Our Once and Future Planet: Restoring the World in the Climate Change Century - Hardcover

Woodworth, Paddy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226907392 ISBN 13: 9780226907390

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2013

Synopsis

The environmental movement is plagued by pessimism. And that's not unreasonable: with so many complicated, seemingly intractable problems facing the planet, coupled with a need to convince people of the dangers we face, it's hard not to focus on the negative. But that paints an unbalanced - and overly disheartening - picture of what's going on with environmental stewardship today. There are success stories, and Our Once and Future Planet delivers a fascinating account of one of the most impressive areas of current environmental experimentation and innovation: ecological restoration. Veteran investigative reporter Paddy Woodworth has spent years traveling the globe and talking with people - scientists, politicians, and ordinary citizens - who are working on the front lines of the battle against environmental degradation. At sites ranging from Mexico to New Zealand and Chicago to Cape Town, Woodworth shows us the striking successes (and a few humbling failures) of groups that are attempting to use cutting-edge science to restore blighted, polluted, and otherwise troubled landscapes to states of ecological health-and, in some of the most controversial cases, to particular moments in historical time, before widespread human intervention. His firsthand field reports and interviews with participants reveal the promise, power, and limitations of restoration. Ecological restoration alone won't solve the myriad problems facing our environment. But Our Once and Future Planet demonstrates the role it can play, and the hope, inspiration, and new knowledge that can come from saving even one small patch of earth.

About this title

Product Description:

Title: Our Once and Future Planet( Restoring the World in the Climate Change Century) <>Binding: Hardcover <>Author: PaddyWoodworth <>Publisher: UniversityofChicagoPress

Review:

"This is a great piece of investigative journalism, based on extensive research in many countries, on a topic vital to the future of people and biodiversity on Earth. Paddy Woodworth has captured the spirit and detail of contemporary ecological restoration, its strengths, weaknesses, controversies, and especially its message of hope. I would commend this book to all interested in the challenge of devising new ways of sustainably living with biodiversity in a rapidly changing world."--Stephen D. Hopper, University of Western Australia

"In framing a new contract with nature, restoration ecology is evolving, diverse and often fraught with human tensions. On American prairies, in South African bush, on the peatlands of Ireland, it must wrestle with shifting cultural, political and economic mores. With his wide and robust reportage and analysis, Paddy Woodworth gives a superb overview of how this great new ambition is working out on the ground."--Michael Viney, author of Ireland: A Smithsonian Natural History

"From ultralight pilots teaching young whooping cranes how to migrate the length of a continent through to ecologists using truckloads of waste orange pulp to reinstate tropical dry forest, Woodworth takes us on a global odyssey of efforts to heal what Aldo Leopold termed our world of wounds. An informative, balanced, and ultimately uplifting dissection of the promise, the politics and the prospects of ecological restoration."--Andrew Balmford, author of Wild Hope: On the Front Lines of Conservation Success

"Woodworth gives a stirring portrait of the hardworking environmentalists who are trying to restore landscapes to their former, untouched glory, but he also captures the dark side of the enterprise: it sometimes requires the brutal destruction of very large numbers of invasive species to make room for long-departed native ones. Restoration is also basically guesswork, Woodworth notes, because most of us have never actually experienced nature at its most pristine. Ultimately, he ends up wondering whether we can ever hope to restore 'degraded ecosystems, and our own damaged relationship to the environment.'

--Scientific American

"Clear and thoughtful. . . . His descriptions of the people he meets are often charming and revealing. . . . I commend Woodworth for immersing himself in the field of restoration ecology so completely."--Science

"Woodworth provides his readers with valuable access to the central topics, key developments, and contentious issues bound up in the young and evolving field of ecological restoration. . . . This book is not a naive appraisal of the promise of ecological restoration, but, rather, a clear-eyed assessment of its present state, including its limitations. . . . Our Once and Future Planet is a useful platform for anyone pondering where ecological restoration stands in the future environmental movement--or for anyone intending to shape its future."--Bioscience

"Over the past few years there have been several attempts at a more popular treatment . . . but Paddy Woodworth's is certainly the best, and acclaimed as such by many of the most important theoreticians and practitioners in the field of restoration ecology. The book could hardly be more timely. . . . There is a freshness and clarity to Woodworth's approach. . . . Every project described here is wonderful and ground for hope, and taken together they weave a canvas of extraordinarily varied technique and approach."--Dublin Review of Books

"An incisive analysis of the ethics and philosophy behind restoration ventures around the world. . . . A comprehensively researched and eloquently written work."--Irish Examiner

"A scholarly and most informed account of the current state of restoration ecology. . . . Essentially the book is an excellent critique of science at work."--South African Journal of Science

"Woodworth provides delightful descriptive passages about his travels, which balance the theory-heavy sections. An important text for scientists and policy makers as well as laypersons with an interest in supporting biodiversity on our planet." --Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0226907392
• ISBN 13: 9780226907390
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 544