Chapter 12: Conservation and the Environment

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer
This is an inspired weaving of indigenous knowledge, plant science,  and personal narrative from a botanist, distinguished science professor, and  Native American. Kimmerer makes a central argument: awakening the wider  ecological consciousness requires acknowledging and celebrating our reciprocal  relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other  beings, we can start to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world  provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return.  And she captures beauty all along the way—the images of giant cedars and wild  strawberries, a forest in the rain, and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass.

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The Wolverine Way, Douglas Chadwick
The Wolverine Way reveals the natural history of this species and the forces  that threaten its future, engagingly told by Douglas Chadwick, who volunteered  with the Glacier Wolverine Project. This five-year study in Glacier National  Park—which involved dealing with blizzards, grizzlies, sheer mountain walls,  and other daily challenges to survival—uncovered missing information about  the wolverine’s habitat, social structure, and reproduction habits. Wolverines,  according to Chadwick, are the land equivalent of polar bears regarding the  impacts of global warming. The plight of wolverines adds to the call for wildlife  corridors that connect existing habitats.

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West, Nate Blakeslee
With novelistic detail, Blakeslee tells the gripping story of wolves. Once  abundant in North America, these majestic creatures were hunted to near  extinction in the lower 48 states by the 1920s. But in recent decades, conservationists have brought wolves back to the Rockies, igniting a battle over the very  soul of the West. Following one pack, American Wolf describes their challenges  on all fronts: by hunters, who compete with wolves for the elk they both prize;  by cattle ranchers who are losing livestock and have the ear of politicians; and  by other Yellowstone wolves who are vying for control of the park’s stunningly  beautiful Lamar Valley. Blakeslee tells a larger story about the ongoing cultural  clash in the West—between those fighting for a vanishing way of life and those  committed to restoring one of the country’s most iconic landscapes.

Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History, Dan Flores
Flores does more than just shed light on the legend; he explores five million  years of biological history that led up to the evolution of the modern coyote and  details the unique versatility of an animal that has continued to thrive despite  human campaigns of annihilation. Legends don’t come close to capturing the  incredible story of the coyote. In the face of centuries of campaigns of annihilation employing gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn’t  just survive; they thrived, expanding across the continent from Alaska to New  York. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won, hands down.  It is one of the great epics of our time.

Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, Janine Benyus
Biomimics study nature’s most successful ideas over the past 3.5 million  years and adapt them for human use. The results are revolutionizing how  materials are invented and how we compute, heal ourselves, repair the environment, and feed the world. Benyus takes readers into the lab and in  the field with maverick thinkers as they discover miracle drugs by watching  what chimps eat when they’re sick, learn how to create by watching spiders  weave fibers, harness energy by examining how a leaf converts sunlight into  fuel in trillionths of a second, and many more examples. Composed of stories  of vision and invention, personalities and pipe dreams, Biomimicry is must  reading for anyone interested in the shape of our future.

The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait of a Paradigm Shift, Andres Edwards
The Sustainability Revolution paints a picture of sustainability from the  point of view of five major sectors of society: community (government and  international institutions); commerce (business); resource extraction (forestry,  farming, fisheries, etc.); ecological design (architecture, technology); and  biosphere (conservation, biodiversity, etc.). Edwards explains a new set of  values that define this paradigm shift. He describes innovative sustainable  projects and policies in Colombia, Brazil, India, and the Netherlands and  examines future trends. Complete with a valuable resource list, this book will  appeal to business and government policymakers, academics, and all interested  in sustainability.

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Elaborating on their principles from experience (re)designing everything  from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an  exciting and viable case challenging the notion that human industry must  inevitably damage the natural world. The customary advice to “do more with  less in order to minimize damage” perpetuates a one-way, “cradle-to-grave”  manufacturing model that casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials  it uses as waste, much of which is toxic. Instead, taking nature itself as our model, the authors argue, products might be designed so that, after their  useful life, they provide nourishment for something new—either as “biological  nutrients” that safely reenter the environment or as “technical nutrients” that  circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles—without being “downcycled”  into low-grade uses (as most “recyclables” now are). 

The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable, Gretchen Daily and Katherine Ellison
The New Economy of Nature brings together Gretchen Daily, one of the  world’s leading ecologists, with Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer Prize–winning  journalist, to offer an engaging and informative look at a new “new economy”—a system recognizing the economic value of natural systems and the  potential profits in protecting them. Through engaging stories from around the  world, the authors introduce readers to a diverse group of people pioneering  new approaches to conservation. The authors describe the dynamic interplay of  science, economics, business, and politics in establishing these new approaches  and examine what will be needed to create successful models and lasting institutions for conservation.

Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World, Seth Siegel 
Based on meticulous research and hundreds of interviews, Let There Be  Water reveals the methods and techniques of the often offbeat inventors who  enabled Israel to lead the world in cutting-edge water technology. Siegel gives  an inspiring account of the vision and sacrifice of a nation and people that have  long made water security a top priority. Despite scant natural water resources,  a rapidly growing population and economy, and often hostile neighbors,  Israel has consistently jumped ahead of the water innovation curve to ensure a  dynamic, vital future for itself. As every day brings urgent reports of growing water shortages around the world, there is no time to lose in the search for  solutions.

The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, Paul Hawken
Hawken’s impassioned argument is that business both causes the most  egregious abuses of the environment and, crucially, holds the most potential  for solving our sustainability problems. The Ecology of Commerce presents a  compelling vision of the restorative (rather than destructive) economy we  must create, centered on eight imperatives: reduce energy carbon emissions 80  percent by 2030 and total natural resource usage 80 percent by 2050; provide  secure, stable, and meaningful employment to people everywhere; be self-organizing rather than regulated or morally mandated; honor market principles;  restore habitats, ecosystems, and societies to their optimum; rely on current  income; be fun and engaging; and strive for an aesthetic outcome.

Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness, Duane Elgin
Bringing together views from science and spirituality, East and West,  the practical and the visionary, Elgin presents a balanced picture of human  evolution—and explores three additional stages of development that must still  be realized if we are to become a planetary civilization that can endure into the  distant future.

The Future of Life, Edward Wilson
Wilson, one of the world’s most important scientists, assesses the  precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring  in our time and the natural treasures we are about to lose forever. Yet, rather than trumpeting doomsday prophecies, he spells out a specific plan to save  our world while there is still time. His vision is a hopeful one, as economically  sound as it is environmentally necessary. Eloquent, practical, and wise, this  book should be read and studied by anyone concerned about the fate of the  natural world.

Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health,  Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth, John Robbins
Diet for a New America is the most comprehensive argument for a  vegetarian lifestyle ever published. Eloquently, evocatively, and entertainingly,  Robbins examines the food we currently buy and eat in the United States and  the moral, economic, and emotional price we pay for it. He looks hard at our  dependence on animals for food and the inhumane conditions these animals  are raised in. He challenges the belief that consuming meat is a requirement  for health by pointing out the vastly increased rate of disease caused by pesticides, hormones, additives, and other chemicals now a routine part of our  food production. Robbins concludes that consuming the resources necessary  to produce meat is a significant factor in our ecological crisis.