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Agroforestry and Ecosystem Services
By Shibu Jose, Ranjith P. Udawatta. 2021
This book is a state-of-the-art compilation of the latest information on ecosystem services of agroforestry. The last two decades have…
seen a surge in literature on the ecosystem services of sustainable agriculture practices, including that of agroforestry; however, compilation and synthesis of such information from agroforestry have been limited. This book fills that void by bringing in a number of experts from around the world. In addition to presenting the multiple dimensions of ecosystem services provided by major agroforestry practices, the book also offers case studies from both tropical and temperate regions of the world.Information from this book can be used to design land management practices for climate change mitigation, ecosystem benefits, agricultural productivity and sustainability, and for survival and profitability of family farms and to conserve biodiversity. While synthesizing information of the biophysical aspects of ecosystem services, the book also outlines the socioeconomic and policy dimensions, including appropriate incentive models to enhance adoption of agroforestry so that society at large can enjoy these important benefitsClimate Change and the Health Sector: Healing the World
By Alexander Thomas, K. Srinath Reddy, Divya Alexander, Poornima Prabhakaran. 2022
The health sector is known to be one of the major contributors towards the greenhouse gas emissions causing the climate…
crisis, the greatest health threat of the 21st century. This volume positions the health sector as a leader in the fight against climate change and explores the role of the health system in climate policy action. It delivers an overview of the linkages between climate change and the health sector, with chapters on the impact of climate change on health, its connection to pandemics, and its effects on food, nutrition and air quality, while examining gendered and other vulnerabilities. It delves into the different operational aspects of the health sector in India and details how each one can become climate-smart to reduce the health sector’s overall carbon footprint, by looking at sustainable procurement, green and resilient healthcare infrastructure, and the management of transportation, energy, water, waste, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and plastics in healthcare. Well supplemented with rigorous case studies, the book will be indispensable for students, teachers, and researchers of environmental studies, health sciences, and climate change. It will be useful for healthcare workers, public health officials, healthcare leaders, policy planners, and those interested in climate resilience and preparedness in the healthcare sector.A World Without Soil: The Past, Present, and Precarious Future of the Earth Beneath Our Feet
By Jo Handelsman. 2021
A celebrated biologist's manifesto addressing a soil loss crisis accelerated by poor conservation practices and climate change &“Jo Handelsman is…
a national treasure, and her clarion call warning of a looming soil-loss catastrophe must be heard. Add her clearly written alarm to other future-shocks: climate change, pandemics, and mass extinctions.&”—Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance &“The ground beneath our feet is slipping away as we lose the precious soil that sustains us. Jo Handelsman&’s writing—as rich and life supporting as the soil itself—is a riveting warning.&”—Alan Alda, actor, writer, and host of the podcast &“Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda&” This book by celebrated biologist Jo Handelsman lays bare the complex connections among climate change, soil erosion, food and water security, and drug discovery. Humans depend on soil for 95 percent of global food production, yet let it erode at unsustainable rates. In the United States, China, and India, vast tracts of farmland will be barren of topsoil within this century. The combination of intensifying erosion caused by climate change and the increasing food needs of a growing world population is creating a desperate need for solutions to this crisis. Writing for a nonspecialist audience, Jo Handelsman celebrates the capacities of soil and explores the soil-related challenges of the near future. She begins by telling soil&’s origin story, explains how it erodes and the subsequent repercussions worldwide, and offers solutions. She considers lessons learned from indigenous people who have sustainably farmed the same land for thousands of years, practices developed for large-scale agriculture, and proposals using technology and policy initiatives.The Nature of Tomorrow: A History of the Environmental Future
By Michael Rawson. 2021
An examination of how Western visions of endless future growth have contributed to the global environmental crisis &“This book does…
