Sales Information Sheet The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 6/5/2014
Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-438-3 978-1-61091-570-0
$19.95 $18.99
SCIENCE / Environmental Science COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Non Fiction NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection Trim Size: 7 X 10 Pages: 224 Illustrated Author Residence: Seattle, Washington Princeton, New Jersey Comparative Titles: • 101 Funny Things About Global Warming, Sidney Harris. ISBN: 978-1-59691-511-4, Paperback, Dec. 2008, $11.99, Bloomsbury. • A Short Introduction to Climate Change, Tony Eggleton. ISBN: 978-1-107-61876-3, Paperback, Dec. 2012, $42.00, Cambridge University Press. Bookscan: 50. Previous Works: • The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume One: Microeconomics, Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein. ISBN: 978-0-80909481-3, Paperback, Jan. 2010, $17.95, Hill and Wang. Bookscan: 11800. • The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume Two: Macroeconomics, Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein. ISBN: 978-0-80903361-4, Paperback, Dec. 2011, $17.95, Hill and Wang. Bookscan: 6230. Sales Handle An enjoyable, easy-to-understand guide to global climate change Description Climate change is no laughing matter—but maybe it should be. The topic is so critical that everyone, from students to policy-makers to voters, needs a quick and easy guide to the basics. The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change entertains as it educates, delivering a unique and enjoyable presentation of mind-blowing facts and critical concepts. “Stand-up economist” Yoram Bauman and award-winning illustrator Grady Klein have created the funniest overview of climate science, predictions, and policy that you’ll ever read. You’ll giggle, but you’ll also learn—about everything from Milankovitch cycles to carbon taxes. If those subjects sound daunting, consider that Bauman and Klein have already written two enormously successful cartoon guides to economics, making the notoriously dismal science accessible to countless readers. If economics can be funny, then climate science can be a riot. The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change takes the intimidation and gloom out of one of the most complex and hotly debated challenges of our time. Selling Points • Authoritative, yet fun and accessible • An inventive approach to teaching climate science to students • Success of the author's previous two cartoon books on economics • Author's extensive media and speaking engagements, including events with Robin Williams and Paul Krugman
Author Bio Yoram Bauman, “the world’s first and only stand-up economist,” performs regularly at colleges and corporate events, sharing the stage with everyone from Robin Williams to Paul Krugman. He has appeared in TIME Magazine and on PBS and NPR, and is the co-author of the two-volume Cartoon Introduction to Economics, which is now available in Chinese, German, Italian, and other languages. He is a carbon tax Fellow at Sightline Institute, where he co-authored Tax Shift with Alan Durning. Grady Klein is a cartoonist, animator, and graphic designer. He is the co-author with Yoram Bauman of The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volumes One and Two; the co-author with Alan Dabney of The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics; and the creator of “The Lost Colony” series of graphic novels. Table of Contents PART I. Observations Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. A Brief History of Planet Earth Chapter 3. The Ice Ages Chapter 4. Carbon Dioxide Chapter 5. Energy Chapter 6. Climate Science PART II. Predictions Chapter 7. Global Warming Chapter 8. H20 Chapter 9. Life on Earth Chapter 10. Beyond 2100 Chapter 11. Uncertainty PART III. Actions Chapter 12. The Tragedy of the Commons Chapter 13. Techno-Fix Chapter 14. Putting a Price on Carbon Chapter 15. Beyond Fossil Fuels Chapter 16. The Challenge Glossary
Sales Information Sheet Tactical Urbanism
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 5/1/2014
Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-526-7 978-1-61091-567-0
$21.95 $20.99
ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning Trim Size: 6 X 9 Author Residence: Brooklyn, New York Miami, Florida Comparative Titles: • Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities, Jeffrey Hou. ISBN: 978-0-415-77966-1, Paperback, May 2010, $49.95, Routledge. Bookscan: 290. • Cities for People, Jan Gehl. ISBN: 978-1-59726-573-7, Hardcover, Sept. 2010, $49.