Environmental Policymaking in Congress: The Role of Issue Definitions in Wetlands, Great Lakes and Wildlife Policies (Garland Reference Library of Social Science)

Book Description

Utilizing current natural resource policies, this work effectively shows how the wetlands fit a dominance model, the Great Lakes is a bounded model, and wildlife is labeled as a valence model. A must read for all interested in congressional policymaking, this book breaks new ground in our understanding of legislative policymaking.

Customer Reviews:

Environmental Policymaking inn Congress.......2001-06-26

This is a great book if you are interested in how environmental policy is made in Congress. It is a sholarly book that also provides practitioners useful information about their impact on the Great Lakes, wetlands and wildlife. It is the most comprehensive piece of well researched and clearly written literature on environmental policymaking to date. The author is thorough in providing description with the book beginning in 1789-current. Certainly a must read for anyone who is a policymaker, student, scholar or has a serious interest in the environment.

Wilderness and the American Mind, Fourth Edition

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Wilderness and the American Mind
When I read this in 1974, I wish I had had it in 1969/70
Wilderness: One of America's Most Important Ideas
Not perfect but still a classic thanks to regular updating
Better for Environmentalists then Others

Wilderness and the American Mind, Fourth Edition
Roderick Nash
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0300091222

Customer Reviews:

Wilderness and the American Mind .......2007-10-13

This book is about the origins of the wilderness preservation movement. Apparently it began as a doctoral dissertation and has been layered over and revised in subsequent publications since 1967. Whatever its original focus was, the bulk of the current version is concerned with the politics of wilderness preservation in America. This is hardly a book about how Americans have explored, experienced, or lived adventurously in the wilderness. Nor is it chiefly about the tension between civilization and nature. There is some of all of that in the early chapters, but the discussion there is more of an overview and so lacks detail and depth. In later chapters the writing often descends into journalistic reporting of tedious minutia. This will delight some readers and tire others.

When I read this in 1974, I wish I had had it in 1969/70.......2006-07-22

While not a perfect book, this is one of the few books I know which I would call "required reading" for people in the environmental movement and ecology. It's not a science book, which is one of my minor problems with it, but I titled this review comment with my opinion prior to taking the first of 2 classes (1974) by one of Nash's student colleagues and then Nash himself. I, and a slew of my colleagues in 1970 really needed to have read this during the organization and preparation for what was then termed "The First Environmental Teach-In" now called ridiculously "Earth Day."

I felt this way in 1974, because I could see that we had retrod ground done by Brower 2 decades earlier and Muir seven decades. And then I learned of names I had never heard before like G. Pinchot and the roles of people like John Wesley Powell independent of the Grand Canyon survey and Stephen Mather and the Natl. Park PR machine (not all bad). This book is part of why students are supposed to take history classes.

The 2nd ed (pub. 1973)., which I had and still have, covered events I lived and can confirmed happened. That's toward the end of the book. The beginning of the book are about pre-American precursors in Europe such as the Romantic movement and various humanist issues like painting and writing. Some of these parts were were a little slow for me (I did read Rousseau), but it did put the Black Forest in perspective more than a type of cake. And that helps with understanding forestry schools.

Nash is good in showing the development of the conservation movement (incl. soil reclamation and forestry [and why hunters and fishers are conservationists]) to the shortcoming of conservation and the start of preservation (Muir, Mather), and the latter shortcomings of "loving wilderness to death" and the rise of environmentalism and ecological biology (Nash likes Leopold, I prefer Rachel Carson, we agree on reading Ed Abbey).

Rod is good at tying together art, literature (here your transcendalists in American Literature come in), popular culture (recreation), religion (See his Rights of Nature book for more depth), and science (barely). He has a good bibliography, one of the finest that I have seen if you want more depth and references, but the field is pretty vast and Nash's text is already thick so his survey is at best described as shallow (supplementary reading like Doug Strong's The Conservationists helps).

Alaska in the 3rd ed. is important to the future. I have been given by Rod in the past "seed" copies, and I purchase "Wilderness" as gifts. I stopped doing that until recently when I was surprised a bio prof friend was unaware. I know he will enjoy reading "Would you flood the Sistine Chapel to get closer to the ceiling?"

