Amazon.com: Wild South Africa (9780262133470): Alan G. Mountain: Books

Buy Used
Used - Acceptable See details
$8.73 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Wild South Africa
 
See larger image
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Wild South Africa [Hardcover]

Alan G. Mountain (Author)


Available from these sellers.


Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --  
Hardcover, September 18, 1998 --  

Book Description

September 18, 1998
with photographs by Lex Hes


South Africa is a land of hauntingly beautiful and diverse landscapes. Its wild places encompass rugged mountain ranges, sweeping sand beaches, indigenous coastal forest, and sun-blistered arid plains, with each environment supporting its own distinctive plant and animal life.

The beauty and diversity of South Africa's unspoiled and untamed places are celebrated in this latest addition to the Wild Places of the World series. South Africa's topography is characterized by a great interior plateau fringed on three sides by an irregular chain of mountains and hills that descend to a narrow coastal strip. The chapters focus on each ecological region in turn, from the Maputaland, a wetland area of great natural diversity, to the mountains of the Cape and Natal, the desert lands of the Karoo and the Kalahari, the coastal zone, the highveld grasslands, and the bushveld. The main focus is on wilderness areas and national parks, each chosen for its wild, unspoiled character, and the book emphasizes the need to preserve the country's natural heritage in a time of increasing demands for human development.

Wild South Africa contains 350 stunning full-color photographs that illustrate all aspects of Nature's cycles in each region. The book features the uniqueness of each region's fauna, flora, and geography, from tiny insects, birds, and larger mammals to fruits, flowers, and sweeping landscapes.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

South Africa can be divided into three major geographic regions: a nearly mile-high interior plateau, a series of tall mountain chains encircling it, and coastal plains and marshes that in turn ring the mountains. In these three regions exist very different biogeographic features, among them deserts, upland forests, grasslands, inland seas, and broad rivers. The South African team of writer Alan Mountain and photographer Lex Hes capture some of the beauty of their homeland in this oversize, heavily illustrated book, which treats these biogeographic features in turn; they also provide ample notes on the region's highly specialized flora and fauna, from sugarbirds to cheetahs to towering succulents. (Wary readers will be interested to know, for instance, that South Africa contains some 130 species of snakes--of which, the authors helpfully note, only 14 have been known to cause death in humans.) Hes and Mountain are especially attentive to conservation issues, which are becoming ever more pressing in South Africa, owing to development and population growth. They note, for example, that where large tracts of forest used to exist along the coastal plains, only a section of about 125 miles of forested land now stands on the southern Cape, the last of the indigenous hardwoods. And they note that any meaningful conservation measures will depend on the active involvement and good will of the rural poor, whose numbers are rapidly growing. --Gregory McNamee

Review

"The book not only features hundreds of gorgeous photographs by Lex Hes, but also an insightful and well-organized survey of its subject by Alan Mountain... It is a beautiful book for anyone who loves wildlife and a thoughtful gift for anyone planning to visit South Africa." -- Merie Rubin, The Christian Science Monitor, November 19, 1998

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 208 pages
  • Publisher: The MIT Press; 1st MIT press ed edition (September 18, 1998)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0262133474
  • ISBN-13: 978-0262133470
  • Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 10 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,209,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews


There are no customer reviews yet.
Video reviews
Video reviews
Amazon now allows customers to upload product video reviews. Use a webcam or video camera to record and upload reviews to Amazon.



Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Create a Listmania! list

So You'd Like to...


Create a guide


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject