Download or read book Nature s Fortune written by Mark R Tercek and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is nature worth? The answer to this question -- which traditionally has been framed in environmental terms -- is revolutionizing the way we do business. In Nature's Fortune, Mark Tercek, CEO of The Nature Conservancy and former investment banker, and science writer Jonathan Adams argue that nature is not only the foundation of human well-being, but also the smartest commercial investment any business or government can make. The forests, floodplains, and oyster reefs often seen simply as raw materials or as obstacles to be cleared in the name of progress are, in fact as important to our future prosperity as technology or law or business innovation. Who invests in nature, and why? What rates of return can it produce? When is protecting nature a good investment? With stories from the South Pacific to the California coast, from the Andes to the Gulf of Mexico and even to New York City, Nature's Fortune shows how viewing nature as green infrastructure allows for breakthroughs not only in conservation -- protecting water supplies; enhancing the health of fisheries; making cities more sustainable, livable and safe; and dealing with unavoidable climate change -- but in economic progress, as well. Organizations obviously depend on the environment for key resources -- water, trees, and land. But they can also reap substantial commercial benefits in the form of risk mitigation, cost reduction, new investment opportunities, and the protection of assets. Once leaders learn how to account for nature in financial terms, they can incorporate that value into the organization's decisions and activities, just as habitually as they consider cost, revenue, and ROI. A must-read for business leaders, CEOs, investors, and environmentalists alike, Nature's Fortune offers an essential guide to the world's economic -- and environmental -- well-being.

Download or read book Everyone Helped His Neighbor written by Lu Ann Jones and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1980s, The Nature Conservancy began work on the fast-growing Outer Banks by protecting Nags Head Woods. One of the last intact maritime forests on the East Coast, the Woods was in danger of becoming a housing development. In the late nineteenth century Nags Head Woods was home to about forty families and to this day remnants of their time there can be seen during a walk in the preserve. Based on oral histories, "Everyone Helped His Neighbor" documents the social and cultural history of a community that worked the land and waters of this unique place. Originally published in 1987, this reissue edition contains a foreword by David S. Cecelski and an afterword by the authors.

Download or read book Blue Ridge Commons written by Kathryn Newfont and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the late twentieth century, residents of the Blue Ridge mountains in western North Carolina fiercely resisted certain environmental efforts, even while launching aggressive initiatives of their own. Kathryn Newfont provides context for those events by examining the environmental history of this region over the course of three hundred years, identifying what she calls commons environmentalism--a cultural strain of conservation in American history that has gone largely unexplored. Efforts in the 1970s to expand federal wilderness areas in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests generated strong opposition. For many mountain residents the idea of unspoiled wilderness seemed economically unsound, historically dishonest, and elitist. Newfont shows that local people's sense of commons environmentalism required access to the forests that they viewed as semipublic places for hunting, fishing, and working. Policies that removed large tracts from use were perceived as 'enclosure' and resisted. Incorporating deep archival work and years of interviews and conversations with Appalachian residents, Blue Ridge Commons reveals a tradition of people building robust forest protection movements on their own terms."--p. [4] of cover.

Download or read book Force of Nature written by Arthur Melville Pearson and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spurred by the accelerating destruction of remnant natural lands, one man had the vision and tenacity to transform a loose band of ecologists into The Nature Conservancy and launch the entire natural areas movement.

Download or read book The Outermost House written by Henry Beston and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic nature memoir of Cape Cod in the early twentieth century, “written with simplicity, sympathy, and beauty” (New York Herald Tribune). When Henry Beston returned home from World War I, he sought refuge and healing at a house on the outer beach of Cape Cod. He was so taken by the natural beauty of his surroundings that his two-week stay extended into a yearlong solitary adventure. He spent his time trying to capture in words the wonders of the magical landscape he found himself in thrall to. In The Outermost House, Beston chronicles his experiences observing the migrations of seabirds, the rhythms of the tide, the windblown dunes, and the scatter of stars in the changing summer sky. Beston argued: “The world today is sick to its thin blood for the lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot.” Nearly a century after publication, Beston’s words are more true than ever.

