Download or read book The Primary Source written by Norman Myers and published by W W Norton & Company Incorporated. This book was released on 1992 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains the ecological importance of tropical forests, examines the current threat to their survival, and tells how these forests can be preserved

Download or read book Foresters Borders and Bark Beetles written by Eunice Blavascunas and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Europe's last primeval forest, at Poland's easternmost border with Belarus, the deep past of ancient oaks, woodland bison, and thousands of species of insects and fungi collides with authoritarian and communist histories. Foresters, biologists, environmentalists, and locals project the ancient Białowieża Forest as a series of competing icons in struggles over memory, land, and economy, which are also struggles about whether to log or preserve the woodland; whether and how to celebrate the mixed ethnic Polish/Belarusian peasant past; and whether to align this eastern outpost with ultraright Polish political parties, neighboring Belarus, or the European Union. Eunice Blavascunas provides an intimate ethnographic account, gathered in more than 20 years of research, to untangle complex forest conflicts between protection and use. She looks at which pasts are celebrated, which fester, and which are altered in the tumultuous decades following the collapse of communism. Foresters, Borders, and Bark Beetles is a timely and fascinating work of cultural analysis and storytelling that textures its ethnographic reading of people with the agency of the forest itself and its bark beetle outbreaks, which threaten to alter the very composition of the forest in the age of the Anthropocene.

Download or read book Forests Adrift written by Charles D. Canham and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating analysis of the past, present, and future of northeastern forests and the forces that have shaped them The northeastern United States is one of the most densely forested regions in the country, yet its history of growth, destruction, and renewal are for the most part poorly understood--even by specialists. In this engaging look at both the impermanence and the resilience of the northeastern forest ecosystems, Charles D. Canham provides a synthesis of modern ecological research and explores critical threats that include logging, fire suppression, disease, air pollution, invasive species, and climate change. Providing a historical perspective on how northeastern forests have changed since the arrival of European settlers, Canham also utilizes new theoretical models to predict how these ecosystems will change and adapt to an uncertain future. This is an informed and accessible investigation of an endangered natural landscape that examines the ramifications of the scientific controversies and ethical dilemmas shaping the future of northeastern forests.

Download or read book Rainforest written by Tony Juniper and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rainforests are the lungs of our planet - regulators of the earth's temperature and weather. They are also home to 50 per cent of the world's animals and plants - which for centuries have been the source of many of our key medicines. And yet we've all heard of their systematic destruction; the raising of trees to make way for plantations of oil palms or cattle, the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, and the corruption that leads to illegal logging and pollution. But this is the full story you've never heard: an in depth, wide-ranging, first-hand narrative that not only looks at the state of the world's tropical rainforests today and the implications arising from their continuing decline, but also at what is being done, and can be done in future, to protect the forests and the 1.6 billion people that depend upon them. It is inspirational, too, in its descriptions of the rainforest's remarkable birds and plants ... and its indigenous people. Rainforest is a personal story, drawing on the author's many years' experience at the frontline of the fight to save the rainforests, explaining the science and history of the campaigns, and what it has felt like to be there, amid the conflicts and dilemmas.

Download or read book The Journeys of Trees A Story about Forests People and the Future written by Zach St. George and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent and illuminating portrait of forest migration, and of the people studying the forests of the past, protecting the forests of the present, and planting the forests of the future. Forests are restless. Any time a tree dies or a new one sprouts, the forest that includes it has shifted. When new trees sprout in the same direction, the whole forest begins to migrate, sometimes at astonishing rates. Today, however, an array of obstacles—humans felling trees by the billions, invasive pests transported through global trade—threaten to overwhelm these vital movements. Worst of all, the climate is changing faster than ever before, and forests are struggling to keep up. A deft blend of science reporting and travel writing, The Journeys of Trees explores the evolving movements of forests by focusing on five trees: giant sequoia, ash, black spruce, Florida torreya, and Monterey pine. Journalist Zach St. George visits these trees in forests across continents, finding sequoias losing their needles in California, fossil records showing the paths of ancient forests in Alaska, domesticated pines in New Zealand, and tender new sprouts of blight-resistant American chestnuts in New Hampshire. Everywhere he goes, St. George meets lively people on conservation’s front lines, from an ecologist studying droughts to an evolutionary evangelist with plans to save a dying species. He treks through the woods with activists, biologists, and foresters, each with their own role to play in the fight for the uncertain future of our environment. An eye-opening investigation into forest migration past and present, The Journeys of Trees examines how we can all help our trees, and our planet, survive and thrive.

Download or read book Our Forests Our Future written by Emil Salim and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-04-15 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique report of the current status and future survival of the world's forests compiled by an international independent commission.

