, Kitchen and Conservation 2. Women in the Garden and Kitchen: The Role of Cuisine in the Conservation of Traditional House Lot Crops among Yucatec Mayan Immigrants - Laurie S. Z. Greenberg 3. Wild Food Plants and Arbëresh Women in Lucania, Southern Italy - Andrea Pieroni 4. Women and 'Wild' Foods: Nutrition and Household Food Security Among Rai and Sherpa Forager Farmers in Eastern Nepal - Ephrosine Daniggelis Part 2: Gender Relations, Women's Rights, and Plant Management 5. Farm Women's Rights and Roles in Wild Plant Food Gathering and Management in Northeast Thailand - Lisa Leimar Price 6. Gender and Entitlements in the Zimbabwean Woodlands: A Case Study of Resettlement - Allison Goebel Part 3: Gendered Plant Knowledge in Science and Society 7. 'Passing on the News': Women's Work, Traditional Knowledge and Plant Resource Management in Indigenous Societies of Northwestern North America - Nancy Turner 8. The Invisible Queen in the Plant Kingdom: Gender Perspectives in Medical Ethnobotany - Brij Kothari 9. The Gender of Crops in the Papua New Guinea Highlands - Paul Sillitoe Part 4: Plants, Women's Status and Welfare 10. Gendering the Tradition of Plant Gathering in Central Anatolia (Turkey) - Füsun Ertug 11. The Basket-Makers of the Central California Interior - Linda Dick Bissonnette 12. Exchange, Patriarchy and Status: Women's Homegardens in Bangladesh - Margot Wilson Part 5: Gender, Biodiversity Loss and Conservation 13. Losing Ground: Gender Relations, Commerical Horticulture and Threats to Local Plant Diversity in Rural Mali - Stephen Wooten 14. Modernization and Gender Dynamics in the Loss of Agrobiodiversity in Swaziland's Food System - Millicent Malaza 15. Arawakan Women and the Erosion of Traditional Food Production in Amazonas Venezuela - Shirley Hoffmann 16. Women and Maize Breeding: The Development of New Seed Systems in a Marginal Area of Southwest China - Yiching Song and Janice Jiggins

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Book SynopsisThe groundbreaking new concept that reveals the true and hazardous extent of our everyday water consumption. How much water does it take to make a cup of coffee? The answer may shock you: 140 litres! That's the true amount of water used in growing, producing, packaging and shipping the beans you use to make your morning coffee. Your lunchtime hamburger takes 2,400 litres and that favourite pair of blue jeans a whopping 11,000 litres. In fact, all the goods we buy - from food to clothing to computers - have a water cost in the form of virtual water: the powerful new concept that reveals the hidden facts of our real water consumption. At a time when the world's resources are being used up at increasingly alarming rates what can we do to help tackle the threat to our planet's most precious resource? World water expert Tony Allan - creator of the virtual water concept - shows the way. In this stimulating and enjoyable book he exposes the real impact of our modern lifestyle and shows how we as individuals, and governments globally, can make a vital contribution to managing our water use in a more sustainable and planet-friendly way.Trade Review'I heartily recommend the book as essential reading as is not only informative but also fun and easy to read.' - Barbara Frost, CE of WaterAidTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements 1. Getting wise about water 2. Beneath the surface 3. Well-fed, well-watered and well-paid 4. Big and beautiful 5. Keeping their heads above the water 6. Watertight The virtual-water gallery Index