I wish that Gaylord Nelson (then Sen., Wisc.) had had us read this book. I think that we would have gone further on that day in 1970. The book is just a shadow of the class experience, I leave lots of book detail out in this review/summary.

Wilderness: One of America's Most Important Ideas .......2005-12-27

Those who have been so quick to pronounce the "death" of environmentalism surely have not taken Roderick Frazier Nash's Wilderness and the American Mind into account. With roots in European Romanticism, and blossoming in mid-19th Century writings of Thoreau and Emerson, the idea of wilderness is one of the most important ideas America has contributed to the world.

The wilderness idea has no abler chronicler than Roderick Nash, whitewater rafting guide, adventurer, descendent of Canadian explorers and professor emeritus of environmental studies, who first published this book in 1967 and has taken it through four editions. His entertaining narrative covers the life of Muir and the early preservation struggles of The Sierra Club. He provides special insight into Aldo Leopold and sets the whole discussion of Leopold's land ethic in its historical context.

While wilderness is everywhere under assault, many still understand the continuing need to preserve our wilderness system, a network of wild areas free from all other human activities. In fact, it's difficult to come away from Nash's book without understanding that wilderness is an intrinsic American value.

The most articulate advocate of wilderness was Theodore Roosevelt, who believed the modern American was in danger of becoming an "overcivilized" man, who has lost strength and higher virtue in a trend toward "slothful ease." Nash gives great credit to Roosevelt and shows how his ideas and experiences contributed to later 20th Century concepts of environmental preservation.

America, according to Roosevelt, needed to preserve the remnants of the pioneer environment because, "no nation facing the unhealthy softening and relaxation of fibre that tends to accompany civilization can afford to neglect anything that will develop hardihood, resolution, and the scorn of discomfort and danger."

Wilderness evokes deep sentiments in the mystic chords of American memory. It is not merely a political movement thought up in the 1960s--a trend that will fade as baby boomers age and our present generation of environmental leaders moves on. Nash shows us how wilderness came to be that way and suggests the wilderness idea is likely to endure at the vital center of our national psyche.

Not perfect but still a classic thanks to regular updating.......2005-07-09

As the other reviews will confirm, this is a classic book on the American concept of wilderness. Nash wrote the first version in the 1960s, originally as his dissertation. The main narrative has held up well. Nash has also put the text through regular revisions, so it lacks any embarrassingly outdated claims that might detract from the book.

The first part of the book is an intellectual history of "wilderness." Wilderness may exist as a state of mind or as the product of an intellectual movement (as in Nash). This kind of analysis is invariably subjective and selective. Nash, like others engaged in this kind of history, draws from a subset of all the people who wrote on the topic at a given moment (and, as he recognizes, necessarily leaves out the views of people who don't write them down). Then, like others, he organizes this material, calling it a "Romantic" view of wilderness or whatever.

I find such exercises interesting but generally unpersuasive by their very nature. For example, Nash interprets the Bible and other foundational texts for Western civilization as embodying a "subdue the wilderness" ethos. Fine. But what of Jesus' reference to the "lilies of the field"? Certainly that implies a valuation of nature as beautiful and worthy in itself - - "Romantic," perhaps. My point is that anyone can always do this, and any intellectual history can always be criticized for leaving things out and thus mischaracterizing what it discusses.

That said, Nash is not too objectionable on that front. In fact, his categorization is helpful, and would be especially good as an introduction to these ideas. This is doubtless why this book is used in so many undergraduate ecology courses.

The second part of the book focuses on various battles over wilderness. Here he moves closer to a straight history. His narrative is forceful and engrossing.

The last chapter, on international issues, is really too superficial to be useful. It leaves the impression that he is trying to be complete with each new edition, without really having fresh insights into the subject.

Overall, the book is very well-written and easy to read - - I classify it as the kind of book that is good to read on an airplane (which is in fact where I read it).

Better for Environmentalists then Others.......2003-12-01

I believed that this book would be an exploration of the concept of "wilderness" as it relates to the American mind. And it is, for about one hundred pages. Since this is a four hundred page bok, that leaves a lot of space to fill.

I found the first two hundred pages to be interesting, the last two hundred to be a slog. Nash spends an interminable amount of time covering "contemporary" environmental struggles. Were it my book, I would have omitted the chapter about Alaska. I imagine that most who read this book have a grasp on the environmental struggles of the recent past.