Download or read book The Social Lives of Forests written by Susanna B. Hecht and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forests are in decline, and the threats these outposts of nature face—including deforestation, degradation, and fragmentation—are the result of human culture. Or are they? This volume calls these assumptions into question, revealing forests’ past, present, and future conditions to be the joint products of a host of natural and cultural forces. Moreover, in many cases the coalescence of these forces—from local ecologies to competing knowledge systems—has masked a significant contemporary trend of woodland resurgence, even in the forests of the tropics. Focusing on the history and current use of woodlands from India to the Amazon, The Social Lives of Forests attempts to build a coherent view of forests sited at the nexus of nature, culture, and development. With chapters covering the effects of human activities on succession patterns in now-protected Costa Rican forests; the intersection of gender and knowledge in African shea nut tree markets; and even the unexpectedly rich urban woodlands of Chicago, this book explores forests as places of significant human action, with complex institutions, ecologies, and economies that have transformed these landscapes in the past and continue to shape them today. From rain forests to timber farms, the face of forests—how we define, understand, and maintain them—is changing.

Download or read book How Trees Die written by Jeff Gillman and published by Westholme Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains how trees age and the various ways they die, i.e. at the hands of humans or by foreign insects and diseases. Explores the future of trees as well.

Download or read book Southern Forest Science written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Southern forests provide innumerable benefits. Forest scientists, managers, owners, and users have in common the desire to improve the condition of these forests and the ecosystems they support. A first step is to understand the contributions science has made and continues to make to the care and management of forests. This book represents a celebration of past accomplishments, summarizes the current state of knowledge, and creates a vision for the future of southern forestry research and management. Chapters are organized into seven sections: "Looking Back," "Productivity," "Forest Health," "Water and Soils," "Socioeconomic," "Biodiversity," and "Climate Change." Each section is preceded by a brief introductory chapter. Authors were encouraged to focus on the most important aspects of their topics; citations are included to guide readers to further information."

Download or read book Proceedings Future Forests of the Mountain West written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fire Ecology and Management Past Present and Future of US Forested Ecosystems written by Cathryn H. Greenberg and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume presents original scientific research and knowledge synthesis covering the past, present, and potential future fire ecology of major US forest types, with implications for forest management in a changing climate. The editors and authors highlight broad patterns among ecoregions and forest types, as well as detailed information for individual ecoregions, for fire frequencies and severities, fire effects on tree mortality and regeneration, and levels of fire-dependency by plant and animal communities. The foreword addresses emerging ecological and fire management challenges for forests, in relation to sustainable development goals as highlighted in recent government reports. An introductory chapter highlights patterns of variation in frequencies, severities, scales, and spatial patterns of fire across ecoregions and among forested ecosystems across the US in relation to climate, fuels, topography and soils, ignition sources (lightning or anthropogenic), and vegetation. Separate chapters by respected experts delve into the fire ecology of major forest types within US ecoregions, with a focus on the level of plant and animal fire-dependency, and the role of fire in maintaining forest composition and structure. The regional chapters also include discussion of historic natural (lightning-ignited) and anthropogenic (Native American; settlers) fire regimes, current fire regimes as influenced by recent decades of fire suppression and land use history, and fire management in relation to ecosystem integrity and restoration, wildfire threat, and climate change. The summary chapter combines the major points of each chapter, in a synthesis of US-wide fire ecology and forest management into the future. This book provides current, organized, readily accessible information for the conservation community, land managers, scientists, students and educators, and others interested in how fire behavior and effects on structure and composition differ among ecoregions and forest types, and what that means for forest management today and in the future.

Download or read book Future Forests written by Steven G. McNulty and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2023-10-25 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Future Forests: Adaptation to Climate Change provides background on forests as natural and social systems, the current distribution and dynamics based on major biomes that set the stage for their role of forests in global systems, the nature of climate change organized by biomes, and detailed descriptions of mitigation and adaptation strategies. This book forms presents a foundational summary of the feedback between the effect of climate change on forests and the converse effects of forests on climate, leading to conclusions on how forest management needs to be dictated by climate change.The book will be ideal for readers in the fields of climate change science, forest science and conservation biology, helping them develop a thorough understanding on the broad perspective of climate change on forests, the response of forests to these changes, and other climate-forest interaction potentials. - Organizes information on climate change and the effect of/on forests at a general level before presenting biome-related specifics - Discusses the differences among major biomes (tropical, boreal, temperate) and the systems in which forest management (and hence potential mitigation and adaptation) occurs - Goes beyond simply describing problems, elaborating on potential solutions that can be implemented for climate change mitigation

Download or read book A Conspiracy of Optimism written by Paul W. Hirt and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Conspiracy of Optimism explains the controversy now raging over the U.S. Forest Service’s management of America’s national forests. Confronted with the dual mandate of production and preservation, the U.S. Forest Service decided it could achieve both goals through more intensive management. For a few decades after World War Two, this “conspiracy of optimism” masked the fact that high levels of resource extraction were destroying forest ecosystems. The effects of intensive management—massive clear-cuts, polluted streams, declining wildlife populations, and marred scenery—initiated several decades of environmental conflict that continues to the present. Hirt documents the roots of this conflict and illuminates recent changes in administration and policy that suggest a hopeful future for federal lands.

