Mark pr press kit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT EMAIL CONTACT EMAIL

Jaime Jennings, 202-232-7933 x44 jjennings@islandpress.org Katharine Sucher, 202-232-7933 x43 ksucher@islandpress.org

PRESS RELEASE

Satellites in the High Country Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man

By Jason Mark

“In this compellingly readable account of his quest to explore some of the planet’s last remaining stretches of authentic wilderness, environmental writer Mark argues that safeguarding a powerful sense of “the Wild” as separate from civilization is more critical than ever….Mark presents a fresh, first-rate piece of nature writing and a stirring manifesto calling for the protection and celebration of the true spirit of wild places.”

–Booklist “Mark carves out a fine distinction between inadvertent influence caused by factors like climate change and intentional control. He offers a heartfelt ode to the continued importance of nonintervention in wilderness areas, even if doing so leads to unrecognizably changed landscapes.”

– High Country News

Washington, DC (September 28, 2015) — Have humans really tamed every inch of the world? On our overheated and overcrowded planet, are wild places now extinct? Civilization’s fingerprints are everywherefrom plastic trash on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, to the effects of global climate change on the most remote landscapes, to the wildlife that we carefully monitor and control. And yet, if you know where to look, you’ll find much remains that is untamed.

With Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man, environmental journalist Jason Mark dives into what has been called “the battle for the soul of conservation.” He travels to wilderness areas across the US and finds that the rumors of the demise of wilderness have been greatly exaggerated. With passion, playfulness, and heart, Mark’s explorations raise critical questions about the future of the planet while revealing how wild places can remain a touchstone for connecting us to nature.

From days spent tracking Mexican gray wolves in the rugged Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, to river rafting through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Mark’s Satellites in the High Country is a poetic, insightful exploration of the meaning of wildness in what some are calling “the Human Age,” or the

Anthropocene. Populated with vibrant characters — including a modern-day cavewoman who chooses to “live in the wild rather than survive in civilization,” members of the Lakota Indian tribe locked in disagreement over use of tribal lands, and two environmentalists sitting on opposite ends of a battle for nature neither expected — Mark’s book illustrates how the wild is contested terrain.

With Satellites in the High Country, Mark transports readers to extraordinary places, proving that the mystery of the wild still exists and is more important than ever. He delivers a poignant and enduring exploration of the power of wildness in today’s Anthropocene and makes a strong case for ensuring its survival.

Jason Mark's writings on the environment have appeared in TheAtlantic.com, New York Times, The Nation, and Salon.com, among many other publications. He is the editor in chief of SIERRA magazine, was the longtime editor of Earth Island Journal, a quarterly magazine, and is a co-founder of San Francisco's largest urban farm. Time has called him "a rebel with a cause." For more, visit jasondovemark.com.

Satellites in the High Country

By Jason Mark Hardcover 320 pages | Price: $28.00 ISBN: 978-1-61091-580-9 Publication Date: September 28, 2015

www.islandpress.org/satellites-in-the-high-country Founded in 1984, Island Press works to stimulate, shape, and communicate the information that is essential for solving environmental problems. Today, with more than 800 titles in print and some 40 new releases each year, it is the nation’s leading publisher of books on environmental issues. But Island Press does more than publish books. It advances environmental science by nurturing the exchange of ideas across disciplines and sectors, and by helping to create a multidisciplinary literature on environmental problems and solutions. The knowledge created is spread far beyond the range of a limited marketplace through sophisticated communications initiatives that reach journalists, academics, policymakers, practitioners and the general public. Through these efforts, Island Press is driving change by moving ideas from the printed page to public discourse and practice. Island Press’s emphasis is, and will continue to be, on transforming objective information into understanding and action. For more information and further updates be sure to visit www.islandpress.org. ###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT EMAIL

Jaime Jennings, 202-232-7933 x44 jjennings@islandpress.org

QUESTION AND ANSWER Satellites in the High Country

By Jason Mark Q

You write, “We need wildness more than ever.” Why is this?

