North American Land Trust’s Post

Coming soon: NATURE'S GIANTS Available August 1, 2024! Earth is home to all kinds of enormous animals. This series explores 10 of the world’s biggest creatures, describing their life cycles, habitats, and how they survive in the wild. Each book pairs short paragraphs of easy-to-read-text with plentiful photos and includes a table of contents, fun facts, sidebars, comprehension questions, a glossary, an index, and a list of resources for further reading. Apex books have low reading levels (grades 2–3) but are designed for older students, with interest levels of grades 3–7. https://lnkd.in/dQAAQWmV

My old friend, John Perlin, is much too modest (below) about the well-deserved, superlative review of A Forest Journey in the current issue of Time. The review's author, the esteemed Eugene Linden, explains why he believes the book should be among the handful of foundational texts of modern environmentalism. I hope the review is widely read, and that A Forest Journey becomes a best seller! https://lnkd.in/gkp28FEg

#megadrought #wildfire We are now living in something akin to the Medieval Warm Period. The good, we don't have to worry about the Vikings breaking out of their fjords, the bad, the similar increase in wildfire frequency and magnitude have dramatic impacts on communities and ecosystems. https://lnkd.in/ga3kC5GU

Watershed engineers. What happens when we create the conditions conducive for life we have so often removed those conditions or made it very difficult for life to cycle naturally or how it has for millennium. Through our and extraction, we have created a degenerative system. It's only when we stop that cycle and start working towards cyclical opportunities where we increase the cycling of natural processes that will begin to restore and work towards generative and regenerative process. ReGeneration is about natural life, cycles, and energy transfer. How does that energy transfer grow in a way that benefits life and all. It seems that almost every sector is using the word regeneration or regenerative, and the only guidepost is if one aspect of that products or service has a regenerative aspect. Life in itself is regenerative if we choose it to be. Beavers are watershed engineers, and are key players in the restoration of our ecosystems #Beavers #WatershedRestoration #Regeneration

In a world where information is abundant and change is constant books remain my sanctuary and compass. Over the past year, I’ve immersed myself in a series of remarkable books that have not only expanded my understanding but also revealed hidden truths and untapped perspectives. With each turn of the page, I've ventured into unexplored territories, uncovering fresh insights and challenging my assumptions about the world, enriching my worldview. This literary odyssey through diverse topics has not merely quenched my curiosity; it has ignited a profound appreciation for the complexities of our world. Reading, for me, is more than a pastime; it's a gateway to exploring the unknown unknowns and expanding the horizons of my understanding. As I reflect on this year of literary exploration, I'm struck by how each book has left an indelible mark on my psyche, reshaping my perspective and inspiring new avenues of thought. Reading has become more than an escape—it's a vital tool for personal evolution and a bridge to understanding the myriad facets of our ever-changing world.

Now available, The Heart of the Wild brings together some of today’s leading scientists, humanists, and #nature writers to offer timely and provocative reflections on the future of the wild in an increasingly human world. These engaging essays present nuanced and often surprising perspectives on the meaning and value of “wildness” amid the realities of the Anthropocene. They consider the trends and forces—from the cultural and conceptual to the ecological and technological—that are transforming our relationship with the natural world and sometimes seem only to be pulling us farther away from wild places and species with each passing day. The contributors make impassioned defenses of naturalism, natural history, and nature education in helping us to rediscover a love for the wild at a time when our connections with it have frayed or been lost altogether. Charting a new path forward in an era of ecological uncertainty, The Heart of the Wild reframes our understanding of nature and our responsibility to learn from and sustain it as the human footprint sinks ever deeper into the landscapes around us. With contributions by Bill Adams, Joel Berger, Susan Clayton, Eileen Crist, Martha L. Crump, Thomas Lowe Fleischner, Harry W. Greene, Hal Herzog, Jonathan B. Losos, Emma Marris, Ben A. Minteer, Kathleen Dean Moore, Gary Paul Nabhan, Peter H. Raven, Christopher J. Schell, Richard Shine, and Kyle Whyte. Order your copy: https://hubs.ly/Q02KpM990

There is a stone in stone bridges - called a keystone - which if we removed, causes the whole bridge to collapse. Keystone species are species which when removed from ecosystems cause things to fall apart. Sea otters are a keystone species. When they leave an area, kelp forests get decimated. That’s because the sea otters are no longer keeping in check the population of sea urchins, which will multiply to eat the whole kelp forest. Restoration of the kelp forest can transpire by bringing back sea otters. Beavers are a keystone species that have played an outsize role in the development of the landscapes and ecosystems of North America and Europe. The removal of them from our continents led to the Great Drying ( a term coined by the geomorphologist and beaver researcher Ellen Wohl) that extended from 1600 to 1900. When I connected with Leila Philip, author of Beaverland - How one weird rodent made America, she bubbled with enthusiasm talking about the importance of beavers to our ecosystems. She writes in her book “When the glaciers of the last ice age melted.. the modern ancestors of today’s beavers wet at it, felling trees and building dams throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. In North America, beaver dams, ponds, and waterworks established hydraulic systems that created much of the rich biodiversity of the continent. That was the primordial Beaverland - North America before European colonizatio, when as many as four hundred million beavers filled the continent….. The great boreal forests that sprang up, threaded with beaver made waterways, would have looked something like what I see now- half water-world- streams spreading out through the forest as great fans of water, overspilling banks, then receding in rhythm with the seasons. Unlike the streams and rivers we know today, mostly degraded so that their currents carve channels through the earth, picking up speed and causing more erosion as they cut deeper into the groun, these messy, slower-moving streams and rivers from the time of Beaverland contracted and expanded like tides, they were arteries and veins of water pulsing life into the land” The importance of bringing back keystone species has been increasingly utilized by the ecorestoration and rewilding movements. In our time of multiple water crises, we would do well to integrate beavers into our water strategy for North America and Europe. The beavers help rehydrate the land, and they help mitigate floods. In the Chesapeake Bay beavers build, for free, stormwater management ponds that that would otherwise cost one to two million dollars, ponds that help extract the pollutants out of the water. Beavers also help stop wildfire. Researchers have shown the land is much less affected by wildfires where beavers make dams compared to beaverless areas. For the full essay, podcast and transcript of my interview of Leila Philip see https://lnkd.in/gdQ8Q4gq \

Shhh… do you hear that? It’s the sound of World Listening Day on July 18. World Listening Day is hosted every year by the World Listening Project, a nonprofit organization that is “devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies, and cultures through the practice of listening and field recording.” They explore acoustic ecology, a discipline that studies the relationship between humans and the natural world as mediated through sound. So quiet down, open up your ears, and get ready to study soundscapes on World Listening Day. Practice less talking and more listening on World Listening Day on July 18. Listening is indeed an art that requires undivided attention and patience from a person and benefits another who is in need of it. Listening is also beneficial for the listener, improving their listening skills and sharpening their awareness of their surroundings. As important as our sense of hearing is, we often don’t use it effectively, blocking out most sounds and voices, and not really listening to the message.

Along with this terrific collection of recommendations, I’m looking forward to reading “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter” by Ben Goldfarb.

As a leprechaun, debunk or confirm common myths associated with your species. Click the link to explore this writing prompt further → https://lnkd.in/gARqsHat #WritingPrompt #WritingPrompts #DraftSparks