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Island Press began with a simple idea: knowledge is power—the power to imagine a better future and find ways for getting us there. Founded in 1984, Island Press’ mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems.

Showing 181-195 of 322 items.

Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice

Different Pathways, Common Lessons

Island Press

What are the key ingredients of successful marine ecosystem planning? The surprising answer, according to authors Julia Wondolleck and Stephen Yaffee, is that a successful approach calls for more than just sound organizational structure and resources, but also a comfortable atmosphere of trust, understanding, and collaboration.
 
Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice is the first practical guide for the marine conservation realm. In a unique collection of case studies, the authors showcase successful  collaborative approaches to ecosystem-based management. This book offers a hopeful message to policy makers, managers, practitioners, and students who will find this an indispensable guide to field-tested, replicable marine conservation management practices that work.

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Seeing the Better City

How to Explore, Observe, and Improve Urban Space

Island Press

In order to understand and improve cities today, personal observation remains as important as ever.  While big data, digital mapping, and simulated cityscapes are valuable tools for understanding urban space, using them without on-the-ground, human impressions risks creating places that do not reflect authentic local context. Seeing the Better City brings our attention back to the real world right in front of us, focusing it once more on the sights, sounds, and experiences of place in order to craft policies, plans, and regulations to shape better urban environments.

Through clear prose and vibrant photographs, Charles Wolfe shows how to catalog the influences of urban form, public transportation, and other basic city elements. He then shares insights into how to use recorded observations to contribute to better planning and design decisions. Wolfe calls this the “urban diary” approach, and highlights how the perspective of the observer is key to understanding the dynamics of urban space. He concludes by offering guidance on how to use carefully recorded and organized observations as a tool to create change in urban planning conversations and practice.



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Nature's Allies

Eight Conservationists Who Changed Our World

Island Press

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of big environmental challenges—but we need inspiration now more than ever. In Nature’s Allies, Larry Nielsen presents the inspiring stories of eight conservation pioneers who show that through passion and perseverance we can each make a difference, even in the face of political opposition. Nielsen’s vivid biographies of John Muir, Ding Darling, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Chico Mendes, Billy Frank Jr., Wangari Maathai, and Gro Harlem Brundtland are meant to rally a new generation of conservationists to follow in their footsteps and inspire students, conservationists, and nature lovers to speak up for nature and prove that individuals can affect positive change in the world.

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Handbook of Biophilic City Planning & Design

Island Press

What if, even in the heart of a densely developed city, people could have meaningful encounters with nature?
 
The Handbook of Biophilic City Planning & Design offers practical advice and inspiration for ensuring that nature in the city is more than infrastructure—that it also creates an emotional connection to the earth and promotes well-being among urban residents. Divided into six parts, the Handbook introduces key ideas about biophilic urbanism, highlights urban biophilic innovations in more than a dozen global cities, and concludes with lessons and resources for advancing urban biophilia.
 
As the most comprehensive reference on the emerging field of biophilic urbanism, the Handbook is essential reading for students and practitioners looking to place nature at the core of their planning and design ideas.

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Landscape Architecture Theory

An Ecological Approach

Island Press

For decades, landscape architecture was driven solely by artistic sensibilities. But in these times of global change, the opportunity to reshape the world comes with a responsibility to consider how it can be resilient, fostering health and vitality for humans and nature. Landscape Architecture Theory re-examines the fundamentals of the field, offering a new approach to landscape design.

Drawing on his extensive career in teaching and practice, Michael Murphy begins with an examination of influences on landscape architecture. He then delves into systems and procedural theory, while making connections to ecosystem and human factors, the design process, and more. He concludes by showing how a strong theoretical understanding can be applied to practical, every-day decision making and design work to create more holistic, sustainable, and creative landscapes.

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Prospects for Resilience

Insights from New York City's Jamaica Bay

Island Press

Given the realities of climate change and sea-level rise, coastal cities around the world are struggling with questions of resilience.  Resilience, at its core, is about desirable states of the urban social-ecological system and working to sustain those states in an uncertain and tumultuous future.  How do physical conditions, ecological processes, social objectives, human politics, and history shape the prospects for resilience?  Most books set out “the answer.”  This book sets out a process of grappling with holistic resilience from multiple perspectives, drawing on the insights and experiences of more than fifty scholars and practitioners working together to make Jamaica Bay in New York City an example for the world.

Ranging from a framework for understanding resilience practice in urban watersheds to essential tools for research and practice, Prospects for Resilience is filled with information and advice for scientists, urban planners, students, and others who are working to create more resilient cities that work with, not against, nature.

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People Cities

The Life and Legacy of Jan Gehl

Island Press

Over the last 50 years architect Jan Gehl has changed the way that we think about architecture and city planning—moving from the Modernist separation of uses to a human-scale approach inviting people to use their cities.
People Cities tells the inside story of how Gehl learned to study urban spaces and implement his people-centered approach in car-dominated cities. It discusses the work, theory, life, and influence of Gehl from the perspective of those who have worked with him in cities across the globe. It will inspire anyone who wants to create vibrant, human-scale cities and understand the ideas and work of the architect who has most influenced urban design. 