As I mentioned before, the reason I read this book was to gain a perspecitve on how these struggles came about.

Book Description

Written by a team of leading international experts and practitioners specifically for professionals, students, and academics, this book covers the full terrain of protected area management. Employing dozens of detailed international case studies, hundreds of concise topical snapshots, maps, tables, illustrations and a color plate section, as well as evaluation tools, checklists and numerous appendices, this invaluable guide covers all aspects of park management, including governance, management and administration processes; capacity building; sustainability practice and sustainable use; natural heritage management, and more.

Integrating the social sciences, geography, and biological sciences, this book is the international benchmark for protected area management for all professionals worldwide, from planners, economists, and managers to field staff, for all geographic and jurisdictional contexts and for students and academics teaching in natural resource management, geography, and environmental and protected area management.

Published with IUCN.

Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World

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Lively and Entertaining
Great, Wonderful, Spectacular
Superb
No trees were cut down for this book!

Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World
Rex Weyler
Manufacturer: Rodale Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1594861064
Release Date: 2004-09-23

Book Description

Greenpeace: The Inside Story is the first comprehensive eye-witness account of the human drama behind the creation of the world's largest direct-action environmental group. Greenpeace founder and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Rex Weyler brings us the amazing story of an idea that changed the world, and the adventures, clashes, pitfalls and heroics of the people who fought for it.

The book reveals the roots of ecology and the influence on Greenpeace of legends such as Gandhi, Einstein, Rachel Carson, and Martin Luther King Jr. The story is enhanced through cameo appearances by the CIA, Allen Ginsberg, Bonnie Raitt, Brigitte Bardot, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, The Grateful Dead, Pope Paul VI, Courtney Love, and Richard Nixon.

Greenpeace has 4.5 million dues-paying members around the world, and many millions more supporters.

Customer Reviews:

Lively and Entertaining.......2005-06-25

I loved this book! The pace never dropped into a boggy, dry account but integrated the adventure of being on board a ship chasing whalers with the political history of the group. The issues are explained, in case you missed out on the 1940 to 1980 time period, as I did. Very educational, but never boring. Wonderful!

Great, Wonderful, Spectacular.......2004-12-07

Please consider reading this book. It has changed many people in their views on environmental policy and activism. it has a good analysis and report on how Greenpeace has affected our lives and the benefits of their active roles. Buy it. Its certainly worth the price. I encourage you to also partake in any environmental activism. Environmental information can be found on Greenpeace's website. www.greenpeace.org

Superb.......2004-10-11

This book is a dazzling feat of impassioned storytelling. Weyler conjures the feel of an entire era -- sketching the disparate ideas, the hair-raising events, and the motley crew of inspired eccentrics who precipitated a wild metamorphosis in the collective mindscape. Indeed, his evocation of the visionary fire of these activists -- recounting their personal confusions along with their crazy courage on behalf of a more-than-human world -- may serve as a wake-up jolt to an environmental movement that has today become painfully complacent. And it's a damn good yarn, to boot."

No trees were cut down for this book!.......2004-10-09

I love the fact that this book was printed on forest friendly paper. If more books were made like this we'd have more homes for the wild animals.

Politicians and Poachers: The Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

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Politicians and Poachers: The Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
Clark C. Gibson
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521663784

Book Description

This book explores the politics of wildlife conservation policy in Africa, specifically Zambia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. The book addresses a general question: Why don't wildlife policies seem to be working? Rather than use standard explanations such as "bureaucratic inefficiency" or "corrupt dictators," the book demonstrates how politicians at all levels use wildlife policy for their own political ends, which may or may not include conservation. The book uses electoral and archival data, as well as interviews with individuals ranging from presidents to poachers to address this issue.

The Wildfire Reader: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

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Sustainable Ecosystems and Fire

The Wildfire Reader: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

Manufacturer: Foundation for Deep Ecology, by arrangement with Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1597260878

Book Description

Wildfires are an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon that

have shaped North AmericaÂ's landscapes since the dawn

of time. They are a force that we cannot really control,

and thus understanding, appreciating, and learning to

live with wildfire is ultimately our wisest public policy.

With more than 150 dramatic photographs, Wildfire: A

Century of Failed Forest Policy covers the topic of wildfire

from ecological, economic, and social/political perspectives

while also documenting how past forest policies

have hindered natural processes, creating a tinderbox of

problems that we are faced with today.

