When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef in Alaska in 1989 and spilled 11 million gallons of oil, it changed Prince William Sound forever. The catastrophe disrupted the region’s biological system, killing countless animals and poisoning habitats that to this day no longer support some of the local species. The effects have also profoundly altered the way people use this region. Nearly three decades later, changes in recreation use run counter to what was initially expected. Instead of avoiding Prince William Sound, tourists and visitors flock there. Economic revitalization efforts have resulted in increased wilderness access as new commercial enterprises offer nature tourism in remote bays and fjords. This increased visitation has caused concerns that the wilderness may again be threatened—not by oil but rather by the very humans seeking those wilderness experiences. In Sustaining Wildlands, scientists and managers, along with local community residents, address what has come to be a central paradox in public lands management: the need to accommodate increasing human use while reducing the environmental impact of those activities. This volume draws on diverse efforts and perspectives to dissect this paradox, offering an alternative approach where human use is central to sustaining wildlands and recovering a damaged ecosystem like Prince William Sound. Contributors: Brad A. Andres, Chris Beck, Nancy Bird, Dale J. Blahna, Harold Blehm, Sara Boario, Bridget A. Brown, Courtney Brown, Greg Brown, Milo Burcham, Kristin Carpenter, Ted Cooney, Patience Andersen Faulkner, Maryann Smith Fidel, Jessica B. Fraver, Jennifer Gessert, Randy Gimblett, Michael I. Goldstein, Samantha Greenwood, Lynn Highland, Marybeth Holleman, Shay Howlin, Tanya Iden, Robert M. Itami, Lisa Jaeger, Laura A. Kennedy, Spencer Lace, Nancy Lethcoe, Kate McLaughlin, Rosa H. Meehan, Christopher Monz, Karen A. Murphy, Lisa Oakley, Aaron J. Poe, Chandra B. Poe, Karin Preston, Jeremy Robida, Clare M. Ryan, Gerry Sanger, Bill Sherwonit, Lowell H. Suring, Paul Twardock, Sarah Warnock, and Sadie Youngstrom

Scientists have been warning for years that human activity is heating up the planet and climate change is under way. We are only just beginning to acknowledge the serious effects this will have on all life on Earth. The federal government is crafting broad-scale strategies to protect wildland ecosystems from the worst effects of climate change. One of the greatest challenges is to get the latest science into the hands of resource managers entrusted with vulnerable wildland ecosystems. This book examines climate and land-use changes in montane environments, assesses the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to these changes, and provides resource managers with collaborative management approaches to mitigate expected impacts. Climate Change in Wildlands proposes a new kind of collaboration between scientists and managers--a science-derived framework and common-sense approaches for keeping parks and protected areas healthy on a rapidly changing planet.

Provides a comprehensive strategy for the ecological restoration of any wildland ecosystem.

Rangeland ecosystems which include unimproved grasslands,shrublands, savannas and semi-deserts, support half of theworld’s livestock, while also providing habitats for some ofthe most charismatic of wildlife species. This book examines thepressures on rangeland ecosystems worldwide from human land use,over-hunting, and subsistence and commercial farming of livestockand crops. Leading experts have pooled their experiences from allcontinents to cover the ecological, sociological, political,veterinary, and economic aspects of rangeland management today. This book provides practitioners and students ofrangeland management and wildland conservation with a diversity ofperspectives on a central question: can rangelands be wildlands? The first book to examine rangelands from a conservationperspective Emphasizes the balance between the needs of people andlivestock, and wildlife Written by an international team of experts covering allgeographical regions Examines ecological, sociological, political, veterinary, andeconomic aspects of rangeland management and wildland conservation,providing a diversity of perspectives not seen before in a singlevolume

Over a lifetime, CNN founder Ted Turner has dedicated two million private acres to a globally unparalleled project to reintroduce and restore the species that once roamed freely there. Ted Turner was for many years the largest private-property owner in America and known for his establishment of the largest bison herds in the world. From this beginning, his holdings have grown to be refuges of biodiversity for some of the most endangered species in the world, from migratory birds to fish and insects, and from wolves to grizzly bears. Rhett Turner explores his father’s devotion to leaving nature in better shape than he found it by taking us across nearly two dozen of the Turner family’s properties—from the northern Rockies to the prairies of the Dakotas to the southeastern Atlantic coastal plains and pine forests—land equal to the size of Yellowstone National Park.

To enhance sustainable development research and practice the values of the researchers, project managers and participants must first be made explicit. Values in Sustainable Development introduces and compares worldviews and values from multiple countries and perspectives, providing a survey of empirical methods available to study environmental values as affected by sustainable development. The first part is methodological, looking at what values are, why they are important, and how to include values in sustainable development. The second part looks at how values differ across social contexts, religions and viewpoints demonstrating how various individuals may value nature from a variety of cultural, social, and religious points of view. The third and final part presents case studies ordered by scale from the individual and community levels through to the national, regional and international levels. These examples show how values can motivate, be incorporated into and be an integral part of the success of a project. This thought-provoking book gives researchers, students and practitioners in sustainable development a wealth of approaches to include values in their research.