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Design Professional's Guide to Zero Net Energy Buildings

Island Press

In the Design Professional’s Guide to Zero Net Energy Buildings, Charles Eley draws from over 40 years of his own experience, and interviews with other industry experts, to lay out the principles for achieving zero net energy (ZNE) buildings, which produce as much energy as they use over the course of a year. Eley emphasizes the importance of building energy use in achieving a sustainable future; describes how building energy use can be minimized through smart design and energy efficiency technologies; and presents practical information on how to incorporate renewable energy technologies to meet the lowered energy needs. The book shows the reader through examples and explanations that these solutions are viable and cost effective.

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Holistic Management, Third Edition

A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment

Island Press

Holistic management is a systems-thinking approach for managing resources developed by former wildlife biologist and farmer Allan Savory decades ago, after observing the devastation of desertification in his native Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Properly managed livestock are key to restoring the world’s grassland soils and the natural world we rely upon.

In this third edition of Holistic Management, Savory and coauthor Jody Butterfield update and streamline guidelines to reverse desertification, halt climate change, retain biodiversity, and eliminate causes of global human impoverishment. Reorganized chapters streamline concepts and new color photographs showcase examples of land restored by properly managed livestock.

Holistic Management is written for new generations of ranchers, farmers, pastoralists, eco- and social entrepreneurs, and government agencies, NGOs, and development professionals working to address global environmental and social degradation.
 

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Foundations of Restoration Ecology

Island Press

The practice of ecological restoration provides governments, organizations, and landowners a means to halt degradation and restore function to stressed ecosystems. Foundational theory is a critical component of the underlying science, providing valuable insights into restoring ecological systems and understanding why some efforts can fail.

Foundations of Restoration Ecology, Second Edition, has been dramatically updated to reflect new research in restoration ecology, including new sections on specific ecosystem processes, including hydrology, nutrient dynamics, and carbon.  Case studies describe real-life restoration scenarios in North and South America, Europe, and Australia. Lists at the end of each chapter summarize new theory and practical applications.

Written by acclaimed researchers in the field, this book provides practitioners as well as graduate and undergraduate students with a solid grounding in the newest advances in ecological science and theory.

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Global Street Design Guide

By Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc./Global Designing Cities Initiative
Island Press

The Global Street Design Guide is a timely resource that sets a global baseline for designing streets and public spaces and redefines the role of streets in a rapidly urbanizing world. The guide will broaden how to measure the success of urban streets to include: access, safety, mobility for all users, environmental quality, economic benefit, public health, and overall quality of life. The first-ever worldwide standards for designing city streets and prioritizing safety, pedestrians, transit, and sustainable mobility are presented in the guide. Participating experts from global cities have helped to develop the principles that organize the guide. 
 
This innovative guide will inspire leaders, inform practitioners, and empower communities to realize the potential in their public space networks. It will help cities unlock the potential of streets as safe, accessible, and economically sustainable places.

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Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries

A Critical Appraisal of Catches and Ecosystem Impacts

Island Press

The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery catch data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world’s foremost fisheries experts. Edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project, the Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. Each national report describes the current state of the country’s fishery; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. 

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Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries

A Critical Appraisal of Catches and Ecosystem Impacts

Island Press

The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery catch data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world’s foremost fisheries experts. Edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project, the Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. Each national report describes the current state of the country’s fishery; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. 

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The Past and Future City

How Historic Preservation is Reviving America's Communities

Island Press

In The Past and Future City, Stephanie Meeks, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, describes in detail, and with unique empirical research, the many ways that saving and restoring historic fabric can help a city create thriving neighborhoods, good jobs, and a vibrant economy. She explains the critical importance of preservation for all our communities, the ways the field of historic preservation has evolved to embrace the challenges of the twenty-first century, and the innovative work being done in the preservation space now.
 
This book is for anyone who cares about cities, places, and saving America’s diverse stories in a way that will bring us together and help us better understand our past, present, and future. 

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Biting the Hands that Feed Us

How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable

Island Press

Today in the United States, laws exist at all levels of government that exacerbate problems such as food waste, hunger, inhumane livestock conditions, and disappearing fish stocks. Baylen Linnekin argues that government rules often handcuff America’s most sustainable farmers, producers, sellers, and consumers, while rewarding those whose practices are anything but sustainable. Biting the Hands that Feed Us introduces readers to the perverse consequences of many food rules, from crippling organic farms to subsidizing monocrops. Linnekin also explores what makes for a good law—often, he explains, these emphasize good outcomes over rigid processes. But he urges readers to reconsider efforts to regulate our way to a greener food system, calling instead for empowerment of those working to feed us—and themselves—sustainably. 


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