something that is worth doing and that no other scholarly book I know of comes close to doing: tracing the history of imagined environmental futures in the Western world.&”—William Meyer, Colgate University For centuries, the West has produced stories about the future in which humans use advanced science and technology to transform the earth. Michael Rawson uses a wide range of works that include Francis Bacon&’s New Atlantis, the science fiction novels of Jules Verne, and even the speculations of think tanks like the RAND Corporation to reveal the environmental paradox at the heart of these narratives: the single-minded expectation of unlimited growth on a finite planet. Rawson shows how these stories, which have long pervaded Western dreams about the future, have helped to enable an unprecedentedly abundant and technology-driven lifestyle for some while bringing the threat of environmental disaster to all. Adapting to ecological realities, he argues, hinges on the ability to create new visions of tomorrow that decouple growth from the idea of progress.Circular Fashion: Making the Fashion Industry Sustainable
By Peggy Blum. 2021
Creating sustainable fashion has never been more important. Circular Fashion provides an accessible, practical, and holistic approach to this key…
topic for anyone studying fashion.This introductory text to sustainability in fashion includes best practice case studies and profiles of key companies such as Patagonia, Veja, Christopher Raeburn, and Stella McCartney. It begins with an overview of the fashion business, tackling the issues of the linear production model of make, use, dispose, before introducing the idea of the circular supply chain.Circular Fashion is the must-have book for fashion students, creatives and anyone passionate about sustainability and fashion.Biogeography: An Integrative Approach of the Evolution of Living
By Eric Guilbert. 2021
The recent progress in analytical methods, aided by bringing in a wide range of other disciplines, opens up the study…
to a broader field, which means that biogeography now goes far beyond a simple description of the distribution of living species on Earth.Originating with Alexander von Humboldt, biogeography is a discipline in which ecologists and evolutionists aim to understand the way that living species are organized in connection with their environments. Today, as we face major challenges such as global warming, massive species extinction and devastating pandemics, biogeography offers hypotheses and explanations that may help to provide solutions.This book presents as wide an overview as possible of the different fields that biogeography interacts with. Sixteen authors from all over the world offer different approaches based on their specific areas of knowledge and experience; thus, we intend to illustrate the vast number of diverse aspects covered by biogeography.We Are All Greta: Be Inspired to Save the World
By Valentina Giannella. 2019
Humans are very adaptable: We can still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long.…
We must start today. We have no more excuses'GRETA THUNBERGFollow in the footsteps of the Swedish teenage activist and Nobel Peace Prize candidate in We Are All Greta and join the global mission to save our planet from climate change.Greta Thunberg, author of No One is too Small to Make a Difference, has directed the attention of adults and her peers alike to issues crucial to the future of the planet, and the heads of even the youngest children have been filled with questions. GLOBAL WARMING, THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT, FOSSIL FUELS - what do they all mean? What are biodiversity and sustainable development? Who is studying the changes that are taking place here on Earth? Which sources are reliable? What action can I take?We Are All Greta sets out the basic ideas required to understand climate change, explained in a scientific and accessible way and drawn from the most authoritative sources. With a chapter on key words and sites to help you understand the climate challenge and a list of websites to visit for further information, this is a book for young people, for parents, for grandparents and anyone having to answer direct and urgent questions about what must be done to protect our world.WHAT EARLY READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT WE ARE ALL GRETA'Will enable readers to understand the climate emergency and learn what can be done to help. Highly illustrated, and with clear, in-depth text and data, it will answer young readers' questions on what climate change means, what its consequences will be, and what must be done to protect our world'LOVEREADING4KIDS BOOK OF THE MONTH'A must-read book for all the citizens of Earth! You want to save Earth and all in it, stop complaining and start saving''A really informative and helpful book that is suitable for both adults and older kids. It was the perfect length and took the time it needed to get the message across without bogging us down''Managed to explore a lot of issues in an accessible way, with a great glossary at the end, and also managed to make points without being too scary, preachy or didactic - no mean feat in this field'Saving the Last Rhinos: The Life of a Frontline Conservationist
By Graham Spence, Grant Fowlds. 2019
The remarkable story of Grant Fowlds, a conservationist who has dedicated his life to saving the last rhinos, vividly told…