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Book SynopsisThinking through the Environment: Green Approaches to Global History is a collection offering global perspectives on the intersections of mind and environment across a variety of discourses - from history and politics to the visual arts and architecture. Its geographical coverage extends to locations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. A primary aim of the volume is, through the presentation of research cases, to gather an appropriate methodological arsenal for the study of environmental history. Among its concerns are interdisciplinarity, eco-biography, the relationship of political and environmental history and culturally varied interpretations and appreciations of space - from Bangladesh to the Australian outback. The approaches of the indigenous peoples of Lapland, Mount Kilimanjaro and elsewhere to their environments are scrutinised in several chapters. Balancing survival - both in terms of resource exploitation and of response to natural catastrophes - and environmental protection is shown to be an issue for more and less developed societies, as illustrated by chapters on Sami reindeer herding, Sudanese cattle husbandry and flooding and water resource-use in several parts of Europe. As the title suggests, the volume exposes the lenses - tinted by culture and history - through which humans consider environments; and also foregrounds the importance of rigor- ous 'thinking through' of the lessons of environmental history and the challenges of the environmental future.Trade Review'the book is highly recommended not only for all environmental historians >but also to other historians. The book offers fresh perspectives on history >in general and, above all, it provides evaluations of common methodological >tools and their application in environmental history that have often and >loudly been requested.' (Petri Juuti, Ymparistohistoria, Finnish Journal of >Environmental History) >'interest over a broad spectrum of themes' (Douglas Weiner, Environmental >History) >' its variety is deliberate and intriguing' (Richard Tucker, Environment and >History)Table of ContentsPreface, Timo Myllyntaus TABLE OF CONTENTS Part I. Approaching the Environment of the Past Chapter 1, Fiona Watson Interdisciplinarity as Disciplinary Co-operation: A Plea for the Future of Environmental History Chapter 2, Donald Worster Biography and Environmental History Chapter 3, Frank Uekoetter The Nazis and the Environment - a Relevant Topic? Part II. Cultural Perceptions of Landscapes Chapter 4, Dilshad Rahat Ara The Space of a Dwelling - the Temporal Boundaries of Vernacular Architecture in the Chittagong Hills, Bangladesh Chapter 5, Libby Robin Art and Environmental History: Perceptions of Place and Deep Time in the Australian Desert Chapter 6, Anu Eskonheimo Desertification - A Significant Problem? Diverse Environmental Literacy in the North Kordofan Area of Sudan Chapter 7, Timothy Clack Thinking Through Memoryscapes: Symbolic Environmental Potency on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania Chapter 8, Leena Rossi Oral History and Individual Environmental Experiences Part III. Indigenous Peoples and the Pressures of Modernisation Chapter 9, Helena Ruotsala Ancestors' Wisdom or Desktop Reindeer Management? The Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Contemporary Reindeer Herding Chapter 10, Jukka Nyyssonen Identity Politics and the Alliance Building between the Sami Parliament and Conservationists in the Kessi Forest Dispute Part IV. Managing Flood Catastrophes Chapter 11, Jochen Seidel, Paul Dostal, Katrin Burger, Florian Imbery and Mariano Barriendos Analysis and Reconstruction of the Flood Catastrophe along the River Neckar (SW-Germany) in October 1824 Chapter 12, Guido Poliwoda Times of Flood - Times of Favour. Disaster Management and the Social Response to Catastroph- ic Floods: the Example of Saxony (1784-1845) Part V. Remoulding Rivers, Reshaping Societies Chapter 13, Erik Tornlund From Natural to Modified Rivers and Back? Timber Floating in Northern Sweden in 1850-1980 and the Use of Historical Knowledge in Today's Ecological Stream Restoration Chapter 14, Viktor Pal To Act or Not to Act: Water Problems in North-east Hungary after 1945

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Book SynopsisAN ACCESSIBLE INTRODUCTION TO BIODIVERSITY, CONSERVATION AND THE ECO-CULTURAL NATURE OF LANDSCAPES Key issues are addressed in short, focused chapters, supported by a detailed thousand-year timeline based on the British Isles. Rotherham is convinced that to conserve wildlife or ecology, and to heal the wounds of human impacts, we must understand our own history and how, over countless centuries, we have forged today's ecologies from our impacts on, and utilisation of, nature. He argues that the interlinked concepts of biodiversity, nature conservation and of sustainability are too often mixed with notions of 'wilderness' and 'nature' and 'naturalness'. Much of the biodiversity that we hope to conserve is the result of long-term interactions between people and nature. It is a 'cultural ecology', the product of the environment, history and tradition. Recognising that the landscapes around us are 'eco-cultural' not 'natural' is, Rotherham suggests, the key to understanding contemporary biodiversity and major challenges for ideas of future conservation and sustainability. The book introduces the background to humanity's interactions with Nature and the forces at work in shaping today's world. It is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the nature of the global environmental crisis and how we got here. In particular, it will be a stimulating guide to students and teachers or lecturers from sixth form and college to university. It will also appeal to the ordinary wildlife enthusiast wishing understand the past, and to gain insight into what might be in store for the future.Trade Review'essential to understanding the history of conservation and sustainability, humanity's devastating impact on biodiversity, and the survival of civilization'. JoAnn Valenti in Applied Environmental Education and Communication.Table of ContentsPART 1. NATURE, ECOLOGY AND HISTORY PART 2. HISTORY, ECOLOGY AND THE BODY ODOUR OF HUMANITY PART 3. REPAIRING THE DAMAGE AND ADAPTING TO CHANGE PART 4. FUTURE, PAST AND CONCLUSIONS GLOSSARY ANNOTATED AND FULL BIBLIOGRAPHIES INDEX

