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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 181-190 of 330 items.

Energy Sprawl Solutions

Balancing Global Development and Conservation

Island Press

Over the next several decades, as human populations grow, the demand for energy will soar. But renewable energy sources have a large energy sprawl—the amount of land needed to produce energy—which can threaten biodiversity. In Energy Sprawl Solutions, scientists Joseph M. Kiesecker and David Naugle provide a roadmap for preserving biodiversity despite the threats of energy sprawl. Their strategy—development by design—identifies and sets aside land where biodiversity can thrive while consolidating development in areas with lower biodiversity value.
 
This contributed volume features case studies from countries around the world, each describing a different energy sector and the way they have successfully maximized biodiversity protection. This book provides a needed guide for elected officials, industry representatives, NGOs and community groups who have a stake in sustainable energy-development planning.

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Bike Boom

The Unexpected Resurgence of Cycling

Island Press

Bicycling advocates envision a future in which bikes are a widespread daily form of transportation, but this reality is still far away. Will we ever witness a true “bike boom” in cities? What can we learn from past successes and failures to make cycling safer, easier, and more accessible?
 
In Bike Boom, journalist Carlton Reid uses history to shine a spotlight on the present and demonstrates how bicycling has the potential to grow even further, if the right measures are put in place by the politicians and planners of today and tomorrow. He explores the benefits and challenges of cycling, the roles of infrastructure and advocacy, and what we can learn from cities that have successfully supported and encouraged bike booms. In this entertaining and thought-provoking book, Reid sets out to discover what we can learn from the history of bike “booms.” 

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Resilient Cities, Second Edition

Overcoming Fossil Fuel Dependence

Island Press

In Resilient Cities, Second Edition, Peter Newman, Timothy Beatley, and Heather Boyer explore what it means to be resilient in an age of changing climate and growing inequity. Since the first edition was published in 2009, interest in resilience has surged, in part due to increasingly frequent and deadly natural disasters, and in part due to the contribution of our cities to climate change. The new initiatives and approaches from citizens and all levels of government show the promise as well as the challenges of creating cities that are truly resilient.
 
Resilient Cities, Second Edition reveals how cities around the world are working  to become more resilient. The authors offer stories, insights, and inspiration for urban planners, policymakers, and professionals interested in creating more sustainable, equitable, and, eventually, regenerative cities. Most importantly, the book is about overcoming fear and generating hope in our cities. The challenge of resilient cities is to claim a different future that helps us regenerate the whole planet.

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Within Walking Distance

Creating Livable Communities for All

Island Press

In Within Walking Distance, journalist and urban critic Philip Langdon looks at why and how Americans are shifting toward a more human-scale way of building and living. He shows how people are creating, improving, and caring for walkable communities. To draw the most important lessons, Langdon spent time in six communities that differ in size, history, wealth, diversity, and education, yet share crucial traits: compactness, a mix of uses and activities, and human scale. To improve conditions and opportunities for everyone, Langdon argues that places where the best of life is within walking distance ought to be at the core of our thinking. This book is for anyone who wants to understand what can be done to build, rebuild, or improve a community while retaining the things that make it distinctive.

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No One Eats Alone

Food as a Social Enterprise

Island Press

No One Eats Alone argues that human connections are essential for creating a healthy, equitable, and sustainable food system. Michael Carolan shares the stories of individuals who are working to become citizens first and consumers second.

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People, Forests, and Change

Lessons from the Pacific Northwest

Island Press

We owe much of our economic prosperity to the vast forested landscapes that cover the earth. But forests are under more pressure than ever. It is time to forgo the entrenched thinking that forests can be managed outside of human influence, and shift instead to management strategies that consider humans to be part of the forest ecosystem.

People, Forests, and Change: Lessons from the Pacific Northwest, considers the nature of forests in flux and how to balance the needs of forests and rural communities. In the US northwest, forest ecosystem management has been underway for two decades, and key lessons are emerging.  This book brings together ideas for policy makers, managers, students, and conservationists seeking to manage forests conscientiously and assure their long-term viability.

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EarthEd (State of the World)

Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet

By The Worldwatch Institute
Island Press

Today’s students will face the unprecedented challenges of a rapidly warming world, including emerging diseases, food shortages, drought, and waterlogged cities. How do we prepare 9.5 billion people for life in the Anthropocene, to thrive in this uncharted and more chaotic future? Answers are being developed in universities, preschools, professional schools, and even prisons around the world. In the latest volume of State of the World, a diverse group of education experts share innovative approaches to teaching and learning in a new era. EarthEd will inspire anyone who wants to prepare students not only for the storms ahead but to become the next generation of sustainability leaders.  
 

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Immersion

The Science and Mystery of Freshwater Mussels

Island Press

"This is nature writing at its best." —E.O. Wilson

"Eloquent treatise...Landis's book is as much call to action as paean to mesmerizing molluscs." —Nature

"Rich, accurate, and moving." —New Scientist

"A lyrical love letter to the imperiled freshwater mussel." —Science

Abbie Gascho Landis first fell for freshwater mussels while pregnant and submerged in an Alabama creek, watching a female filter the water through her body while her gills bulged with offspring. In that moment of connection, Landis became a mussel groupie, obsessed with learning more about the creatures’ hidden lives. She isn’t the only fanatic; the shy mollusks, so vital to the health of rivers around the world, have a way of inspiring unusual devotion. In Immersion: The Science and Mystery of Freshwater Mussels, Landis brings readers to a hotbed of mussel diversity, the American Southeast, to seek mussels where they eat, procreate, and, too often, perish. Landis shares her journey from perilous river surveys to dry streambeds and into laboratories where endangered mussels are raised one life at a time.

Mussels have much to teach us about the health of the watershed if we step into the creek and take a closer look at their lives. In turns joyful and sobering, Immersion is an invitation to see rivers from a mussel’s perspective, a celebration of the wild lives visible to those who learn to search.

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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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