More than 25 leading thinkers in the field of fire ecology

provide in-depth analyses, critiques, and compelling

solutions for how we live with fire in our society. Using

examples such as the epic Yellowstone fires of 1988, the

ever-present southern California fires, and the

NorthwestÂ's Biscuit Fire of 2002, the book examines the

ecology of these landscapes and the policies and practices

that affected them and continue to affect them, such

as fire suppression, prescribed burns, salvage logging,

and land-use planning. Overall, the book aims to promote

the restoration of fire to the landscape and to

encourage its natural behavior so it can resume its role as

a major ecological process.

Customer Reviews:

Sustainable Ecosystems and Fire.......2007-04-05

Contrary to Smokey T. Bear, fire is an integral part of healthy ecosystems. The biggest problem with wildland fire is suppression, not burning. After a century of aggressive fire suppression and the myth of Smokey T. Bear, we now see clearly that fire is integral just as soils, sun, wind, water, insects, snow, ice and other natural processes. Put an increment borerer into a tree and you can read the fire history of an ecosystem back up to 3,000 years.

Core into soils, meadows and adjacent streams and you can often retrace almost 10,000 years of fire history in the sediments, buried logs and stumps. Learn the behavior of wildland fire in the presence of sun, upslope wind, rain, snow, clouds, humidity, katabtic winds and air temperature and you begin to catch a glimpse of how we have artificially imposed politics, wishful thinking and pseudoscience on wildland ecosystems.

Media and politicians speak of "catastrophic" and "charred" ecosystems, but fail to speak of the catastrophe of sprawling urban development imposed upon fire-maintained vegetation and soils. We live in wood houses with wood shake roofs and wonder why our houses burn when the surrounding air super heats.

We have made many mistakes with fire. The first mistake is labeling wildland ecosystems uninhabited "wilderness". As Kat Andersen reminds us in "Before The Wilderness," this was never wilderness, people have always lived here AND used fire as a tool to maintain healthy ecosystems for more than 10,000 years.

It was the European invasion that labeled fire as "bad" and Disney and Bambi who drove the message home. It is only through the dedicated work of scientists and wildland managers in places like Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Yosemite and Yellowstone Natl Parks since 1970 that we have begun to understand the basic role of fire. The Leopold Commission in the early 1950s clearly identified the potential for large fires from all the biomass that was and continues to build up.

There is still a large residue who label fire as "bad," and don't understand the role of fire in healthy, resilant, durable ecosystems. Air Quality districts now impose their mandates on when to burn. This book is a must for the public, resource managers and urban residents.

The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Vol. 1: Renewing the Conservation Promise

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The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Vol. 1: Renewing the Conservation Promise

Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1597260096

Book Description

The Endangered Species Act at Thirty is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of issues surrounding the Endangered Species Act, with a specific focus on the act's actual implementation record over the past thirty years. The result of a unique, multi-year collaboration among stakeholder groups from across the political spectrum, the two volumes offer a dispassionate consideration of a highly polarized topic.

Renewing the Conservation Promise, Volume 1, puts the reader in a better position to make informed decisions about future directions in biodiversity conservation by elevating the policy debate from its current state of divisive polemics to a more-constructive analysis. It helps the reader understand how the Endangered Species Act has been implemented, the consequences of that implementation, and how the act could be changed to better serve the needs of both the species it is designed to protect and the people who must live within its mandates. Volume 2, which examines philosophical, biological, and economic dimensions of the act in greater detail, will be published in 2006.

As debate over reforming the Endangered Species Act heats up in the coming months, these two books will be essential references for policy analysts and lawmakers; professionals involved with environmental law, science, or management; and academic researchers and students concerned with environmental law, policy, management, or science.

Conservation Across Borders: Biodiversity in an Interdependent World

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Excellent Resource for International Conservation
Lessons that can be learned from modern history

Conservation Across Borders: Biodiversity in an Interdependent World
Charles C. Chester
Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1559636114

Book Description

Conservationists have long been aware that political

boundaries rarely coincide with natural boundaries.

From the establishment of early Â“peace parksÂ”to the

designation of continental migratory pathways, a

wide range of transborder mechanisms to protect

biodiversity have been established by conservationists

in both the public and private sectors.

