Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes

Author: H. Scott Butterfield
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831263
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. In many desert dryland regions, however, intensive cultivation is causing their productivity to decline precipitously. "Rewilding" the least productive of these landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage, recover natural diversity, and ensure long-term sustainability of remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, groundbreaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water managers looking for inspiration and practical advice for solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.

Northern California Nature Guide

Author: Erin Mccloskey
Publisher: Lone Pine Publishing
ISBN: 9781774511718
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
This easy-to-use field guide will help even the novice birder identify the species encountered in backyards and along wilderness trails across North Carolina. Over 80 different birds are featured, complete with color illustrations, photographs of eggs, and extensive natural history. The author is the mountain area biologist for the Audubon Society in North Carolina and a life-long birder.

Natural State

Author: Steven Gilbar
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520212091
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Book Description
This is the first anthology of nature writing that celebrates California, the most geographically diverse state in the union. Readers—be they naturalists or armchair explorers—will find themselves transported to California's many wild places in the company of forty noted writers whose works span more than a century. Divided into sections on California's mountains, hills and valleys, deserts, coast, and elements (earth, wind, and fire), the book contains essays, diary entries, and excerpts from larger works, including fiction. As a prelude to the collection, editor Steven Gilbar presents two California Indian creation myths, one a Cahto narrative and the other an A-juma-wi story as told by Darryl Babe Wilson. Familiar names appear in these pages—John Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson, John McPhee, M.F.K. Fisher, Gretel Ehrlich—but less familiar writers such as Daniel Duane, Margaret Millar, and John McKinney are also included. Among the gems in this treasure trove are Jack Kerouac on climbing Mt. Matterhorn, Barry Lopez on snow geese migration at Tule Lake, Edward Abbey on Death Valley, Henry Miller on Big Sur, and Joan Didion on the Santa Ana winds. Gary Snyder's inspiring Afterword reflects the spirit of environmentalism that runs throughout the book. Natural State also reveals the many changes to California's landscape that have occurred in geological time and in human terms. More than a book of "nature writing," this book is superb writing about nature.

A Natural History of California

Author: Allan A. Schoenherr
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520909915
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 806

Book Description
In this comprehensive and abundantly illustrated book, Allan Schoenherr describes a state with a greater range of landforms, a greater variety of habitats, and more kinds of plants and animals than any area of equivalent size in all of North America. A Natural History of California will familiarize the reader with the climate, rocks, soil, plants and animals in each distinctive region of the state.

The Nature of California

Author: James Kavanagh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781583553015
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The Nature of California is an outstanding resource for the nature lover or tourist. Packed with information about commonly seen animals, plants and natural attractions, this soft cover book is an indispensable resource.

The Mountains of California

Author: John Muir
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : California
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
Famed naturalist John Muir (1838-1914) came to Wisconsin as a boy and studied at the University of Wisconsin. He first came to California in 1868 and devoted six years to the study of the Yosemite Valley. After work in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, he returned to California in 1880 and made the state his home. One of the heroes of America’s conservation movement, Muir deserves much of the credit for making the Yosemite Valley a protected national park and for alerting Americans to the need to protect this and other natural wonders. The mountains of California (1894) is his book length tribute to the beauties of the Sierras. He recounts not only his own journeys by foot through the mountains, glaciers, forests, and valleys, but also the geological and natural history of the region, ranging from the history of glaciers, the patterns of tree growth, and the daily life of animals and insects. While Yosemite naturally receives great attention, Muir also expounds on less well known beauty spots.

The Nature of California

Author: Sarah D. Wald
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806583
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
The California farmlands have long served as a popular symbol of America’s natural abundance and endless opportunity. Yet, from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart to Helena Maria Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus, many novels, plays, movies, and songs have dramatized the brutality and hardships of working in the California fields. Little scholarship has focused on what these cultural productions tell us about who belongs in America, and in what ways they are allowed to belong. In The Nature of California, Sarah Wald analyzes this legacy and its consequences by examining the paradoxical representations of California farmers and farmworkers from the Dust Bowl migration to present-day movements for food justice and immigrant rights. Analyzing fiction, nonfiction, news coverage, activist literature, memoirs, and more, Wald gives us a new way of thinking through questions of national belonging by probing the relationships among race, labor, and landownership. Bringing together ecocriticism and critical race theory, she pays special attention to marginalized groups, examining how Japanese American journalists, Filipino workers, United Farm Workers members, and contemporary immigrants-rights activists, among others, pushed back against the standard narratives of landownership and citizenship.

The California Naturalist Handbook

Author: Greg de Nevers
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520274806
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
The California Naturalist Handbook provides a fun, science-based introduction to California’s natural history with an emphasis on observation, discovery, communication, stewardship and conservation. It is a hands-on guide to learning about the natural environment of California. Subjects covered include California natural history and geology, native plants and animals, California’s freshwater resources and ecosystems, forest and rangeland resources, conservation biology, and the effects of global warming on California’s natural communities. The Handbook also discusses how to create and use a field notebook, natural resource interpretation, citizen science, and collaborative conservation and serves as the primary text for the California Naturalist Program.

Southern California Nature Guide

Author: Erin McCloskey
Publisher: Lone Pine International
ISBN: 9789768200556
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This volume is a guide to aid in identifying animals and plants found in Southern California. Each species is portrayed by an accurate hand-drawn color illustration. Accompanying text presents the common and scientific names of the species, descriptions of size and other identifying characteristics, natural history and fascinating facts, and where you can expect to find that species. The book is organized by color-coded categories: mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, fish, invertebrates, trees, shrubs, herbs, grasses and ferns. The author has included a full-color quick identification guide, an index and an illustrated glossary are among the features designed to enhance ease of use for the reader.

The Natural World of the California Indians

Author: Robert F. Heizer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520038967
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Describes patterns of village life, and covers such subjects as Indian tools and artifacts, hunting techniques, and food.--From publisher description.