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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 111-120 of 322 items.

Strategic Corporate Conservation Planning

A Guide to Meaningful Engagement

Island Press

Industries that drive economic growth and support our comfortable modern lifestyles have exploited natural resources to do so. But now there’s growing understanding that business can benefit from a better relationship with the environment. Leading corporations have begun to leverage nature-based remediation, restoration, and enhanced lands management to meet a variety of business needs, such as increasing employee engagement and establishing key performance indicators for reporting and disclosures. Strategic Corporate Conservation Planning offers fresh insights for corporations and environmental groups looking to create mutually beneficial partnerships that use conservation action to address business challenges and realize meaningful environmental outcomes. Myriad case studies featuring programs from habitat restoration to environmental educational initiatives at companies like Bridgestone USA, General Motors, and CRH Americas are included to help spark new ideas.
 

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Five Rules for Tomorrow's Cities

Design in an Age of Urban Migration, Demographic Change, and a Disappearing Middle Class

Island Press

As urban designers respond to the critical issue of climate change they must also address three cresting cultural waves: the worldwide rural-to-urban migration; the collapse of global fertility rates; and the disappearance of the middle class. In Five Rules for Tomorrow’s Cities, planning and design expert Patrick Condon offers five rules to help urban designers assimilate these interconnected changes into their work: (1) See the City as a System; (2) Recognize Patterns in the Urban Environment; (3) Apply Lighter, Greener, Smarter Infrastructure; (4) Strengthen Social and Economic Urban Resilience; and (5) Adapt to Shifts in Jobs, Retail, and Wages.
 
Five Rules for Tomorrow’s Cities provides grounded and financially feasible design examples for tomorrow’s sustainable cities, and the design tools needed to achieve them.
 

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A New Coast

Strategies for Responding to Devastating Storms and Rising Seas

Island Press

“This is a timely book… [It] should be mandatory reading..." — Minnesota Star Tribune

More severe storms and rising seas will inexorably push the American coastline inland with profound impact on communities, infrastructure, and natural systems. In A New Coast, Jeffrey Peterson presents the science behind predictions for coastal impacts and explains how current policies fall short of what’s needed to prepare for these changes. He outlines a framework of bold, new national policies and funding to support local and state governments. Peterson calls for engagement of citizens, the private sector, as well as local and national leaders in a “campaign for a new coast.” This is a forward-looking volume offering new insights for policymakers, planners, business leaders preparing for the changes coming to America’s coast.

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The Power of Existing Buildings

Save Money, Improve Health, and Reduce Environmental Impacts

Island Press

In The Power of Existing Buildings, academic sustainability expert Robert Sroufe, and construction and building experts Craig Stevenson and Beth Eckenrode, explain how to realize the potential of existing buildings and make them perform like new. This step-by-step guide will help readers to: understand where to start a project; develop financial models and realize costs savings; assemble an expert team; and align goals with numerous sustainability programs. The Power of Existing Buildings will challenge you to rethink spaces where people work and play, while determining how existing buildings can save the world. 
 
The insights and practical experience of Sroufe, Stevenson, and Eckenrode, along with the project case study examples, provide new insights on investing in existing buildings for building owners, engineers, occupants, architects, and real estate and construction professionals.
 

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Wildlife Law, Second Edition

A Primer

Island Press

Ten years ago, Wildlife Law: A Primer was the first-ever published survey of wildlife law for lay readers. Since its publication, the legal terrain has increased in complexity and the stakes are higher than ever. As humans encroach further into wildlife habitat, unwanted human-wildlife interactions are occurring more frequently, sometimes with alarming and tragic outcomes.

This revised and expanded second edition retains basic legal concepts from the first edition while offering new chapters that cover new controversial topics such as private wildlife reserves, game ranches, and nuisance species. It also includes expanded coverage of the Endangered Species Act. This is a groundbreaking reference for students in wildlife programs, land owners, and wildlife professionals.
 

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Better Buses, Better Cities

How to Plan, Run, and Win the Fight for Effective Transit

Island Press

"Better Buses, Better Cities is likely the best book ever written on improving bus service in the United States." —  Beyond Chron
"The ultimate roadmap for how to make the bus great again in your city."  — Spacing
"
The definitive volume on how to make [the] bus frequent, fast, reliable, welcoming, and respected..."  —Streetsblog


Imagine a bus system that is fast, frequent, and reliable—what would that change about your city?

Buses can and should be the cornerstone of urban transportation. They offer affordable mobility and can connect citizens with every aspect of their lives. But in the US, they have long been an afterthought in budgeting and planning.

Transit expert Steven Higashide uses real-world stories of reform to show us what a successful bus system looks like. Higashide explains how to marshal the public in support of better buses and argues that better bus systems will create better cities for all citizens.

With a compelling narrative and actionable steps, Better Buses, Better Cities describes how decision-makers, philanthropists, activists, and public agency leaders can work together to make the bus a win in any city.

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Firestorm

How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future

Island Press
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Food Town, USA

Seven Unlikely Cities That are Changing the Way We Eat

Island Press

Look at any list of America’s top foodie cities and you probably won’t find Boise, Idaho or Sitka, Alaska. Yet they are the new face of the food movement. Healthy, sustainable fare is changing communities across this country, revitalizing towns that have been ravaged by disappearing industries and decades of inequity.

What sparked this revolution? To find out, Mark Winne traveled to seven cities not usually considered revolutionary. He broke bread with brew masters and city council members, farmers and philanthropists, toured start-up incubators and homeless shelters. What he discovered was remarkable, even inspiring. The cities of Food Town, USA remind us that innovation is ripening all across the country, especially in the most unlikely places.
 

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Rainforest

Dispatches from Earth's Most Vital Frontlines

Island Press

Rainforests have long been recognized as hotspots of biodiversity—but they are crucial for our planet in other surprising ways. Not only do these fascinating ecosystems thrive in rainy regions, they create rain themselves, and this moisture is spread around the globe. Rainforests across the world have a powerful and concrete impact, reaching as far as America’s Great Plains and central Europe. In Rainforest: Dispatches from Earth’s Most Vital Frontlines, a prominent  conservationist provides a comprehensive view of the crucial roles rainforests serve, the state of the world’s rainforests today, and the inspirational efforts underway to save them.

In Rainforest, Tony Juniper draws upon decades of work in rainforest conservation, bringing readers along on his journeys, from Costa Rica to Indonesia. Rainforest provides a detailed and wide-ranging look at the health of these vital ecosystems. Throughout this evocative book, Juniper argues that in saving rainforests, we save ourselves, too.

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Green Growth That Works

Natural Capital Policy and Finance Mechanisms Around the World

Island Press

Rapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being, but comes at a significant cost to the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, and farmland that support all life on earth. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One solution is inclusive green growth—the efficient use of natural resources. Its genius lies in working with nature rather than against it.

Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. Pioneered by leading scholars from the Natural Capital Project, this valuable compendium of proven techniques can guide agencies and organizations eager to make green growth work anywhere in the world.
 

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