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 1921, Warehouse: 12279. Previous Works: None Sales Handle An empowering guide to transforming cities through low-cost, community-based interventions Description Short-term, community-based projects—from pop-up parks to open streets initiatives—have become a powerful and adaptable new tool of urban activists, planners, and policy-makers seeking to drive lasting improvements in their cities and beyond. These quick, often low-cost, and creative projects are the essence of the Tactical Urbanism movement. Whether creating vibrant plazas seemingly overnight or re-imagining parking spaces as neighborhood gathering places, they offer a way to gain public and government support for investing in permanent projects, inspiring residents and civic leaders to experience and shape urban spaces in a new way. Tactical Urbanism, written by Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia, two founders of the movement, promises to be the foundational guide for urban transformation. The authors begin with an in-depth history of the Tactical Urbanism movement and its place among other social, political, and urban planning trends, and a detailed set of case studies demonstrate the breadth and scalability of tactical urbanism interventions. Finally, the book provides a detailed toolkit for conceiving, planning, and carrying out projects, including how to adapt them based on local needs and challenges. Tactical Urbanism will inspire and empower a new generation of engaged citizens, urban designers, land use planners, architects, and policymakers to become key actors in the transformation of their communities. Selling Points • The first book to define and contextualize the growing Tactical Urbanism movement, written by prominent leaders • Detailed case studies from around the world illustrate the diversity and scale of tactical urbanism interventions • Toolkit provides a practical guide for designing, planning, and implementing projects according to local needs and challenges • Beautifully designed and illustrated in full color
Author Bio Mike Lydon is Principal of The Street Plans Collaborative. An internationally recognized planner, he was a co-author of The Smart Growth Manual and the creator and primary author of the reports “The Open Streets Project” and “Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action, Long-Term Change” Vol.1 and Vol. 2. He serves as a Board Member for Center for a New American Dream and CNU New York, and is an advisor for the Bicycle Coalition of Maine. He works and speaks globally on smart growth, livable cities, active transportation, and tactical urbanism. Anthony Garcia is Principal of The Street Plans Collaborative. A leader in civic advocacy in South Florida, he was Managing Editor and Publisher of TransitMiami.com, an award winning blog dedicated to planning and transportation in South Florida. He was also Project Director for six years at the firm of Chael Cooper & Associates Architects. He serves as parttime faculty at the University Of Miami School of Architecture and is a member of the Congress of the New Urbanism. He lives in Miami, FL. Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. The Rise of Tactical Urbanism Chapter 3: Scale and Patterns of Innovation and Adoption Chapter 4: Case Studies Chapter 5: How to Undertake a Tactical Urbanism Intervention Chapter 6. Conclusion
Preface
“Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.” - Lord Byron
With a planning degree fresh in hand, I left graduate school in Ann Arbor, Michigan for Miami, Florida in the spring of 2007. This was not my first time living in the “Magic City.” A year prior, I was a summer intern with Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company. I worked primarily on a project called Miami 21, an effort that entailed replacing the city’s existing convoluted and archaic zoning code with one that aimed to generate city more in line with twenty-first century planning ideals: green buildings, transit-oriented development, streets friendly to walking, and more sensitive transitions between existing single-family neighborhoods and fast-changing commercial corridors. The project – the largest known application of a form-based code at the time – was innovative and complex, a dream assignment for a young and idealistic planner like myself. Being asked to return to the firm to continue working on the project in 2007 was a significant professional opportunity and I jumped at it.
No longer an intern, I began paying closer attention to how my older colleagues – those actually leading the project – dealt with the day-to-day challenges of the project. There was a real and messy political process to navigate; a requirement to simultaneously communicate – in multiple languages – relatively new technical planning concepts to a general and professional audience; and the need to translate theory into local citywide practice. It was not an easy job and the elements that attracted me most – the scale, the complexity, and the possibility of having a small hand in the long-term transformation of a major American city – were also frustrating. Despite our best intentions, our critics – citizen-activists, developers, architects, and business owners among others – cried foul over the violation of property rights, the loss of creative freedom, and pending financial hardship. As it turns out, trading the devil you know for the devil you don’t, is not an easy proposition for stakeholders and planners alike. And communicating intended results through pictures, maps, diagrams, and beautiful renderings didn’t always speak as
loud or as clearly I had assumed. While this anecdote may not surprise a seasoned planning or design professional, I was 25 years old and discovering the limitations of the planner’s toolbox. Frustrated, but still impassioned to make change, I looked for other opportunities in addition to Miami 21 to influence my newly adopted city.
