Reviewed by David Rains Wallace
All organisms must explore their environments. Exploration acquired a problematic dimension with the rise of civilization, however. It became a progressive sequence of discovery leading to exploitation and colonization, which raised the troubling possibility that we might someday have nothing left to discover. Yet civilization’s “been there, done that” […] Read More »
Reviewed by Florence Williams
When 23-year-old Jane Goodall became Louis Leakey’s secretary at the Coryndon Museum in Kenya, it’s not clear which of her attributes he was most drawn to: her physical beauty, her reverence for him and his work, or her eager, unmolded mind. Ultimately, it was likely a mix of all three […] Read More »
By Jenny Price
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
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Discussion Questions
What is environmental justice? How does it relate to Los Angeles as described in this article?
What is Jenny Price’s basic beef with nature writing as a genre? Does she feel that it has ignored cities? Focused too much on […] Read More »
By George Monbiot
April-June (Vol. 8, No. 2)
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Discussion Questions
What do you think it should mean for a company to be “green’? How might this be the same or different than what the company itself might think it means?
Corporate “greening” suggests that environmental protection can be achieved through making […] Read More »
By Nick Atkinson
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
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Discussion Questions
If we can’t know for sure whether carbon sequestration is worth doing as a strategy to mitigate against climate change, is it worth doing?
What are the consequences, pro and con, of announcing controversial findings in a newspaper like the […] Read More »
A round table with James H. Brown and Dov F. Sax, Daniel Simberloff, and Mark Sagoff
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
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Discussion Questions
Are native invasive species fundamentally different from exotic/alien invasive species? What separates invasive from non-invasive species?
What do you think about Brown and Sax’s assertion that “there […] Read More »
By George Monbiot
April-June (Vol. 8, No. 2)
You batter your head against the door until you begin to wonder whether it is a door at all. Suddenly, it opens and you find yourself flying through space. The superstores’ green conversion is astonishing, wonderful, disorienting. If Tesco and Wal-Mart have become friends of the […] Read More »
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
Metaphor as Impediment
Millions and millions of hectares of tropical forest have been affected by human action. Research over the last several decades by prominent ethnobotanists, geographers, archaeologists, historical ecologists, tropical ecologists, and anthropologists has forcefully made this point. From the lowland forests of Central America to […] Read More »
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Book Reviews
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
REVIEWS
Jane Goodall: […] Read More »
Photo by ©Paul Kemp
By Robin Meadows
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
S. Twiss et al. 2007. The impact of climatic variation on the opportunity for sexual selection. Biology Letters 3:12-15.
Beyond shifting species’ ranges, climate change may also cause hidden alterations at the genetic level by disrupting animal mating patterns. New research […] Read More »
©Tom Stoddart Archive/Getty Images
By Robin Meadows
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
R. Hilborn et al. 2006. Effective enforcement in a conservation area. Science 314:1266.
What’s the most cost-effective way to protect wildlife in African national parks? Working to develop local economies and providing alternatives to poaching, or simply increasing law enforcement? The […] Read More »
Photo courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission / NOAA
By Robin Meadows
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
R.A. Myers et al. 2007. Saving endangered whales at no cost. Current Biology 17:R10-11.
Lobster trap lines have long threatened the North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of Maine. The thick lines, which […] Read More »
©Jeffrey Hochstrasser/iStockphoto.com
By Robin Meadows
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
C.E. Stevens et al. 2007. Beaver (Castor cana-densis) as a surrogate species for conserving anuran amphibians on boreal streams in Alberta, Canada. Biological Conservation 134:1-13.
Beavers are widely considered to be a nuisance for damaging forests and flooding roads and crops. But allowing […] Read More »
©Tammy Wolfe/iStockphoto.com
By Robin Meadows
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
Grenyer, R. et al. 2006. Global distribution and conservation of rare and threatened vertebrates. Nature 444(7115):93-96.
Isolated wolf population retains genetic variation
S. Bensch et al. 2006. Selection for hetero-zygosity gives hope to a wild population of inbred wolves. PLoS ONE 1(1):e72.
The […] Read More »
©Stefan Ekernas/iStockphoto.com
By Robin Meadows
April-June 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
S. Altizer et al. 2007. Do threatened hosts have fewer parasites? A comparative study in primates. Journal of Animal Ecology 76(2): 304-314.
A new study has established that threatened primates are infested by fewer kinds of parasites than their nonthreatened cousins. Sounds good, […] Read More »
