Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in Ecosystems & Habitats

At 83 years old, Valerie Taylor has lived a big, bold, adventurous life. Born in Australia, Valerie spent a great deal of her childhood in New Zealand. A talented artist, she dropped out of school when she contracted polio and was saved by Sister Elizabeth Kenny's treatment plan; it was two years before she could walk unaided. When Valerie was 15, she found work as an animator and moved back to Australia with her family. All the while she thrived on being close to the ocean, and was a keen spearfisher.

For centuries the Alps have seen the march of armies, the flow of pilgrims and Crusaders, the feats of mountaineers and the dreams of engineers - and some 14 million people live among their peaks today. In The Alps, Stephen O'Shea takes listeners up and down these majestic mountains, journeying through their 500-mile arc across France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia.

James Marsh's Four Years in the Rockies gives brilliant insight into the life of Isaac P. Rose, a man who forged his own path in the wilderness of the far west. This thrilling account of one mountain man's life at the height of the 19th-century fur industry follows Rose as he overcomes adversity, learns from those around him, and becomes one of the most successful trappers of the Rockies. Four Years in the Rockies is essential listening for anyone interested in the 19th-century fur trade and the adventurers who risked their lives to be part of it.

The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.

'A surprising page-turner, full of humour and startling details' THE TIMES 'If I read a better history this year, I will be lucky' TOM HOLLAND 'An astonishing tour de force’ SPECTATOR Shortlisted for the HWA Nonfiction Crown Award Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize From Peter Marshall...

Steve Backshall was nine years old the first time he saw a shark, while on holiday with his family in Malaysia. It was the beginning of a life-long fascination with these 'lords of the sea', and the oceanic life around them. His career as one of the world's most popular naturalists and explorers has taken him to countless underwater places, many never before seen by others. And he's also been witness to the startling decline in fortune of our oceans' wild inhabitants over the past fifty years. Deep Blue takes us on an unforgettable tour of the many worlds of aquatic life.

Fifty Years on the Trail is the true story of John Young Nelson (1826-1903), an early frontiersman, military scout, interpreter, guide, and saloon owner. Nelson ran away from home as a young teenager to adventure in the west. He worked on farms, served as a cabin boy on a Mississippi steamer, and became an apprentice with a group of traders traveling west from Missouri. After meeting a band of Sioux, he got himself adopted into the tribe, learned how to live off the land and became a Sioux warrior.

Bushcraft and survival legend Ray Mears takes us on his own lifetime's journey through the natural world, into the British countryside and across continents, and shows us how to tune our senses, enhance our experience of nature, and understand our place within it. Guiding us through practical fieldcraft tips, Ray brings us up close with creatures we share our planet with, and reveals how we can learn from them, from the stealth of the leopard to the patience and stillness of the crocodile, and even the colour-changing camouflage of the octopus.

Bringing Back the Beaver is farmer-turned-ecologist Derek Gow’s inspirational and often riotously funny firsthand account of how the movement to rewild the British landscape with beavers has become the single most dramatic and subversive nature conservation act of the modern era. Since the early 1990s - in the face of outright opposition from government, landowning elites, and even some conservation professionals - Gow has imported, quarantined, and assisted the reestablishment of beavers in waterways across England and Scotland.

22 BBC radio programmes celebrating the great outdoors, introduced by Harriet Noble Spending time in nature is good for both our bodies and minds - but with our hectic lives (not to mention the unreliable British weather), it can be hard to get outside as much as we'd like. But fear not: we've...

In Time on Rock Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing, and the new developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape. Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cullin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms.

Part memoir, part homage to wilderness, Shearwater traces the author’s 50-year obsession with one of nature’s supreme travellers. In the finest tradition of nature writing, Roger Morgan-Grenville, author of Liquid Gold - described by Mary Colwell (Curlew Moon) as ‘a book that ignites joy and warmth’ - unpicks the science behind its incredible journey; and into the story of a year in the shearwater’s life, he threads the inspirational influence of his Hebridean grandmother who instilled in him a love of wild places and wild animals.

Almost all environmental books treat the environmental crisis as though humans are in charge of nature, rather than part of it. The Earth and I is the first book to put all preconceived notions aside and to ask, naïvely: Who are we really? What is our relationship to the earth? How is it possible that we, out of all the millions of species, have come to destroy our common home? The answers are surprising and have far-reaching implications for those searching for solutions.

A stunningly lyrical firsthand account of a life spent hunting, studying, and living alongside caribou, A Thousand Trails Home encompasses the historical past and present day, revealing the fragile intertwined lives of people and animals surviving on an uncertain landscape of cultural and climatic change sweeping the Alaskan Arctic. Author Seth Kantner vividly illuminates this critical story about the interconnectedness of the Iñupiat of Northwest Alaska, the Western Arctic caribou herd, and the larger Arctic region.

Forest celebrates the diverse ways in which trees and forests are as magnificent, economically relevant and profoundly enchanting today as they ever have been. Journeying across the continents, Matt Collins and Roo Lewis tie together both the historical context and modern-day applications of...

In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America's lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of "Beaver Believers" recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them.

For over half a century, landmark natural history series Living World has provided an inspiring introduction to the flora and fauna of Great Britain and beyond. Filmed on location at key ecological sites, it sees BBC wildlife presenters joined by guest experts for enthusiastic discussions and close encounters with our native wildlife. These classic archive programmes have all been specially selected by Chris Packham, who introduces each episode and gives us an overview of the places, people and species featured on the show.

Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built - and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes.

FINALIST FOR THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND BOOKLIST The story of the urgent fight to save coral reefs, and why it matters to us all Coral reefs are a microcosm of our planet: extraordinarily diverse, deeply interconnected, and full of wonders. When...

They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rain forest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps and Stranglers tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our prehuman ancestors, influenced diverse cultures, and played key roles in the dawn of civilization.