My 8-mile bicycle commute from Miami Beach to Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood – a daily reminder of how uncomfortable and lonely urban cycling can be in not just Miami, but most other North American cities – seemed like a good place to start. While not focused directly on transportation, I vocalized concern that Miami 21 could go further to enhance the cycling experience. My boss plainly invited me to suggest changes and advised that I write a letter to the Miami Herald explaining why – and how – the city should improve urban cycling. So I did.
The response and ongoing results to date fully exceeded my expectations. Indeed, this book, and a lot of our firm’s work leading up to it, can be traced to the writing of a single letter to the Editor.
Entitled “Make Miami a Bicycle-Friendly City”, my December 13, 2007 Op-Ed implored that City officials make the city more amenable to bicycling. I boldly claimed that Miami was choosing not to compete with other leading American cities and that would prove problematic in future efforts to attract and retain talent, ensure low-cost transportation options, and living up to the long-term promises of Miami 21.
Among other ideas, I suggested that the city hire a bicycle coordinator, undertake a comprehensive bicycle master plan, and shift policy to complete its streets. I also recommended that Miami could adapt Bogota’s “Ciclovia,” a weekly event closing approximately 70 miles (112km) of interconnected streets to motor vehicles so that people may use them for a wide variety of non-motorized physical and social activities. At this time, Ciclovia, alongside the Transmilenio bus rapid transportation system, made Bogota the envy of bloggers and urbanists the world over. [Bogota Ciclovia Image]
Shortly after the op-ed was published, I found kindred spirits in the newly formed Green Mobility Network advocacy organization and Emerge Miami — a dedicated but loosely organized group of young professionals looking to make a positive impact. Together we were invited to speak with Mayor Manny Diaz and his staff about making Miami more bicycle friendly.
To our amazement, we were met with tremendous support. Indeed, we didn't get far into our well-prepared agenda before Diaz declared that he needed no further convincing: under his leadership Miami would become a much more bicyclefriendly city. We knew if this were to be a promise fulfilled, we’d have to act very quickly because Diaz was to be term-limited out of office the following year and would likely require ‘quick wins’ to cement his legacy as Miami’s greenest mayor. In hindsight, this sense of urgency was one of our great assets.
Following the initial meeting, our small committee invited a wide array of community and City stakeholders to formally join the city’s first Bicycle Action Committee. We were tasked with swiftly creating a short-term action plan that could be adopted and moved to implementation by that fall. By early March, Mayor Diaz had planned to announce, for that first time, that March would henceforth be Bike Month (the March weather is more conducive to cycling advocacy than in May, which is when most cities celebrate Bike Month). While mostly symbolic, it was a welcomed and public gesture that attracted excitement and local media attention.
Just prior to this announcement our small committee was asked to join the Mayor for a meeting with his staff, and to our surprise, Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota. Penalosa, who served Bogota from 1998 – 2001, was passing through town and agreed to meet with the Mayor. He showed us image after image of Transmilenio stations, bike paths, public plazas, and, of course, Ciclovia. With each passing image I watched the Mayor become increasingly intrigued. It was then that I realized that my
hope to make Miami more like America’s leading bicycling cities was misguided. As the so-called “capital of Latin America,” the livability innovations of Bogota resonated more in Miami than those in Portland, New York City, or San Francisco.
Inspired by Penalosa and an August 2008 Bicycling Magazine article rating Miami one of the top three worst American cities for cycling, our work started to feel urgent. Our volunteer committee finished drafting the Bicycle Action Plan document, which focused on meaningful, but small-scale policy and physical planning goals. Highlights of the plan included obtaining a League of American Bicyclists Bicycle-Friendly Community rating by 2012 and the implementation of the City’s first ciclovia-like event. While the former would require several years worth of policy and physical planning advances (the City ultimately received its designation in 2012), a ciclovia – or what is now popularly referred to in North America as “Open Streets” – rose to the top of the priority list. “Bike Miami Days,” scheduled for November 2008, represented the City’s still inchoate but increasingly visible effort to promote cycling.