Download or read book Georgia s Amazing Coast written by David Bryant and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fun and learning come together in Georgia's Amazing Coast, an inviting collection of one hundred short, self-contained features about the flora, fauna, and natural history of that fascinating place where land meets sea. Each page includes a full-color illustration and breezy, fact-filled commentary on coastal wildlife from fifty-foot-long northern right whales to single-cell plankton, from shy coyotes to overbearingly sociable sand gnats. Readers will learn about the lifespan of the gopher tortoise, the acting talents of the hognose snake, the health benefits of eating pawpaws, the importance of tidal fluctuations, and much more. Written for the general reader, yet solidly researched, Georgia's Amazing Coast will spark our sense of wonder and inspire us to learn even more about our natural heritage and what all of us can do to preserve it.

Download or read book The Natural History of Raleigh written by John Dancy-Jones and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Wild North Carolina written by David Blevins and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2011-04-04 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrating the beauty, diversity, and significance of the state's natural landscapes, Wild North Carolina provides an engaging, beautifully illustrated introduction to North Carolina's interconnected webs of plant and animal life. From dunes and marshes to high mountain crags, through forests, swamps, savannas, ponds, pocosins, and flatrocks, David Blevins and Michael Schafale reveal in words and photographs natural patterns of the landscape that will help readers see familiar places in a new way and new places with a sense of familiarity. Wild North Carolina introduces the full range of the state's diverse natural communities, each brought to life with compelling accounts of their significance and meaning, arresting photographs featuring broad vistas and close-ups, and details on where to go to experience them first hand. Blevins and Schafale provide nature enthusiasts of all levels with the insights they need to value the state's natural diversity, highlighting the reasons plants and animals are found where they are, as well as the challenges of conserving these special places.

Download or read book The Natural Gardens of North Carolina written by B. W. Wells and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 1307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For seventy years, The Natural Gardens of North Carolina has been a must-read volume for anyone interested in wildflowers, native plants, ecology, or conservation in the state. This handsome revised edition features new line drawings and color photographs, an appendix that updates the botanical nomenclature, an introduction that focuses on B. W. Wells and his passion for the state's landscape, and an afterword that discusses the continuing relevance of Wells's ideas. One of the first scientists to write and lecture about ecology, Wells introduced North Carolinians to the extraordinary tapestry of "natural gardens," or plant communities, within the state's borders back in 1932. His purpose was to help readers understand a plant within its community--a pioneering concept at the time--and to promote conservation. Moving from the Atlantic coast westward, Wells identifies eleven major natural gardens: the sand dune community, salt marsh, freshwater marsh, swamp forest, aquatic vegetation, evergreen shrub bog (or pocosin), grass-sedge bog (or savanna), sandhill, old-field community, upland forest, and high mountain spruce-fir forest. He devotes the first part of his book to a general account of the vegetation and habitats of each community and then identifies and describes the wildflowers found there.

Download or read book The North Carolina Birding Trail written by North Carolina Birding Trail and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2011-01-20 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North Carolina harbors an incredible diversity of habitats that provide food and shelter for more than 440 bird species throughout the year, making the state a destination for birders and nature lovers. The North Carolina Birding Trail is a driving trail linking birders and tourists with great birding sites across the state and the local communities in which they are found. The second of three regional guides, the Piedmont Trail Guide presents 103 premier birding destinations in the North Carolina piedmont, most within an easy drive of the state's urban centers, between Charlotte on the west and Interstate 95 on the east. The spiral-bound volume features maps, detailed site descriptions, and color photographs throughout. Each site description includes directions as well as information on access, focal species and habitats, and on-site visitor amenities. Special "while you're in the area" listings accompany each of fourteen site groupings, so visitors can travel to a cluster of birding destinations and enjoy other local highlights and attractions along the way.