with the help of Graham Spence, co-author of the bestselling The Elephant Whisperer.'A terrific read . . . an outstanding book!'Gary Player and Vivienne Player'A truly heart-wrenching story, but a must-read for all who value our wild animals and their right to roam free. Grant Fowlds is a Zulu in a white skin and loves the people who hold the key to animal conservation. This is an intriguing true story that sends a clear message to the rest of the world.'Phil Liggett'Exceptionally readable - a fluid and captivating story . . . a swashbuckling tale.'Dr Dave Cooper, Rhinos Without Borders veterinarian, and Debbie Cooper of iSimangaliso Wetland Park'A rollicking true-life adventure that celebrates rhinos and people'Guy Rogers, Daily Herald'Truly awe-inspiring . . . Read this book. You will get a sense of Africa like never before, from a true African soul.'David S. Lee, Limbani in the blockbuster movie Black Panther'An excellent read . . . both sobering and uplifting'Moira Smith, General Manager Africa & Middle East, Goway TravelWhat would drive a man to 'smuggle' rhino horn back into Africa at great risk to himself? This is just one of the situations Grant Fowlds has put himself in as part of his ongoing fight against poaching, in order to prove a link between southern Africa and the illicit, lucrative trade in rhino horn in Vietnam.Shavings of rhino horn are sold as a snake-oil 'cure' for colds or impotence, but a rhino's horn has no magical, medicinal properties. It is for this that rhinoceroses are being killed at an escalating rate that puts the survival of the species in jeopardy. This corrupt, illegal war on wildlife has brought an iconic animal to the brink of extinction.Growing up on a farm in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, Grant developed a deep love of nature, turning his back on hunting to focus on saving wildlife of all kinds and the environment that sustains both them and us. He is a passionate conservationist who puts himself on the front line of protecting rhinos in the wild - right now, against armed poachers; but in the longer term, too, through his work with schoolchildren, communities and policymakers.We are most grateful to photographer Gerhard van der Westhuizen for the use of his stunning photograph on the cover of the book.This book critically explores the political ecology of human marginalization, wildlife conservation and the role of the state in politicizing…
conservation frameworks, drawing on examples from forests in India. The book specifically demonstrates the nuances within human-environmental linkages, by showing how environmental concerns are not only ecological in content but also political. In India a large part of the forests and their surrounding areas were inhabited far before they were designated as protected areas and inviolate zones, with the local population reliant on forests for their survival and livelihoods. Thus, socioecological conflicts between the forest dependents and official state bodies have been widespread. This book uses a political ecology lens to explore the complex interplay between current norms of forest conservation and environmental subjectivities, illustrating contemporary articulation of forest rights and the complex mediations between forest dependents and different state and non-state bodies in designing and implementing regulatory standards for wildlife and forest protection. It foregrounds the issues of identity, migration and cultural politics while discussing the politics of conservation. Through a political ecology approach, the book not only is human-centric but also makes significant use of the role of non-humans in foregrounding the conservation discourse, with a particular focus on tigers. The book will be of great interest to students and academics studying forest conservation, human–wildlife interactions and political ecology.Cosmopolitical Ecologies Across Asia offers a unique insight into the non-human and spiritual dimensions of environmental management in a changing…
world. This volume presents a comparative, place-based exploration of landscapes across Asia and the entities, practices and knowledges that inhabit them. Rather than treating sacred mountains, terrains and water sources as self-contained, esoteric religious phenomena, the authors consider them within critical 'cosmopolitical ecologies' framings in which non-human entities are engaged as actors in the socio-political arena. The chapters include case studies of healing springs recognized by governments, and sacred mountains that are addressed by heads of states and Communist Party cadres, or that speak to the faithful through spirit mediums in a politics of re-enchantment. Contributors explore the diverse ways in which non-human entities such as forest spirits, reindeer, mountains and Buddhist Masters of the Land are engaged by humans to navigate environmental change and address a range of ecological threats from large-scale mining to climate change. Cosmopolitical ecologies approaches encompass the healing power of topography as well as transformative intimacies with other-than-human beings such as sparrows within an Islamic eco-theological poetic setting. In this light the book observes dynamic and creative processes of cosmological innovation including the repurposing of ritual to address challenges such as the Covid-19 epidemic. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environment and society across disciplinary perspectives in general, and to anthropologists, human geographers, political ecologists, indigenous studies, area studies, environmental sciences and environmental humanities scholars in particular.This book examines the role of ethics and philosophy in biodiversity conservation. The objective of this book is two-fold: on…