Unsurprisingly, Bike Miami Days was met with skepticism. At this point, the City’s bicycling constituency was comprised mostly of high-adrenaline weekend road cyclists; a small but growing group of dedicated “Critical Mass” riders; and a nearly invisible constituency of neighborhood utility cyclists. By all accounts, bicycling was still a fringe activity and citizen-advocates had just begun to organize. As a result, there were very real questions and concerns: What if traffic jams ensued? Would restaurants and shops stay busy enough to justify the event’s cost? What if attendance was really low? Would the city’s most public bicycle advocacy effort fail just as it got started?
So, what happened?
To our surprise – and delight – thousands of people showed up, and not just the spandexclad MAMILs (Middle Age Men in Lycra), but families, women of all ages, and a lot of young adults. People could be seen not just bicycling, but also walking, jogging, skating, and dancing along normally car-choked streets. The energy on the street was tangible, if
not intoxicating and the impact was immediate and very visible. Furthermore, the thousands of smiling faces, banner sales day for some business owners, and the noticeable absence of ‘car-mageddon’ put a lot of people at ease, namely the Mayor, who gave the welcoming address and could be seen bicycling and walking the streets of downtown Miami. Bike Miami Days seemed to help attendees not just experience their city in a new way, but helped the uninitiated imagine a different future where walking, bicycling, and more public space could be a very real possibility. It allowed people to share in the actual experiences behind the planner’s “transit-oriented development,” “bike-friendly cities,” and “form-based codes” jargon. [Photo?] The excitement of Miami 21 made me realize that I was not just frustrated with the lack of bicycle planning in Miami, but the field of urban planning. Indeed, after 18 months of working as a consultant, I had not seen any of my work actually result in meaningful, onthe ground change. Perhaps I’m impatient – some say that’s also a generational trait – but many plans in the public sector, it seemed, were all about the art of the possible, on hold for a time when the politics might align and the big money might become available for the one, transformative project to finally get built. But like most urban planners, I went into the profession so that I could make a positive, but also visible difference in the world. To me, the goal was always now, not…maybe later. So while I feel strongly that ambitious and transformative infrastructure and planning projects are necessary and important, they must be balanced by many more small efforts that in aggregate create long-term cultural, social, environmental, and economic change.
While it wasn’t used deliberately as such in Miami, I began to see Open Streets as a possible planning tool; another way cities could reach and inspire their citizens, and a way for citizens to in turn inspire their government. Bike Miami Days, was a tactic for building public awareness and interest in the city’s bicycling strategy. In many ways, one could see it providing an alternative to the typical planning process where obscure notions about city planning are normally communicated. Really, why not host a series of “public meetings” during Bike Miami Days where participants could see different proposals from a variety of projects in action? Such proposals could be made accessible
to the public in a way that was fun, family-friendly, and free. Bike Miami Days certainly demonstrated that there, hidden in plain sight, was a diverse constituency of people searching for more opportunities to engage with their city and fellow citizens. Surely, other issues could be tackled in a similar way. The streets could become a rendering in real-time, the manifestation of what planner’s would be able to lucky to create in hope to create in years, not months. While it was no doubt fleeting, Bike Miami Days allowed the city to become a better place, right in front of us. No Photoshop required.
Although it was considered successful, a lot was learned leading up to, during, and after the first Bike Miami Days. Fortunately, the Mayor committed to making it a monthly happening (except for the very hot summer months) until the end of his term in January 2010. Each month, the City iterated upon the last version by selecting new routes, changing the start and end time, and even switching between Saturday and Sundays. The event was that nimble, and the goal was to find the right combination to optimize benefits. While we didn’t call it Tactical Urbanism at the time, but that’s exactly what it was. And I was hooked.
A few months after the launch of Bike Miami Days, I was asked, alongside Collin Worth, the City’s newly hired Bicycle Coordinator, to carry out Miami’s first bicycle master plan. I jumped at the opportunity and started doing business as The Street Plans Collaborative. My hope was to combine planning and design consulting with what our firm calls research-advocacy projects. Freshly inspired by Bike Miami Days, I began to look around for other activists and communities advancing what I saw as a healthy balance of planning and doing. It didn’t take long to find out about the work taking place in New York City: hundreds of miles of new bike lanes – some protected from moving traffic – and newly minted, “pilot” public plazas carved out of the City’s busiest streets using little more than paint. Not to mention the City’s own version of a ciclovia – Summer Streets – that attracted nearly 100,000 people. As good as Miami was to me professionally, I felt strongly that New York City was where I needed to be. So just days after finishing the Miami bike plan, I left the turquoise and deco hemmed shores of South Beach for the magnetic pull of New York City.
