Showing titles in Ecosystems & Habitats

A connection to nature is vital to our wellbeing. The sound of birds, the smell of tree oils, the effects of natural sunlight. Studies have shown that patients who can observe a natural scene through a hospital window recover faster, and lockdown proved that when most other aspects of life falls away, nature still feels like a necessity, not a luxury. But the majority of the world’s population lives in some form of urban environment, and by 2050, two thirds of humanity – nearly 7 billion people – are expected to live in towns and cities.

Only those who love trees should cut them, writes forester Ethan Tapper. In How to Love a Forest, he asks what it means to live in a time in which ecosystems are in retreat and extinctions rattle the bones of the earth. How do we respond to the harmful legacies of the past? How do we use our species’ incredible power to heal rather than to harm? Tapper walks us through the fragile and resilient community that is a forest.

Liminal, transformative and increasingly elusive – far from a simple cloud of water droplets, fog is a state of mind. As mist drifted through a copse of trees, turning a familiar place strange and otherworldly, Laura Pashby snapped a photograph and an obsession began. Pashby hunts for fog, walks and swims in it, explores its often pivotal role in literature, mythology and history, as well as its environmental significance. There has been a 50 per cent drop in 'fog events' in the past fifty years, fog is drifting away without us noticing and the ecological impact could be calamitous.

Since its first BBC broadcast in 1925, the Shipping Forecast has captured the nation's heart. Its practical use as a precise reading of the marine weather around the British Isles has been largely forgotten by its recreational listeners, who instead value its gentle rhythm and curious wording as a comfort, a charm, or fail-safe formula for inducing sleep.

Reef of Dreams is an immersive exploration of the world’s largest coral reef system, weaving together its natural wonders, cultural significance, scientific discoveries, and the urgent challenges it faces.

In Why Whales Sing, bioacoustician and cognitive scientist Eduardo Mercado transforms our understanding of these enigmatic sounds and proposes a groundbreaking theory that challenges decades of established science.

The Amazon Rainforest is an immersive journey into the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest. This book explores the Amazon’s breathtaking geography, its astonishing array of life, and the deep-rooted cultures that have flourished under its green canopy for millennia. Through vivid storytelling and accessible science, listeners discover the Amazon’s vital role in regulating the planet’s climate, its history of exploration and exploitation, and the urgent challenges it faces today—from deforestation and climate change to the fight for indigenous rights.

Fifty Percent of Mountaineering Is Uphill is the enthralling true story of Jasper's Willi Pfisterer, a legend in the field of mountaineering and safety in the Rocky Mountains. For more than thirty years, Willi was an integral part of Jasper's alpine landscape, guiding climbers up to the highest peaks, and rescuing them from perilous situations.

A feedback loop occurs when the outcome of a process restarts that process, creating a cyclical chain of cause and effect. Feedback loops can either maintain the status quo (a negative feedback loop), or they can create a “snowball effect” (a positive feedback loop) where more begets more. These feedback loops have been with us since the beginning of time, and they are implicit in the formation of everything that exists in the universe.

In the aftermath of loss, a mother and her young son cross the ocean to a remote strip of land on the North Atlantic. Through art, philosophy, poetry, geology and Minecraft, Coutts starts to imagine new ways of being and a new existence for her small family. With the precision and clarity of the camera, Coutts combines the real with the fictional, interweaving folk song, maps and island lore to present a devastating and fierce reflection on intimacy and separation, parenthood, photography and the fragility and strangeness of our environment.

What if saving our home planet starts with giving other species space to roam? How can we re-shape our human-built landscapes to serve both people and wildlife? These are the questions that Hillary Rosner attempts to answer in Roam, an urgent quest to figure out how to stitch our fragmented planet back together. It’s about the people trying to reconstruct landscapes where animals can once again move freely, as they did for millennia.

