Nature's Restoration: People and Places on the Front Lines of Conservation [Hardcover]

Peter Friederici (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 155963085X | ISBN-13: 978-1559630856 | Publication Date: April 11, 2006 | Edition: 1

Across America and around the world, people are

working to help nature heal itself. In Bermuda, a man

single-handedly grows thousands of trees on a small

island to restore nesting habitat for a rare seabird. In

Illinois, legions of volunteers replant prairies in the

shadows of freeways. In Virginia, a farmer works to

bring back the mighty American chestnut.

What drives these individuals? How did their passions

come about, and what are the implications for

restoring the environment? Nature’s Restoration: People and Places on the

Front Lines of Conservation is a lyrical look at these and other examples

of ordinary citizens aiming to return sizable tracts of the American

landscape to nature, and to health. They’ve found success in preserving

rare species, reversing negative ecological trends, and promoting

greater intimacy with nature.

Yet the work is far from simple. Restoration projects are often in the

news not only because of the promise they hold, but also because of

the controversy they provoke. Based on detailed reporting and numerous

interviews, Nature’s Restoration puts us on the front lines of

restoration to learn how this burgeoning national movement shapes

both places and people.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Conservation is more than the protection of natural resources; it is an ongoing, evolving relationship between the people who oversee this work and their different visions of how to accomplish their shared goal. There are basically two mind-sets, a hands-off approach that advocates leaving nature to run its course, and a restoration edict involving efforts to actively improve the land. Friederici, author of The Suburban Wild (1999), profiles conservationists of both persuasions. David Wingate's work in Bermuda, and the rehabilitation of the Hawaiian island of Kaho'olawe, long used as a bombing range by the U.S. military, are just two of the examples Friederici considers. Looking to the past for guidance, he chronicles the blight of the American chestnut tree, a resource that once sustained the people of Appalachia. The scars left by this loss--one person described the demise of the chestnut tree as worse than either world war or the Depression--is a critical part of Friederici's important story, leaving the reader to wonder: the loss of which natural resources will future generations mourn?^B Pamela Crossland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Peter Friederici is the author of The Suburban Wild

(University of Georgia Press, 1999) and editor of

Ecological Restoration of Southwestern Ponderosa Pine

Forests (Island Press, 2003), among several other

books. He teaches journalism at Northern Arizona

University, and has contributed articles to such

publications as Audubon, Orion, and High Country

News. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (April 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155963085X
• ISBN-13: 978-1559630856
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,114,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rest Oration, June 25, 2006

By 

Don R. Lago (Flagstaff, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nature's Restoration: People and Places on the Front Lines of Conservation (Hardcover)

Let's face it, picking up most environmental books, with their relentless message of doom and gloom, seems to require a talent for masochism or depression. And it's only gotten worse: in the 1970s environmentalists worried about polluted rivers or violated public lands, but now its planetary disasters like global warming, resource depletion, or mass extincitons; and the human race hasn't been showing much talent at facing these realities. How refreshing, then, to come upon a book that inspires environmental hope. The concept of environmental restoration, the idea that humans can nurse damaged landscapes back into health, has been quietly gathering momentum for years, and this book finally brings its thinking and its leaders and its dramas into full view. Peter Friederici is uniquely placed to write this story, since he has been involved in two of the leading restoration efforts in America, the efforts to restore prairies in Illinois and ponderosa pine forests in the Southwest. In addition to these places this book offers an even greater variety of landscapes, from an Hawaiian island long used for military target practice to a Bermuda invaded by luxury developments to ghost chestnut forests in Virginia to a flooded canyon in the Southwest. That such a variety of landscapes can be addressed by the same concept of restoration is a testimony to its value. Friederici also comes up with an amazing cast of characters who are involved in restoration efforts, people deeply in love with their land, dreamers enough to take on a major challenge yet practical enough to maneuver through complicated politicial realities. Restoration involves some philosophical challenges to our usual sense of nature, including challenges to environmentalists. Here in northern Arizona environmentalists will walk through a grotesquely unnatural forest, the product of a century of logging and fire suppression, a forest almost groomed to produce catastrophic fires, and yet they will feel a naive, book-induced sense of oneness with primordial nature and will oppose any interventions in the forest. Environmental restoration includes the paradox that the only way to return the land to pre-pioneer "naturalness" is through further human intervention. Thus restoration efforts have been opposed both by developers and by environmentalists. The political complexities faced by restoration efforts are also explored in this book. But amid all the complexities, Friederici maintains a poetic feel for the land and offers graceful philosophical musings on the place of humans in nature.