Conservation Across Borders presents a broad

overview of the history of transboundary conservation

efforts and an accessible introduction to current issues surrounding

the subject. Through detailed examinations of two initiatives, the

International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA) and the Yellowstone to

Yukon Initiative (Y2Y), the book helps readers understand the benefits

and challenges of landscape-scale protection.

In addition to discussing general concepts and the specific experience

of ISDA and Y2Y, the author considers the emerging concept of Â“conservation

effectivenessÂ” and offers a comparative analysis of the two

projects. The book ends with a discussion of the complex relationships

among civil society, governments, and international borders.

By considering the history, goals, successes, and failures of two divergent

initiatives, the book offers important insights into the field of

transborder conservation along with valuable lessons for those studying

or working in the field.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Resource for International Conservation.......2007-06-10

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in international conservation. It is thorough, insightful, and inclusive. Great resource for biologists, sociologists, ecologists, economists, and anyone who cares about global conservation.

Lessons that can be learned from modern history.......2006-10-07

Conservation Across Borders: Biodiversity In An Interdependent World by Charles C. Chester (Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School at Tuffs University) broadly chronicles the history of environmental conservation movements that have extended past the borders of nations. In particular, Conservation Across Borders focuses upon the International Sonoran Desert Alliance and the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative as case studies to help the reader understand the unique challenges of coordinating landscape-scale protective efforts. The final chapter makes a bold contribution to the newly evolving field of "conservation effectiveness", and the lessons that can be learned from modern history. Written with scholarly precision yet accessible to lay readers as well as environmental activists, Conservation Across Borders is strongly recommended reading especially for anyone involved in a large-scale environmental movement, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Wildlife Policies in the U.S. National Parks

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Essential study of wildlife policies in the national parks, but recommendations are weak

Wildlife Policies in the U.S. National Parks
Frederic H. Wagner , Ronald Foresta , Richard Bruce Gill , Dale Richard McCullough , Michael R. Pelton , William F. Porter , and Hal Salwasser
Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

This volume presents the results of a five-year study of wildlife-management policies in national parks. It synthesizes interviews with individuals inside and outside the National Park Service, provides a comprehensive review of published and unpublished literature, and draws on the collective experience of the authors with various units of the system over the past three decades. Among the topics examined are:

the structure and history of the National Park System and Service
wildlife "problems" in the parks
the role of science in formulating policies and in management
recommendations for changes in policy formulation, management, and scientific research procedures

Customer Reviews:

Essential study of wildlife policies in the national parks, but recommendations are weak.......2007-09-06

This report was originally commissioned by The Wildlife Society to make recommendations for managing wildlife in the national parks. TWS was disappointed with the result, and the authors decided to publish it on their own instead of trying to satisfy them.

It's an excellent review of the history of wildlife management in the national parks. Originally, wildlife were an afterthought because the parks were built around monumental scenery. After that, many people started to think of some species of wildlife as part of the scenery too, such as bears in Yellowstone or Yosemite. Eventually, wildlife became a featured part of some parks such as Isle Royale or the Everglades. In all parks, wildlife faces threats external to the park such as pollution or exotic species, as well as internal threats from tourism and other national park service goals.

The authors review these issues very well, and this book is one of the central texts for any review of wildlife in the parks. However, they shrink back from making any strong recommendations. As scientists, they tend to feel more comfortable with recommendations of the form, "If your goal is X, then your policy should be Y." They are less comfortable talking about what the policy goals should be, and the authors did not see this book as the place to make radical recommendations about decommissioning roads, removing tourists, or the like.

They also don't really confront the political problems involved in park policy. These include the interests of concessionaires and gateway communities, hunters in the region around each park, congressional pork, the political interests of the National Park Service, and the self-interest of scientists who work in parks (such as the authors!). While they mention these issues, they don't really confront them as either obstacles or opportunities to their preferred policy, in large part because their policy recommendations are pretty weak themselves.

Though this book is essential if you want to understand wildlife in parks, those limitations are an important weakness. It deserves 4.5 stars but I'll round up because I'm in a good mood.

Bureaucratic Landscapes: Interagency Cooperation and the Preservation of Biodiversity (Politics, Science, and the Environment)

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Bureaucratic Landscapes: Interagency Cooperation and the Preservation of Biodiversity (Politics, Science, and the Environment)
Craig W. Thomas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback