Island Press: 819 books
Limited Wants, Unlimited Means
A Reader On Hunter-Gatherer Economics And The Environment
Language: English
Release Date: April 16, 2013
For roughly 99% of their existence on earth, Homo sapiens lived in small bands of semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, finding everything they needed to survive and thrive in the biological richness that surrounded them. Mif not all of the problems that threaten our own technologically advanced society...
by John Schelhas
Language: English
Release Date: April 10, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: April 10, 2013
"While tropical forests are being cleared at an alarming rate, the clearing is rarely complete and is often not permanent. A considerable amount of tropical forest exists as remnants that have significant value both for the conservation of biological diversity and for meeting the needs of local people.This...
Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle
Assessing the Impacts of Fertilizer Use on Food Production and the Environment
Language: English
Release Date: April 10, 2013
Nitrogen is an essential elemfor plant growth and developmand a key agricultural input-but in excess it can lead to a hof problems for human and ecological health. Across the globe, distribution of fertilizer nitrogen is very uneven, with some areas subject to nitrogen pollution and others suffering...
Mountain Goats
Ecology, Behavior, and Conservation of an Alpine Ungulate
Language: English
Release Date: September 26, 2012
Mountain goats have been among the least studied of North American ungulates, leaving wildlife managers with little information on which to base harvest strategies or conservation plans.
This book offers the first comprehensive assessmof the ecology and behavior of mountain goats, setting...
Forests in Our Changing World
New Principles for Conservation and Management
Language: English
Release Date: August 1, 2014
Scientists tell us that climate change is upon us and the physical world is changing quickly with important implications for biodiversity and human well-being. Forests cover vast regions of the globe and serve as a first line of defense against the worst effects of climate change, but only if we keep...
by The Worldwatch Institute
Language: English
Release Date: March 19, 2015
Language: English
Release Date: March 19, 2015
Written in clear and concise language, with easy-to-read charts and tables, State of the World presents a view of our changing world that we cannot afford to ignore.
by The Worldwatch Institute
Language: English
Release Date: March 19, 2015
Language: English
Release Date: March 19, 2015
State of the World 2000 shines a sharp light on the great challenge our civilization faces: how to use our political systems to manage the difficult and complex relationships between the global economy and the Earth's ecosystems. If we cannot build an environmentally sustainable global economy, then we have no future that anyone would desire.
So Shall You Reap
Farming And Crops In Human Affairs
Language: English
Release Date: April 24, 2013
So Shall You Reap is a broad-gauged exploration of the intersections of farming and history. Beginning with the prehistorical era, Otto and Dorothy Solbrig describe the evolution of farming. When and how did people learn to irrigate, to fertilize, to rotate their crops -- and why?
Along with...
A Plague of Rats and Rubbervines
The Growing Threat Of Species Invasions
Language: English
Release Date: April 15, 2013
The human love of novelty and desire to make one place look like another, coupled with massive increases in global trade and transport, are creating a growing economic and ecological threat. The same forces that are rapidly "McDonaldizing" the world's diverse cultures are also driving us toward an...
The Remarkable Life of William Beebe
Explorer And Naturalist
Language: English
Release Date: September 26, 2012
When William Beebe needed to know what was going on in the depths of the ocean, he had himself lowered a half-mile down in a four-foot steel sphere to see-five times deeper than anyone had ever gone in the 1930s. When he wanted to trace the evolution of pheasants in 1910, he trekked on foot through...
Alien Species and Evolution
The Evolutionary Ecology of Exotic Plants, Animals, Microbes, and Interacting Native Species
Language: English
Release Date: June 25, 2004
In Alien Species and Evolution, biologist George W. Cox reviews and synthesizes emerging information on the evolutionary changes that occur in plants, animals, and microbial organisms when they colonize new geographical areas, and on the evolutionary responses of the native species with which alien...
Invasive Alien Species
A New Synthesis
Language: English
Release Date: April 10, 2013
Invasive alien species are among today's mdaunting environmental threats, costing billions of dollars in economic damages and wreaking havoc on ecosystems around the world. In 1997, a consortium of scientific organizations including SCOPE, IUCN, and CABI developed the Global Invasive Species Programme...
Livestock in a Changing Landscape, Volume 1
Drivers, Consequences, and Responses
Language: English
Release Date: March 6, 2013
The rapidly changing nature of animal production systems, especially increasing intensification and globalization, is playing out in complex ways around the world. Over the last century, livestock keeping evolved from a means of harnessing marginal resources to produce items for local consumption to...
Chasing Water
A Guide for Moving from Scarcity to Sustainability
Language: English
Release Date: June 3, 2014
Water scarcity is spreading and intensifying in many regions of the world, with dire consequences for local communities, economies, and freshwater ecosystems. Current approaches tend to rely on policies crafted at the state or national level, which on their own have proved insufficient to arrest water...