Showing titles in Ecosystems & Habitats

Barely inhabited, the Arctic is an alien world to most of us. It also holds critical clues about the future of our planet. In The Hidden Life of Ice, Marco Tedesco invites us to Greenland, where he and his fellow scientists are doggedly researching the dramatic changes afoot. Following the arc of his typical day at work, Tedesco unearths the secrets in the ice - from evidence of long-extinct "polar camels" to the fantastically weird microorganisms. Tedesco weaves together the bald facts on climate change with poetic reflections on this endangered landscape and more.

In November of 2013, I finally did what I had been wanting to do for a long time, but couldn't find the guts to do: I quit my job, sold my house, sold my car, gave away most of my material possessions, and went to live in Perú, the country I had left 40 years ago. I spent the better part of 2014 travelling up and down Perú, becoming familiar with my homeland for the first time. I and my wife Janet had been contemplating this move for a long time; but several reasons finally pushed us to take action. My mother had suffered a stroke and I wanted to spend some time with her. Besides, we had been suffering from a sort of malaise; a kind of existential discomfort. We were miserable at our jobs, punching the clock every day without any sense of fulfillment. Janet had been reassigned to a high-stress position that was literally killing her. We were not enjoying life and we asked ourselves: "is this all there is to life?" We decided that there had to be more.

A tiny ad in a local newspaper catches Cédric Sapin-Defour’s eye: a litter of Bernese Mountain Dog puppies need homes. A lonely, single, gym teacher and mountain climber in the French Alps, Cédric visits the dogs and immediately falls for a puppy with a blue collar who steps over his siblings to get to him. Named Ubac, French for the north side of the mountain – the rainy, cloudy slope – the puppy quickly upends Cédric’s life. They go on hikes together, taking to the hills and exploring, forging a bond that brings joy and a sense of fulfillment and adventure.

A Londoner for more than 20 years, moving from flat to Tube to air-conditioned office, Melissa Harrison knew what it was to be insulated from the seasons. Adopting a dog and going on daily walks helped reconnect her with the cycle of the year and the quiet richness of nature all around her: swifts nesting in a nearby church; ivy-leaved toadflax growing out of brick walls; the first blackbird's song; an exhilarating glimpse of a hobby over Tooting Common.

With vivid, observant reporting, veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce transports listeners to the remote cloud forests of Ecuador, the remains of a forest civilization in Nigeria, a mystifying mountain peak in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and the boreal forests of western Canada and the United States, where devastating wildfires are linked to suppressing the natural fire cycles of forests and the maintenance practices of Indigenous peoples. Throughout the book, Pearce interviews the people who traditionally live in forests.

In this informed and lyrical collection of interwoven essays, Lisa Knopp explores the physical and cultural geography of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte rivers she has come to understand and cherish. At the same time, she contemplates how people experience landscape, identifying three primary roles of environmental perception: the insider, the outsider, and the outsider seeking to become an insider. Viewing the waterways through these approaches, she searches for knowledge and meaning.

Native woodland is one of the most valuable resources for biodiversity in Ireland’s wet climate. Yet Ireland has the lowest forest cover of any part of Europe, with the surviving native woodland covering a tiny area of the country. Ireland lost the majority of its ancient forest centuries ago, but now is when we need it most to help solve the climate crisis. This audiobook is a celebration of Ireland’s native woodlands blended with a personal account of learning to manage a single small wood over a typical year.

When biologist Hanna Bjørgaas spots a fairy cup lichen in Antarctica, she is surprised to recognize it from her own backyard in Oslo. When she returns home, she embarks on a journey into urban nature, visiting city parks, cemeteries, and concrete rooftops to investigate the species that live in urban spaces. Along the way, she meets corvids, songbirds, ants, pigeons, bats, sparrows, fungi, and linden trees—and the experts who study their surprising abilities to survive, and thrive, in the city.

In the 1930s, the last wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park. Without them, elk herds overran the plains. Bears starved, rabbit families shrunk and birds flew away to new homes. Then plants and trees started to die off, too—even the flow of rivers was affected. Could the park be saved...by the wolves it had lost? After years of planning, in 1995 a team of experts was ready to find out. They carefully relocated 14 wolves from the Canadian Rockies to Yellowstone. This is the story of their homecoming.