Faszinierendes Paralleluniversum: Sophia Kimmig entführt in die Dunkelwelt und öffnet die Augen für die Wunder der Nacht direkt vor unserer Tür. Wenn die Sonne untergegangen ist, wird es bei den Wildtieren erst richtig interessant: Wo tagsüber Menschen auf Busse warten, durchwühlt eine Wildschweinfamilie den Mülleimer an der Haltestelle. Füchse suchen nach Futter, Glühwürmchen senden Blinksignale an potenzielle Partner, Waschbären durchstöbern das Gebüsch. Die Nacht ist nicht nur eine Zeit, sondern ein vielfältiger Lebensraum, über den wir immer noch zu wenig wissen.

À l’heure des mutations écologiques, de la remise en cause des idéaux de progrès continu et d’abondance, de la défiance à l’égard du savoir scientifique, la célèbre question tripartite d’Emmanuel Kant (Que puis-je savoir ? Que dois-je faire ? Que m’est-il permis d’espérer ?) semble recouvrer sa vertigineuse pertinence. Une question que le philosophe et sociologue des sciences Bruno Latour - en compagnie de Nicolas Truong - reprend en quelque sorte à son compte.

Der Wald ist so viel mehr als Bäume! In ihrem ersten gemeinsamen Werk, das umfassend wie nie in die Geheimnisse des Waldes einführt, vereinen Deutschlands berühmtester Förster Peter Wohlleben und der renommierte Biologe Pierre L. Ibisch ihre herausragende Expertise und die neuesten Erkenntnisse der internationalen Wissenschaft. Sie bringen Licht ins Dickicht eines hoch komplexen Ökosystems. Anhand faszinierender Beispiele aus der Natur zeigen sie das ungeahnte Zusammenspiel der Pflanzen, Tiere, Mikroben, Viren, Pilze auf – eine Welt, in der kein Element ohne das andere existieren kann.

The seafood industry on the coast of Mississippi has attracted waves of immigrants and other workers, oftentimes folks who were either already acquainted with maritime livelihoods or those who quickly adapted to the resources of the region. For generations, the industry has provided employment and sustenance to Coast peoples.

When Chris Dombrowski burst onto the literary scene with Body of Water, the book was acclaimed as “a classic” (Jim Harrison) and its author compared with John McPhee. Dombrowski begins the highly anticipated The River You Touch with a question as timely as it is profound: “What does a meaningful, mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the anthropocene?”

The scenario we are facing is scary: within a few decades, sea levels around the world may well rise by a meter or more as glaciers and ice caps melt due to climate change. Large parts of our coastal cities will be flooded, the basic outline of our world will be changed, and torrential rains will present their own challenges. But this is not the first time that people have had to cope with threatening waters, because sea levels have been rising for thousands of years, ever since the end of the last Ice Age.

From seals' frisky behavior to red squirrels making their last stand in the battle against the greys, here are the mammals of Britain as you've never seen them before. Join Fiona Mathews and Tim Kendall on an overnight stakeout in search of the elusive pine marten. Follow them down mines inhabited by greater horseshoe bats, cavers, ravers and teenagers smoking unusual substances. Meet water voles thriving in the East End of Glasgow—despite the lack of water—and observe the brilliance of wild boar in your back garden.

What would you do in a worldwide food shortage? Do you want to learn how to source organic-free food whilst enjoying time with friends and family? If you want to learn the number one most underrated survival skill, then keep listening….

Das Wattenmeer zwischen Deich und Dünen bleibt sich niemals gleich. Alte Weisheiten trägt die Ebbe fort und mit jeder Flut strömt neues Leben in diese Wechselwelt aus Wasser, Sand und Schlick. Karsten Reise erforscht die Nordseeküste seit nunmehr 50 Jahren. Er kennt jede Wattwurmhöhle und Muschelbank zwischen den nordfriesischen Inseln, die Sandkörner und Strömungen, weiß vom unaufhaltsamen Steigen des Meeres bei aufgeheiztem Klima. Deiche erhöhen allein reicht da nicht mehr aus. Ändert sich das Meer, sollten auch wir uns ändern und amphibischer werden in unserer Lebensweise.