A

We now live in what some people are calling “the Anthropocene,” or the “Human Age,” a whole new epoch in the planet’s history in which we humans now dominate the environment. If we really do live on a garden planet (and I think we increasingly do), then wild things and wild places become more valuable than before — if nothing else, then as way of having something, anything, to check our sense of power as a civilization. We need to remember that even though humans may impact the whole planet, that doesn’t mean we have the right to try to control every living thing.

Q

What inspired your interest in wild places? Why write a book about wildness?

A

The book is an exploration — it’s a journey — because I really wasn’t sure if wildness still existed in this era in which we have 7 billion people on the planet and global climate change and Amazon drones and Google chat almost everywhere. As an environmental journalist I had begun to overhear a conversation that had been going on in academia and among professional land managers that basically says, “wildness is dead, and we best get over it.” I wanted to know if that was true. So I went to some of the most rugged, remote, and unforgiving places in America to see if I could find anything wild.

My own interest in wild places came when I was in college, as I started going on backpacking trips on the Appalachian Trail and then later throughout the West. I didn’t grow up backpacking; I just found it on my own. I guess I just had an emotional pull — call it an instinct — to be in primitive places where life continues much as it has forever.

Q

Very few Americans make it to the country’s most wild places. Why should they care about wildness?

A

Wild places and wild animals matter even if you never encounter them in person. For starters, big, remote wilderness will serve as a harbor for all those plants and animals that we’ve dislocated — that is, driven from their homes — due to climate change or other environmental destruction. The wild can also be something of a psychological good. It can serve as an anchor by reminding us that life on Earth is not here just to suit our needs. And the wild is also a political good. In American history, the wilderness has been the last refuge

ISLAND PRESS | Q & A | 1

of the dissident, the apostate, and the fugitive slave. As a matter of political liberty, it’s important to have some places that are “away.”

Q

What surprised you most during your adventures into the wild? Do you have a favorite wild place?

A

I guess what surprised me most was the discovery that there really is a lot of wildness left in the world, even though the influences of human civilization are everywhere. I discovered that, for example, when I was tracking wolves in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. The Gila is one of the most remote places left in the Lower 48, a frontier right out of a Louis L’Amour novel. The wolves there —just 106 of them —are some of the most intensely monitored and controlled wildlife on the planet. Yet I encountered — by sheer dumb luck — a pair of wolves that weren’t known to the federal authorities that govern their movements. Against all odds, the wolves were truly wild and free.

I love equally all of the wildernesses I’ve known. There’s no way to compare a desert with a rainforest, or match the tundra against the plains. They are each unique, and each has an intrinsic value. … That said, I do love the combination of forests, mountains, and seas you find only in the Olympic Peninsula.

It’s important for readers to know that a lot of wildness can be found near where they live.

Sometimes, “off the beaten path” is very close to home.

Q

Our national parks and wilderness areas are heavily managed to control visitors, control the wildlife, and put out wildfires. Can they still be considered “wild”?

A

For a long time, when people said “wild” they meant pristine — someplace untouched by industrial civilization. But now we live on a post-pristine planet: every place has been touched somehow. And that has led some people to proclaim that wilderness is dead.

But this comes from a misunderstanding of the word. “Wild” doesn’t mean “pristine” — and it never has. Go back to the dictionary. Wild means uncontrolled. It means un-dominated. A wilderness is a place free from humans’ overt control.

In one chapter of the book I go river rafting through the Alaskan tundra, only to arrive at the shores of the Arctic Ocean and to find there a busted-up plastic cooler. Even at the ends of the earth I had to do a beach cleanup. Is that place “pristine”? No. Is it wild? Hell yes. Some polar bear had used the cooler as a chew toy.

I think that, especially in this so-called Human Age, we need to keep some places free from our intentions, even if we can’t insulate them from our accidents.