On June 8th, 1924, George Mallory and 'Sandy' Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen 800 feet shy of Everest's summit. A century later, we still don't know whether they achieved their goal, decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay did, in 1953. Irvine carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit and take a photograph before they fell to their deaths?

In this refreshing collection, one of our best writers on desert places, Gary Paul Nabhan, challenges traditional notions of the desert. Beautiful, reflective, and at times humorous, Nabhan's extended essay also called "The Nature of Desert Nature" reveals the complexity of what a desert is and can be. He passionately writes about what it is like to visit a desert and what living in a desert looks like when viewed through a new frame, turning age-old notions of the desert on their heads.

Shinrin-Yoku, or forest bathing, is the practice of spending time in the forest for better health, happiness and a sense of calm. A pillar of Japanese culture for decades, Shinrin-Yoku is a way to reconnect with nature, from walking mindfully in the woods, to a break in your local park, to walking barefoot on your lawn. Forest Medicine expert Dr Qing Li's research has proven that spending time around trees (even filling your home with house plants and vaporising essential tree oils) can reduce blood pressure, lower stress, boost energy, boost immune system and even help you to lose weight.

The sea has captivated people ever since humans first set sail on it; its beauty, its force, the mysteries it holds. For the few who make their living from it, trying to understand it, to second guess its ever-changing moods, creates an addiction to salt water that keeps us coming back. My Fishing Life documents the reality of that life. This book lifts the lid on what it's like to be one of the country's very few female fishermen, and also do justice to an iconic industry that, while it feeds and impacts almost all of us, remains one of our most mysterious and misunderstood.

Crateri infuocati e foreste incontaminate, isole perdute e popoli primitivi, fiumi e scogli leggendari, ghiacciai, savane e deserti sconfinati, paradisi nascosti. E poi, animali preistorici, leoni e coccodrilli, orsi e serpenti. I racconti di Walter Bonatti ci riportano al suo fianco, nei suoi fantastici viaggi ai confini della Terra. Le sue sembrano cronache di un altro secolo e di un altro mondo... e lo sono.

Wild Isles is a celebration of the wildlife found on a relatively modest collection of islands positioned at a latitude so northerly to be unattractive to many animals and plants. Despite these unpromising foundations, the islands of Britain and Ireland, together with more than 6,000 lesser islets that make up our archipelago, contain some of the most diverse, beautiful and wildlife-rich landscapes and seas on our planet. This audiobook will explore the fascinating relationships within and between species who make their home on our beautiful isles.

A must-have book for walkers, sailors and everyone interested in the natural world, How to Read Water unlocks the secrets of water in all its forms. Natural navigator Tristan Gooley imparts knowledge and teaches skills, tips and useful observations to help you navigate the landscape around you.

For over 50,000 years, the Great Hunt has shaped human existence, creating a vital spiritual reality where people, animals, and the land share intimate bonds. Author Larry Frolick takes the listener deep into one of the last refuges of hunting societies: Canada’s far north. Based on his experiences travelling with First Nations Elders in remote communities across the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut, this vivid narrative combines accounts of daily life, unpublished archival records, First Nations' stories and Traditional Knowledge with personal observation....

At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings – who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Is a River Alive? takes the listener on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present and futures of this ancient, urgent concept.

Christopher Wills's claim has its roots in an insight from Charles Darwin: the interactions between species in an ecosystem are a powerful driver of evolution. In this book Wills describes how, by using the latest genetic techniques, we are probing ecosystems and discovering that even the most apparently barren of them are rich in variety, especially of microbes.

Die Wälder sind sein berufliches Zuhause, und die Arbeit mit Bäumen ist sein Leben. Bei geführten Waldwanderungen gibt der passionierte Förster und Autor Peter Wohlleben sein enormes Wissen über Bäume weiter. Seine Gebrauchsanweisung ist eine ebenso handfeste wie stimmungsvolle Entdeckungstour. Fundiert und unterhaltsam weist er ein in die wichtigsten Laub- und Nadelbaumarten: was sie kennzeichnet, welchen die Zukunft gehört, welche bei Gewitter wirklich Schutz bieten.