Environmental-fund

This book is a heart-warming account of life and times at a wildlife rehabilitation center. Cindi 's stories are touching and bring us closer to the animals she cares for each day. Interlaced with great humor and facts, I reccommend this book for everyone.

Cindy has done a marvelous job of bringing her
love of wildlife to all of us who share
that love. Told in her own unique, personal
and touching style; this is a book
to be enjoyed simply "Because They
Matter". It's about wildlife rehabilitation at
the personal level. Read it!!

Reading Turner's recent book, Justice on Earth, made me go back & reread Wild by Law, the first to detail the work of Earthjustice, the leading non-profit environmental law firm. In this book, Turner teamed up with noted wildlife photog Clifton Carr and the results are stunning - gripping text detailed by exquisite photos. The story starts with how Earthjustice got started (as Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund) with a group of lawyers who ended up setting the precedent for citizen participation in environmental issues way back in the '70s. It then covers the US, region by region, with great stories of various cases. Turner's way of spinning the tale makes this more like a Grishom novel than a legal brief.

Development has swallowed up so many beautiful places that caring about the environment can become a depressing pastime. Fortunately, the good guys have won some striking victories(at least temporarily), and this beautifully illustrated volume tells some of the details.

There are seven chapters, each focused on a specific region or issue.

Chapter One covers Mineral King valley (California)and the birth of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund whose landmark Supremem Court case protected this part of Sequoia National Park from a massive development proposed by the Walt Disney corporation.

Chapter Two is about Admiralty Island (Alaska).

Chapter Three describes the politics of energy on the Colorado Plateau, including several national parks in Utah.

Chapter Four covers Redwood National Park (California).

Endangered species are the focus of Chapter Five. It ranges over a wide geographic area including pigeon guillemots in California, Palilas in Hawaii, Murres in the Falloron Islands, dusky dolphins off the coast of Patagonia, humpbacked whales in Alaska, red-cockaded woodpeckers in southeastern forests and the famous northern spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest.

Chapter Six describes legal battles in the Northern Rockies, including clashes with James Watt, Ronald Reagan's choice for Secretary of the Interior.

Chapter Seven includes four battles in the Eastern United States: Lake George (New York), Big Cypress and the Everglades (Florida), Hoosier National Forest (Indiana), and Canaan Valley (West Virginia).

This book is a great gift for anyone who is interested in the preservation of wild places.

I'm glad I borrowed this book thru interlibrary loan first rather than buying it outright. The photos are quite nice but not organized in a way that's very informative or give me a good idea about any of the "edens". There's pretty minimal text which might offer the contributor's views on what they photographed and give interesting backstories.

I suppose its a personal preference and if you want an random assortment of pretty good animal pictures, its not bad at all, but I find it unappealing.

This magnificent book is designed to be the window dressing for a joint initiative by the World Wildlife Fund and the National Geographic Society to classify the entire planet by ecoregions -"geographically distinct areas that are characterized by distinctive climate, ecological features, and plant and animal communities." For more information on this fascinating and important initiative (and to purchase the colorful ecoregions map upon which "Living Edens" is based) check out the website at www.nationalgeographic.com/wildworld

Alright, back to the book. While there are many hundreds of ecoregions, the WWF has selected 200 that are highly threatened. They then sent Galen Rowell(dec.), Frans Lanting and David Doubilet - three of the finest nature photographers in the world - around the globe to make a photo-documentation of several of the "Global 200" sites. The result is this astounding book.

The purpose of the book is really to show off a selection of ecoregions in a series of stunning photographs. There is not a great deal of accompanying text. The book is meant to be used in conjunction with the WildWorld website and the WildWorld map that I mentioned earlier.

Buy this book, go the WildWorld website, and begin the most in-depth exploration of our living planet I could have ever dreamt possible. It is a decision you will never regret.

This book is truly incredible!Sometimes,I can`t believe my eyes. The original purpose of this book is to make people care about the ecosystems and why we should not destroy them.But I don`t know if this is a suitable purpose for a book like this one. The splendid photographs makes you forget that and just look at the true beauty of our planet. Over 200 locations and 250 illustrations makes a perfect view of world wildlife. Among my favourites are the mexican deserts,the Pantanal Rainforest and all of the underwater photographs. I am a lover of all kinds of animals,especially fishes. So that`s why the book is perfect for me. I recognize Frans Lanting and David Doubilet since earlier,and I got books by them both. Galen Rowell is new to me,but he seems to be very good too. And when these three photographs together,the results easily become the most beautifull nature photography book ever made!It is pretty expensive,but believe me,it`s worth the money. I highly recommend this to every lover of nature photographs or strong colours. It is truly inspiring.

Lovelock's adventure into the theory of Gaia is an interesting experience that is worth the read. I found his ideas to be well constructed and factually backed up. It definently helps in providing a new way of looking at not only the earth, but also science in general. The only drawback was that sometimes he seemed to be more concerned with trying to denounce his critics than actually providing interesting and constructive opinions.

A fabulous look at why the planet Earth is alive and how she helps sustain life. Without Life existing on Earth Gaia would not exist, and if Gaia did not present the proper conditions, nothing on planet earth would be alive. Mr Lovelock does a great job of presenting the information to us and gives us a great deal about which to comtemplate!

Imagine living in Europe during the Dark Ages, when everyone thought the world was flat, and having someone demonstrate to you that the world is a sphere. In our modern version of the Dark Ages of the environment we are under the delusion that our Earth is lump of rock inhabited by life. Lovelock shows that the Earth is a living, self-regulating system comprised of all of life tightly coupled with its environment. He traces the 3.5 billion year life of the Earth as a living entity in an easy and enjoyable to read fashion. If we as a species are fortunate enough to survive the next 1000 years it will be because this book was recognized as the most important ever written in the 20th century. For you Gaia theory buffs out there: The Gaia theory dawned on Lovelock when he was having a conversation with Carl Sagan and some other colleagues.

The first approach anywhere that looks not only at scale of biodiversity loss and priorities for conservation for our often over-looked freshwater resources. This book is essential for anyone who truly cares about North America's diverse natural habitats.

The maps in the book are wonderful. They effectively convey areas which are spectacular and also the areas that are most threatened.

In the sphere of the social sciences, a long standing bias has existed against the so-called "natural sciences:" the lack of rhetorical power, and more simply, of terminological variability, has turned away sociologists, anthropologists, and historians from the literature of natural science. This bias is evident, but at base, irrational, at least by the uniform standards for scholarship that transcends disciplines. After all, the sociologist cannot simply write-off the work of the economist, just because of language.

This important work, although highly priced, must be read by social scientists as well as by natural scientists. Editor Robin Abell, with her talented staff at WWF-USA, have put together an inherently readable account of what "ecoregions" are threatened, while enumerating the attributes and possible threats to these areas. A reader, like myself, who knows little about such things , is sure to find themself surprisingly drawn to what otherwise seem like trivialities. For example, the consistent format of the volume, from section to section, provides the reader with a template, or general design, by which whole areas of geography can be understood.

And this understanding goes past the parochial association of one region with the "political unit" it is found in.

The title of this mini-review was not only meant to be teasing: it is my hope that more writers and editors adopt the style that Abell et al. have established. Perhaps then important subjects like this can climb closer to the center of the public conscience.

This book clearly states and defines what and how the World Wildlife Fund helps animals and forests. Anyone who is considering becoming a member to the World Wildlife Fund should read this easy read that's very well laid out.