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Book SynopsisMost people believe that they know what it means to be ''green''. But do they? This book explores what it means to live a ''green'' life for an individual human, and what it means for the human species to be a ''green'' species. The conclusion is a provocative one - that at the level of an individual human being ''green'' is about the possession of a particular attitude to life and the universe, whilst at the level of the human species being ''green'' is about the sustainability of the biosphere. This may sound like an obvious conclusion to reach, but it entails that high levels of human resource use and the development of increasingly complex human technologies are ''green'' actions which are necessary for sustainability. So, if you believe that being ''green'' is about minimising human impacts/minimising human resource use then prepare to have your beliefs challenged.

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Book SynopsisGlobal society is once again focusing its attention on the Amazon, but the outlook is bleak. Top-down approaches that depend on macroeconomic policies are not changing the behaviour of the inhabitants of the forest frontier. Efforts to improve law enforcement have failed because frontier societies are profoundly unequal; inequality encourages informality, breeding corruption and illegality. Indigenous people have stepped into the breach and are doing what they can to stave off disaster, but they are vastly outnumbered. Most inhabitants - who are also citizens that vote - pursue conventional production models that are fundamentally non-sustainable. They might choose different pathways, given the opportunity, but these are limited by the frontier economy and the social reality of their communities. We are losing the Amazon. Volume One of Tim Killeen's serial monograph delivers an unvarnished description of the obstacles to conserving the world's largest and most important tropical forest. Chapter One starts with a lucid narrative of the complex and interrelated social and economic forces driving deforestation, with a critical review of policy initiatives designed to change that trajectory towards a more sustainable future. Chapters Two (Infrastructure), Three (Agriculture) and Four (Land) lay bare the history, economics and business models that underpin the conventional economy. Two further volumes will address other key aspects of a sustainable future, including: the extractive sector (Ch. 5); the culture wars that divide the populace (Ch. 6); evolving governance systems (Ch. 7); the potential of the forest economy (Ch. 8); advances in biodiversity science (Ch. 9); the looming impact of climate change (Ch.10); the indigenous awakening (Ch.11); conservation policy (Ch.12); and, finally, the future (Ch.13). Killeen's enormously ambitious effort seeks to understand and explain all the complex and interrelated phenomena driving (and impeding) change across the region. If you are concerned about the fate of the Amazon, you must read this book.Table of ContentsCh. 1 The State of the Amazon Ch. 2 Infrastructure Defines the Future Ch. 3 Agriculture: Profitability Determines Land Use Ch. 4 Land: The Ultimate Commodity

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Book SynopsisRhino Warby Major General (Ret.) Johan Jooste, with Tony ParkIn 2012 retired South African general Johan Jooste was parachuted into the seemingly unwinnable war against rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park.With poaching spiralling out of control, Jooste was given the mandate to ''go military'', to convert Kruger''s ranger corps into a para-military force capable of taking the fight to poachers.Aged 60, white, and a veteran of 35 years of military service, Jooste''s controversial appointment was immediately met with resentment and outright hostility by elements of South African National Parks, the police, and even the military he had served with.With the media, government, conservationists, human rights activists and the people of South Africa looking over his shoulder, Jooste had to battle opponents within and without to see through his strategy for turning the tide of rhino poaching.Rhino War tells how Jooste, facing an unprecedented assault on a single national park and a species, took a demoralised force of men and women and turned them into arguably the best anti-poaching unit on the African continent.Told through his eyes and stories of the courage and grit of rangers who daily risked their lives to protect wildlife in the face of a wily and determined foe, this is a story of heroism, sacrifice and determination.Humbly, honestly and decisively, Jooste tells of the successes and failures of his bold strategy, and shares his vision for the future. 

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