Download or read book Natural Woodland written by George F. Peterken and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-03-28 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating account of woodland natural history for all those concerned with woodland management and ecology.

Download or read book Precious Heritage written by Bruce A. Stein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-03-16 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the lush forests of Appalachia to the frozen tundra of Alaska, and from the tallgrass prairies of the Midwest to the subtropical rainforests of Hawaii, the United States harbors a remarkable array of ecosystems. These ecosystems in turn sustain an exceptional variety of plant and animal life. For species such as salamanders and freshwater turtles, the United States ranks as the global center of diversity. Among the nation's other unique biological features are California's coast redwoods, the world's tallest trees, and Nevada's Devils Hole pupfish, which survives in a single ten-by-seventy-foot desert pool, the smallest range of any vertebrate animal. Precious Heritage draws together for the first time a quarter century of information on U.S. biodiversity developed by natural heritage programs from across the country. This richly illustrated volume not only documents those aspects of U.S. biodiversity that are particularly noteworthy, but also considers how our species and ecosystems are faring, what is threatening them, and what is needed to protect the nation's remaining natural inheritance. Above all, Precious Heritage is a celebration of the extraordinary biological diversity of the United States.

Download or read book New Deal New Landscape written by Tara Mitchell Mielnik and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-11-19 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tara Mitchell Mielnik fills a significant gap in the history of the New Deal South by examining the lives of the men of South Carolina's Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) who from 1933 to 1942 built sixteen state parks, all of which still exist today. Enhanced with revealing interviews with former state CCC members, Mielnik's illustrated account provides a unique exploration into the Great Depression in the Palmetto State and the role that South Carolina's state parks continue to play as architectural legacies of a monumental New Deal program. In 1933, thousands of unemployed young men and World War I veterans were given the opportunity to work when Emergency Conservation Work (ECW), one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs, came to South Carolina. Renamed the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1937, the program was responsible for planting millions of trees in reforestation projects, augmenting firefighting activities, stringing much-needed telephone lines for fire prevention throughout the state, and terracing farmland and other soil conservation projects. The most visible legacies of the CCC in South Carolina are many of the state's national forests, recreational areas, and parks. Prior to the work of the CCC, South Carolina had no state parks, but, from 1933 to 1942, the CCC built sixteen. Mielnik's briskly paced and informative study gives voice to the young men who labored in the South Carolina CCC and honors the legacy of the parks they built and the conservation and public recreation values these sites fostered for modern South Carolina.

Download or read book Crossroads of the Natural World written by Tom Earnhardt and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this richly illustrated love letter to the wild places and natural wonders of North Carolina, Tom Earnhardt, writer and host of UNC-TV's Exploring North Carolina and lifelong conservationist, seamlessly ties deep geological time and forgotten species from our distant past to the unparalleled biodiversity of today. With varied topography and a climate that is simultaneously subtropical, temperate, and subarctic, he shows that North Carolina is a meeting place for living things more commonly found far to the north and south. Highlighting the ways in which the state is a unique ecological crossroads, Earnhardt's research, insightful writing, and stunning photography will both teach and inspire. Crossroads of the Natural World invites readers to engage a variety of topics, including the impacts of invasive species, the importance of forested buffers along our rivers, the role of naturalists, and the challenges facing the state in a time of climate change and sea-level rise. By sharing his own journey of more than sixty years, Earnhardt entices North Carolinians of every age to explore the natural diversity of our state.

