In natural resource management research, best practice implies the participation of community members, research or development teams and other stakeholders to jointly identify research and development parameters and contribute to decision making. Ideally, the research or development process itself generates a situation of empowerment in which participants transform their vision and become able to take effective action. Used increasingly widely in resource management, this process is known as Participatory Development Communication (PDC).This book presents conceptual and methodological issues r.

Water and land interrelate in surprising and ambiguous ways, and riparian zones, where land and water meet, have effects far outside their boundaries. Using the Malheur Basin in southeastern Oregon as a case study, this intriguing and nuanced book explores the ways people have envisioned boundaries between water and land, the ways they have altered these places, and the often unintended results. The Malheur Basin, once home to the largest cattle empires in the world, experienced unintended widespread environmental degradation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After establishment in 1908 of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as a protected breeding ground for migratory birds, and its expansion in the 1930s and 1940s, the area experienced equally extreme intended modifications aimed at restoring riparian habitat. Refuge managers ditched wetlands, channelized rivers, applied Agent Orange and rotenone to waterways, killed beaver, and cut down willows. Where Land and Water Meet examines the reasoning behind and effects of these interventions, gleaning lessons from their successes and failures. Although remote and specific, the Malheur Basin has myriad ecological and political connections to much larger places. This detailed look at one tangled history of riparian restoration shows how—through appreciation of the complexity of environmental and social influences on land use, and through effective handling of conflict—people can learn to practice a style of pragmatic adaptive resource management that avoids rigid adherence to single agendas and fosters improved relationships with the land.

The result of twenty-five years of research with different tribal groups in the Arabian peninsula, this study focuses on ethnographic descriptions of Arab tribal societies in five regions of the peninsula, with comparative material from others. Having become aware of the depth in time of Arab tribal structures, the authors have developed a view of Arabic tribal discourse where 'tribe' is seen as essentially an identity that confers access to a social structure and its processes.

A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil—the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wrought Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth. The Dreamt Land weaves reportage, history and memoir to confront the "Golden State" myth in riveting fashion. No other chronicler of the West has so deeply delved into the empires of agriculture that drink so much of the water. The nation's biggest farmers—the nut king, grape king and citrus queen—tell their story here for the first time. Arax, the native son, is persistent and tough as he treks from desert to delta, mountain to valley. What he finds is hard earned, awe-inspiring, tragic and revelatory. In the end, his compassion for the land becomes an elegy to the dream that created California and now threatens to undo it.

Forests, Water and People in the Humid Tropics is the most comprehensive review available of the hydrological and physiological functioning of tropical rain forests, the environmental impacts of their disturbance and conversion to other land uses, and optimum strategies for managing them. The book brings together leading specialists in such diverse fields as tropical anthropology and human geography, environmental economics, climatology and meteorology, hydrology, geomorphology, plant and aquatic ecology, forestry and conservation agronomy. The editors have supplemented the individual contributions with invaluable overviews of the main sections and provide key pointers for future research. Specialists will find authenticated detail in chapters written by experts on a whole range of people-water-land use issues, managers and practitioners will learn more about the implications of ongoing and planned forest conversion, while scientists and students will appreciate a unique review of the literature.

A vexatious shapeshifter walks among humans. Shadowy beasts skulk at the edges of the woods. A ghostly apparition haunts a lonely stretch of highway. Spirits and legends rise and join together to protect the north. Land-Water-Sky/Ndè-Tı-Yat’a is the debut novel from Dene author Katłıà. Set in Canada’s far north, this layered composite novel traverses space and time, from a community being stalked by a dark presence, a group of teenagers out for a dangerous joyride, to an archeological site on a mysterious island that holds a powerful secret. Riveting, subtle, and unforgettable, Katłıà gives us a unique perspective into what the world might look like today if Indigenous legends walked amongst us, disguised as humans, and ensures that the spiritual significance and teachings behind the stories of Indigenous legends are respected and honored. We acknowledge the support of Arts Nova Scotia.

From author Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Michaela Goade comes a New York Times bestselling and Caldecott Medal winning picture book that honors Indigenous-led movements across the world. Powerfully written and gorgeously illustrated, We Are Water Protectors, issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption—inviting young readers everywhere to join the fight. Water is the first medicine. It affects and connects us all . . . When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth And poison her people’s water, one young water protector Takes a stand to defend Earth’s most sacred resource. The fight continues with Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior, the must-read companion book to We Are Water Protectors. Written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Bridget George, it tells the story of real-life water protectors, Autumn Peltier and her great-aunt Josephine Mandamin, two Indigenous Rights Activists who have inspired a tidal wave of change.

The national monuments of Wupatki, Walnut Canyon, and Montezuma's Castle showcase the treasures of the first people who settled and developed farms, towns, and trade routes throughout northern Arizona and beyond. The Hopis call these ancient peoples "Hisat'sinom," and Spanish explorers named their hard, arid homeland the sierra sin agua, mountains without water. Indeed, much of the region receives less annual precipitation than the quintessential desert city of Tucson. In Hisat'sinom: Ancient Peoples in a Land without Water, archaeologists explain how the people of this region flourished despite living in a place with very little water and extremes of heat and cold. Exploiting the mulching properties of volcanic cinders blasted out of Sunset Crater, the Hisat'sinom grew corn and cotton, made and traded fine cotton cloth and decorated ceramics, and imported exotic goods like turquoise and macaws from hundreds--even thousands--of miles away. From clues as small as the tiny fingerprints left on children's toys, post holes in the floors of old houses, and widely scattered corn fields, archaeologists have pieced together an intriguing portrait of what childhood was like, the importance of weaving cotton cloth, and how farmers managed risk in a harsh environment. At its peak in the late 1100s, Wupatki stood as the region's largest and tallest town, a cultural center for people throughout the surrounding region. It was a gathering place, a trading center, a treasury of exotic goods, a landmark, and a place of sacred ritual and ceremony. Then, after 1200, people moved away and the pueblo sank into ruin.

The Canadian prairies are often envisioned as dry, windswept fields; however, much of southern Manitoba is not arid plain but wet prairie, poorly drained land subject to frequent flooding. Shannon Stunden Bower brings to light the complexities of surface-water management in Manitoba, from early artificial drainage efforts to late-twentieth-century attempts at watershed management. She engages scholarship on the state, liberalism, and bioregionalism in order to probe the connections between human and environmental change in the wet prairie. This account of an overlooked aspect of the region’s environmental history reveals how the biophysical nature of southern Manitoba has been an important factor in the formation of Manitoba society and the provincial state.