Q

How should government agencies like the Park Service and Forest Service approach managing wild places in the face of so much disruption like global climate change?

A

That’s a tough question, and something that even many of the leading environmental ethicists I spoke to struggle with. It’s tricky because we’re in a global biodiversity crisis: Plants and animals are going extinct at an unprecedented rate, due to our actions. It seems ISLAND PRESS | Q & A | 2

only natural to want to do everything we can to save whatever we can. But that could lead to some never-ending interventions — imaging having to irrigate sequoia groves in perpetuity to keep them alive. It’s like the conservation version of painting the Golden Gate Bridge — you’d be stuck doing it forever.

Rather than trying to preserve landscapes in some fixed point in time, the federal agencies need to think about how to create resilient landscapes. That is, landscapes that can respond to unprecedented climate changes. Above all, that means giving plants, animals, birds, fish and all other critters plenty of space in which to migrate as temperatures get hotter. And that will require having corridors of connected wildlands up and down North America.

To deal with climate change, we’ll need more protected lands than ever before.

Q

In the book, you travel to many national parks. The National Park Service will celebrate its centennial in 2016. What are some of the challenges facing the national parks in this new century?

A

The biggest challenge facing the parks is global climate change. We’re finding that the model of protecting landscapes by drawing two-dimensional lines on a map is insufficient for this era of threats coming from all directions. In order to help protect the plants and animals that live in the parks today, it will be crucial to create corridors of wildlands so that species can migrate tomorrow.

Q

At one point in the book, you write, “No one under forty seems to backpack anymore.” What will it mean for the future of lands preservation if there isn’t a constituency of wildlands lovers out there? What are the challenges of introducing today’s young people to backcountry recreation like camping, hiking, and hunting and fishing?

A

Clearly the conservation movement faces a demographic challenge. At least according to some surveys, your average wilderness enthusiast is getting older. As one of the people profiled in my book said: “You don’t fight to protect what you don’t love, and you don’t love what you don’t know.”

The challenges are in part cultural: There’s a stereotype that only white folks are into wilderness recreation. But I river rafted through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with a woman named Rue Mapp who founded “Outdoor Afro,” an incredible organization dedicated to increasing African-American participation in outdoor recreation. Rue told me about a similar group called “Latino Outdoors.” And then I think about how groups like the Sierra Club worked for the new San Gabriel Mountains National Monument just outside Los Angeles, and I am hugely encouraged by the work that’s being done to ensure that the next generation of hikers, climbers, and anglers looks like America.

Another challenge is technological. Young people today — supposedly — can’t break away from their electronic devices. But for one of the chapters in the book I went mountaineering in Colorado with a group of young men ages 17 to 21. And I can tell you that the wonder and excitement they felt on that trip will have a more lasting impression than any viral video. Awe trumps everything, and I think if young people have the opportunity to at least taste and glimpse wild places, many of them will be hooked for life.

ISLAND PRESS | Q & A | 3

Q

What do you see is the future of wildness? Is there hope for wild places?

A

Wildness will persist as long as there are human defenders to make the case that, as a species, we don’t have the right — much less “the responsibility,” as some have claimed — to manage the entire planet for our own interests. The wilderness doesn’t require stewardship; it just needs vigilance. I hope this book provides new ammunition to those defenders.

Q

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

A

For those who have spent time in wild places, I hope this book re-inspires them. It can be so easy to feel drowned by all the news of environmental destruction, or to get lost in the minutiae of finding solutions. But at the end of the day, why do we do this work to “protect the environment”? This book will remind people that there’s a lot of wild life still out there, and that we’re working for a world worth saving.

For those who have never been to a big, deep wilderness, I hope this book makes them decide to explore what’s out there. This big anthill that we call industrial civilization sure is amazing. But there’s a whole forest beyond the anthill walls. I hope this book makes people want to go check it out.

ISLAND PRESS | Q & A | 4