the one hand it offers a detailed and systematic account of central normative concepts often used, but rarely explicated nor justified, within conservation biology. Such concepts include ‘values’ (both intrinsic, instrumental, and, more recently, relational), ‘rights’, and ‘duties’. The second objective is to emphasize to environmental philosophers and applied ethicists the many interesting decision-making challenges of biodiversity conservation. The book argues that a nuanced account of instrumental values provides a powerful tool for reasoning about the values of biodiversity. It also scrutinizes relational values, the concept of rights of nature, and risk, and show how moral philosophy proves indispensable for these concepts. Consequently, it engages with recent suggestions on normative aspects of biodiversity conservation, and show the need for moral philosophy in biodiversity conservation. The overriding aim of this book is to provide conservation biologists and policy-makers with a systematic overview of concepts and assessments of the reasons for reaching prescriptive conclusions about biodiversity conservation. This will prove instrumental in clarifying the role of applied ethics and a refined understanding of the tools it can provide. This title will be of interest to students and scholars of conservation biology, conservation policy, environmental ethics and environmental philosophy.School Farms: Feeding and Educating Children (Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment)
By Alshimaa Aboelmakarem Farag, Samaa Badawi, Gurpinder Lalli, and Maya Kamareddine. 2022
This book highlights the potential of school farms to fight hunger and malnutrition by providing access to locally produced, fresh,…
and healthy food as well as providing young students with educational opportunities to learn, interact with nature, and develop their skills. Hunger is one of the most pressing concerns we face today and there is a clear need to provide alternative sources of food to feed a fast-growing population. School farms offer a sustainable opportunity to produce food locally in order to feed underprivileged students who rely on school meals as an integral part of their daily diet. Approaching the concept of school farms through four themes, Problem, People, Process, and Place, the book shows how they can play an essential role in providing sustainable and healthy food for students, the critical role educational institutions can play in promoting this process, and the positive impact hands-on farming can have on students' mental and physical wellbeing. Utilizing the authors' personal hands-on experiences, and drawing on global case studies, the book provides a theoretical framework and practical guidance to help with the establishment of school farms and community-based gardening projects and an education system which promotes a sustainable and healthy approach to food, agriculture, and the environment. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of food security, agriculture, healthy and sustainable diets, education for sustainable development, and urban studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners and policymakers involved in food policy, developing school and community projects, global health and international development, as well as education professionals.Through a contemporary Gothic lens, the book explores theatre theories, processes and practices that explore; the impacts of continuing drought…
and natural disaster, the conflicts concerning resource extraction and mining and current political debates focussed on climate change denial. While these issues can be argued from various political and economic platforms, theatrical investigations as discussed here suggest that scholars and theatre makers are becoming empowered to dramaturgically explore the ecological challenges we face now and may face in the future. In doing so the book proposes that theatre can engage in not only climate change analysis and discussion but can develop climate literacies in a broader socio-cultural context.The Green City and Social Injustice: 21 Tales from North America and Europe (Routledge Equity, Justice and the Sustainable City series)
By Isabelle Anguelovski and James J. T. Connolly. 2022
The Green City and Social Injustice examines the recent urban environmental trajectory of 21 cities in Europe and North America…