Download or read book Forest and Rangeland Soils of the United States Under Changing Conditions written by Richard V. Pouyat and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-02 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book synthesizes leading-edge science and management information about forest and rangeland soils of the United States. It offers ways to better understand changing conditions and their impacts on soils, and explores directions that positively affect the future of forest and rangeland soil health. This book outlines soil processes and identifies the research needed to manage forest and rangeland soils in the United States. Chapters give an overview of the state of forest and rangeland soils research in the Nation, including multi-decadal programs (chapter 1), then summarizes various human-caused and natural impacts and their effects on soil carbon, hydrology, biogeochemistry, and biological diversity (chapters 2–5). Other chapters look at the effects of changing conditions on forest soils in wetland and urban settings (chapters 6–7). Impacts include: climate change, severe wildfires, invasive species, pests and diseases, pollution, and land use change. Chapter 8 considers approaches to maintaining or regaining forest and rangeland soil health in the face of these varied impacts. Mapping, monitoring, and data sharing are discussed in chapter 9 as ways to leverage scientific and human resources to address soil health at scales from the landscape to the individual parcel (monitoring networks, data sharing Web sites, and educational soils-centered programs are tabulated in appendix B). Chapter 10 highlights opportunities for deepening our understanding of soils and for sustaining long-term ecosystem health and appendix C summarizes research needs. Nine regional summaries (appendix A) offer a more detailed look at forest and rangeland soils in the United States and its Affiliates.

Download or read book Future Sense written by H B Gelatt and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-27 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Future Sense is the latest decision making framework from H B Gelatt. It is the culmination of 60 years of studying, speaking and writing about decision making, with more to come.This book represents what HB thinks is the status of the process of decision making today. And the need for Future Sense. Now more than ever, he believes it is time to "see the forest and the trees" as we create our future within each ofus.Future Sense is an approach for traveling the journey to the future. This new approach to decision making requires you to learn to recover some of your "child-like" ways: being open, playful, curious, receptive, even foolish. And to develop your creativity, to keep asking questions, and to be inclusive.Future Sense involves making changes inside you. Only one person can do that. Future Sense is an inside job. What lies behind you and before you are important. But what lies within you is crucial.

Download or read book Flames in Our Forest written by Stephen F. Arno and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaped by fire for thousands of years, the forests of the western United States are as adapted to periodic fires as they are to the region's soils and climate. Our widespread practice of ignoring the vital role of fire is costly in both ecological and economic terms, with consequences including the decline of important fire-dependent tree and undergrowth species, increasing density and stagnation of forests, epidemics of insects and diseases, and the high potential for severe wildfires. Flames in Our Forest explains those problems and presents viable solutions to them. It explores the underlying historical and ecological reasons for the problems associated with our attempts to exclude fire and examines how some of the benefits of natural fire can be restored Chapters consider: the history of American perceptions and uses of fire in the forest how forest fires burn effects of fire on the soil, water, and air methods for uncovering the history and effects of past fires prescribed fire and fuel treatments for different zones in the landscape Flames in Our Forest presents a new picture of the role of fire in maintaining forests, describes the options available for restoring the historical effects of fires, and considers the implications of not doing so. It will help readers appreciate the importance of fire in forests and gives a nontechnical overview of the scientific knowledge and tools available for sustaining western forests by mimicking and restoring the effects of natural fire regimes.

Download or read book The Fate of the Forest written by Susanna B. Hecht and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Amazon rain forest covers more than five million square kilometers, amid the territories of nine different nations. It represents over half of the planet’s remaining rain forest. Is it truly in peril? What steps are necessary to save it? To understand the future of Amazonia, one must know how its history was forged: in the eras of large pre-Columbian populations, in the gold rush of conquistadors, in centuries of slavery, in the schemes of Brazil’s military dictators in the 1960s and 1970s, and in new globalized economies where Brazilian soy and beef now dominate, while the market in carbon credits raises the value of standing forest. Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn show in compelling detail the panorama of destruction as it unfolded, and also reveal the extraordinary turnaround that is now taking place, thanks to both the social movements, and the emergence of new environmental markets. Exploring the role of human hands in destroying—and saving—this vast forested region, The Fate of the Forest pivots on the murder of Chico Mendes, the legendary labor and environmental organizer assassinated after successful confrontations with big ranchers. A multifaceted portrait of Eden under siege, complete with a new preface and afterword by the authors, this book demonstrates that those who would hold a mirror up to nature must first learn the lessons offered by some of their own people.