Download or read book The Grand Canyon Unseen Beauty written by Thomas Blagden Jr. and published by Rizzoli Publications. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The majesty of the Grand Canyon is celebrated from the Colorado River as it continues to carve America's natural wonder from a mile below the rim. As one of the Wonders of the World and the most iconic national park in America, the Grand Canyon enthralls six million visitors each year. Only a small fraction of those people, however, have the privilege of experiencing the canyon by rafting down the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon captures and evokes the power of that journey from the drama of the rapids and the immeasurable scale of the canyon walls to the subtle rock patterns and varied life forms. What started as an exceptional opportunity for Tom Blagden to raft through The Canyon in 2006 with Rod Nash at the oars has evolved into a passionate photographic pursuit that still continues. The route--the River--is the same every time but the experience constantly variable and deeply profound. Rafters never tire of it and, if anything, feel more in awe of the Canyon's magnificence with each trip. Tom Blagden's images and Rod Nash's essay reveal the canyon from a different perspective portraying what it's like to be on the river and immersed a mile deep, surrounded by rock almost half the age of the earth. On the centennial of Grand Canyon National Park it seems only fitting that we journey together to this unique place through the pages of this astonishing book. The book weaves a wondrous adventure that will bring readers along on a journey while raising questions about the significance of a national park and an iconic American river and how to sustain them for generations to follow.

Download or read book The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation written by Shane P. Mahoney and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The foremost experts on the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation come together to discuss its role in the rescue, recovery, and future of our wildlife resources. At the end of the nineteenth century, North America suffered a catastrophic loss of wildlife driven by unbridled resource extraction, market hunting, and unrelenting subsistence killing. This crisis led powerful political forces in the United States and Canada to collaborate in the hopes of reversing the process, not merely halting the extinctions but returning wildlife to abundance. While there was great understanding of how to manage wildlife in Europe, where wildlife management was an old, mature profession, Continental methods depended on social values often unacceptable to North Americans. Even Canada, a loyal colony of England, abandoned wildlife management as practiced in the mother country and joined forces with like-minded Americans to develop a revolutionary system of wildlife conservation. In time, and surviving the close scrutiny and hard ongoing debate of open, democratic societies, this series of conservation practices became known as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. In this book, editors Shane P. Mahoney and Valerius Geist, both leading authorities on the North American Model, bring together their expert colleagues to provide a comprehensive overview of the origins, achievements, and shortcomings of this highly successful conservation approach. This volume • reviews the emergence of conservation in late nineteenth–early twentieth century North America • provides detailed explorations of the Model's institutions, principles, laws, and policies • places the Model within ecological, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts • describes the many economic, social, and cultural benefits of wildlife restoration and management • addresses the Model's challenges and limitations while pointing to emerging opportunities for increasing inclusivity and optimizing implementation Studying the North American experience offers insight into how institutionalizing policies and laws while incentivizing citizen engagement can result in a resilient framework for conservation. Written for wildlife professionals, researchers, and students, this book explores the factors that helped fashion an enduring conservation system, one that has not only rescued, recovered, and sustainably utilized wildlife for over a century, but that has also advanced a significant economic driver and a greater scientific understanding of wildlife ecology. Contributors: Leonard A. Brennan, Rosie Cooney, James L. Cummins, Kathryn Frens, Valerius Geist, James R. Heffelfinger, David G. Hewitt, Paul R. Krausman, Shane P. Mahoney, John F. Organ, James Peek, William Porter, John Sandlos, James A. Schaefer

Download or read book Longleaf Far as the Eye Can See written by Bill Finch and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-10-22 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longleaf forests once covered 92 million acres from Texas to Maryland to Florida. These grand old-growth pines were the "alpha tree" of the largest forest ecosystem in North America and have come to define the southern forest. But logging, suppression of fire, destruction by landowners, and a complex web of other factors reduced those forests so that longleaf is now found only on 3 million acres. Fortunately, the stately tree is enjoying a resurgence of interest, and longleaf forests are once again spreading across the South. Blending a compelling narrative by writers Bill Finch, Rhett Johnson, and John C. Hall with Beth Maynor Young's breathtaking photography, Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See invites readers to experience the astounding beauty and significance of the majestic longleaf ecosystem. The authors explore the interactions of longleaf with other species, the development of longleaf forests prior to human contact, and the influence of the longleaf on southern culture, as well as ongoing efforts to restore these forests. Part natural history, part conservation advocacy, and part cultural exploration, this book highlights the special nature of longleaf forests and proposes ways to conserve and expand them.