over a 20-year period. It analyses the circumstances under which greening interventions can create a new set of inequalities for socially vulnerable residents while also failing to eliminate other environmental risks and impacts. Based on fieldwork in ten countries and on the analysis of core planning, policy and activist documents and data, the book offers a critical view of the growing green planning orthodoxy in the Global North. It highlights the entanglements of this tenet with neoliberal municipal policies including budget cuts for community initiatives, long-term green spaces and housing for the most fragile residents; and the focus on large-scale urban redevelopment and high-end real estate investment. It also discusses hopeful experiences from cities where urban greening has long been accompanied by social equity policies or managed by community groups organizing around environmental justice goals and strategies. The book examines how displacement and gentrification in the context of greening are not only physical but also socio-cultural, creating new forms of social erasure and trauma for vulnerable residents. Its breadth and diversity allow students, scholars and researchers to debunk the often-depoliticized branding and selling of green cities and reinsert core equity and justice issues into green city planning—a much-needed perspective. Building from this critical view, the book also shows how cities that prioritize equity in green access, in secure housing and in bold social policies can achieve both environmental and social gains for all.Adaptive Collaborative Management in Forest Landscapes: Villagers, Bureaucrats and Civil Society (The Earthscan Forest Library)
By Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Ravi Prabhu, and Anne M. Larson. 2022
This book examines the value of Adaptive Collaborative Management for facilitating learning and collaboration with local communities and beyond, utilising…
detailed studies of forest landscapes and communities. Many forest management proposals are based on top-down strategies, such as the Million Tree Initiatives, Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) and REDD+, often neglecting local communities. In the context of the climate crisis, it is imperative that local peoples and communities are an integral part of all decisions relating to resource management. Rather than being seen as beneficiaries or people to be safeguarded, they should be seen as full partners, and Adaptive Collaborative Management is an approach which priorities the rights and roles of communities alongside the need to address the environmental crisis. The volume presents detailed case studies and real life examples from across the globe, promoting and prioritizing the voices of women and scholars and practitioners from the Global South who are often under-represented. Providing concrete examples of ways that a bottom-up approach can function to enhance development sustainably, via its practitioners and far beyond the locale in which they initially worked, this volume demonstrates the lasting utility of approaches like Adaptive Collaborative Management that emphasize local control, inclusiveness and local creativity in management. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in the fields of conservation, forest management, community development and natural resource management and development studies more broadly.Examining the interplay between the oil economy and identity politics using the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a case study,…
this book tells the untold story of how extractivism in the Kurdish autonomous region is interwoven in a mosaic of territorial disputes, simmering ethnic tensions, dynastic rule, party allegiances, crony patronage, and divergent visions about nature. Since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the de-facto borders of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have repeatedly changed, with energy interests playing a major role in such processes of territorialisation. However, relatively little research exists on the topic. This book provides a timely, empirical analysis of the intersections between extractive industries, oil imaginaries, and identity formation in one of the most coveted energy frontiers worldwide. It shines a light on relations between the global production networks of petro-capitalism and extractive localities. Besides the strained federal relationship with the Iraqi central government, the transformative effects the petroleum industry has had on Kurdish society are also explored in depth. Moreover, the book fills a gap in the literature on Kurdish Studies, which has devoted scant attention to energy-related issues in the re-imagination of Kurdish self-determination. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the extractive industries, energy studies, conflict studies, Middle Eastern politics, and political ecology.Ethical Humans: Life, Love, Labour, Learning and Loss (Routledge Research in Anticipation and Futures)
By Victor Jeleniewski Seidler. 2022
Ethical Humans questions how philosophy and social theory can help us to engage the everyday moral realities of living, working,…
loving, learning and dying in new capitalism. It introduces sociology as an art of living and as a formative tradition of embodied radical eco post-humanism. Seeking to embody traditions of philosophy and social theory in everyday ethics, this book validates emotions and feelings as sources of knowledge and shows how the denigration of women has gone hand in hand with the denigration of nature. It queries post-structuralist traditions of anti-humanism that, for all their insights into the fragmentation of identities, often sustain a distinction between nature and culture. The author argues that in a crisis of global warming, we have to learn to listen to our bodies as part of nature and draws on Wittgenstein to shape embodied forms of philosophy and social theory that questions theologies that tacitly continue to shape philosophical traditions. In acknowledging our own vulnerabilities, we question the vision of the autonomous and independent rational self that often remains within the terms of dominant white masculinities. This book offers different modes of self-work, drawing on psychoanalysis and embodied post-analytic psychotherapies as part of a decolonising practice questioning Eurocentric colonising modernity. In doing so it challenges, with Simone Weil, Roman notions of power and greatness that have shaped visions of white supremacy and European colonial power and empire. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, environmental philosophy, social theory and sociology, ethics and philosophy, cultural studies, future studies, gender studies, post-colonial studies, Marxism, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and philosophy and sociology as arts of living.Epistemic Justice, Mindfulness, and the Environmental Humanities: Reflections on Teaching
By Janelle Adsit. 2022
Epistemic Justice, Mindfulness, and the Environmental Humanities explores how contemplative pedagogies and mindfulness can be used in the classroom to…
address epistemic and environmental injustice. In recent years, there has been a groundswell of interest in contemplative pedagogies in higher education, with increasing attention from the environmental sciences, environmental humanities, and sustainability studies. Teachers and writers have demonstrated how mindfulness practices can be a key to anti-oppression and anti-racist efforts, both in and out of the classroom. Not all forms of contemplative pedagogy are suited for this anti-colonial and anti-oppressive resistance, however. Simply adopting mindfulness practices in the classroom is not enough to dislodge and dismantle white supremacy in higher education. Epistemic Justice, Mindfulness, and the Environmental Humanities advocates for mindfulness practices that affirm multiple epistemologies and cultural traditions. Written for educators in the environmental humanities and other related disciplines, the chapters interrogate the western uptake of mindfulness practices and suggest anti-colonial and anti-oppressive methods for bringing mindfulness into the classroom. The chapters also discuss what mindfulness practices have to offer to the pursuit of a culturally relevant pedagogy. This highly applied and practical text will be an insightful read for educators in the environmental humanities and across the liberal arts disciplines.Catholic Peacebuilding and Mining: Integral Peace, Development, and Ecology (Routledge Studies in Religion)
By Caesar A. Montevecchio. 2022
This book explores the role of Catholic peacebuilding in addressing the global mining industry. Mining is intimately linked to issues…
of conflict, human rights, sustainable development, governance, and environmental justice. As an institution of significant scope and scale with a large network of actors at all levels and substantial theoretical and ethical resources, the Catholic Church is well positioned to acknowledge the essential role of mining, while challenging unethical and harmful practices, and promoting integral peace, development, and ecology. Drawing together theology, ethics, and praxis, the volume reflects the diversity of Catholic action on mining and the importance of an integrated approach. It includes contributions by an international and interdisciplinary range of scholars and practitioners. They examine Catholic action on mining in El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Philippines. They also address general issues of corporate social responsibility, human rights, development, ecology, and peacebuilding. The book will be of interest to scholars of theology, social ethics, and Catholic studies as well as those specializing in development, ecology, human rights, and peace studies.Metagenomics and Microbial Ecology: Techniques and Applications
By Nachimuthu Senthil Kumar, Surajit De Mandal, Amrita Kumari Panda, Satpal Singh Bisht, Fengliang Jin. 2022
Microorganisms comprise the greatest genetic diversity in the natural ecosystem, and characterization of these microbes is an essential step towards…
discovering novel products or understanding complex biological mechanisms. The advancement of metagenomics coupled with the introduction of high-throughput, cost-effective NGS technology has expanded the possibilities of microbial research in various biological systems. In addition to traditional culture and biochemical characteristics, omics approaches (metagenomics, metaproteomics, and metatranscriptomics) are useful for analyzing complete microbial communities and their functional attributes in various environments. Metagenomics and Microbial Ecology: Techniques and Applications explores the most recent advances in metagenomics research in the landscape of next-generation sequencing technologies. This book also describes how advances in sequencing technologies are used to study invisible microbes as well as the relationships between microorganisms in their respective environments. Features: Covers a wide range of concepts, investigations, and technological advancement in metagenomics at the global level. Highlights the novel and recent approaches to analyze microbial diversity and its functional attributes. Features a range of chapters that present an introduction to the field and functional insight into various ecosystems.