As 2010 progressed, I continued researching not only Open Streets, but also a larger variety of short-term, often creative projects that were having a big impact. I traveled to New Orleans for a retreat with a group of colleagues who sometimes identify as the “Next Generation of New Urbanists” (or NextGen?). I shared my notes on a groundswell of seemingly unrelated low-cost urban interventions occurring Across America. Sometimes sanctioned, sometimes not, it became clear that a common element was emerging: the intentional use of short-term actions to test the viability of creating longterm physical and/or policy change was gaining momentum, in a variety of ways. Whether it was painting intersections with murals to calm traffic in Portland, OR, or a bunch of 20 and 30-somethings mocking up their ideal block in Dallas, I saw projects gaining not just notoriety in the blogosphere, but gaining support and greater resources from constrained municipal budgets. In addition, citizens began to use online crowfunding tools to raise their own project capital, from the neighborhood, for the neighborhood.
The implementation of such projects were capably circumventing the sclerotic municipal project delivery process, but in many cases were simply pilot testing plans that otherwise were sitting on a shelf and/or heretofore not influencing policy . In offering these projects as a “proof of concept,” both cities and citizens seemed to be finding faster, more intelligent ways to attract social, political, and financial capital.
I shared these ideas and a few examples behind “Tactical Urbanism” and with the encouragement and help of my NextGen colleagues, began writing.
The term “Tactical Urbanism” is derived from a June 2010 FASLANYC blog post discussing the pedestrianization of Times Square, one of the projects that inspired me to move to New York City (Before/After Imagery). In the blog, author Brian Davis describes the DOT’s efforts in the following way: “As inexpensive ‘hacks,’ tactical interventions producing great effects, we here at FASLANYC greatly admire them, especially as they are part of larger, innovative strategies.” The word “tactical” resonated
because it seemed to perfectly describe not just the so-called “Greenlight for Broadway” project, but the groundswell of other low-cost, un- semi- and fully sanctioned interventions that I had begun cataloguing.
Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action, Long-term Change, Volume 1 was assembled during the spring of 2011 and uploaded as a freely available publication. The purpose was to give more shape – and a recognizable name –to the ideas I shared in New Orleans. I also wanted to communicate the real impact Tactical Urbanism projects were making in cities large and small. I sent the link to my friends and colleagues and left for vacation. I thought it’d be great if half of the 20 New Orleans retreat attendees sent me feedback by the time I returned.
In less than two months the document was viewed/downloaded more than 10,000 times. This exceeded all of our expectations and made it clear that from the bottom up and the top down, the projects contained therein inspiring a new wave of city-making in the United States and abroad.
Sensing the need to further share information accessibly about a growing number of initiatives, we partnered with numerous organizations in the fall of 2011 to produce the first Tactical Urbanism Salon in Queens, NY. For nearly 10 hours, 150 people from around the United States (and Canada) discussed their projects, listened to others, and drank free beer. A few months later we released Volume 2, which included twice as many tactics and sought to further develop the momentum established by the first publication.
The first two publications have now been viewed/downloaded more than 160,000 times by people in more than 50 countries. We’ve also translated Volume 2 to Spanish and Portuguese. For Volume 3, we partnered with Ciudad Emergente, a design and planning social enterprise based in Santiago, Chile, to catalogue examples of Tactical Urbanism in South and Central America.
In addition to the original Queens event, we’ve held five additional Salons in
Philadelphia, Memphis, Santiago, Chile, Louisville, and Boston and continue to lead numerous workshops around the world to advance the practice of Tactical Urbanism alongside an incredibly inspiring group of citizen-activists, planners, designers, enlightened engineers, and government leaders. All of this is to say, we’re inspired by the growth of the tactical urbanism and are happy to share with you a more in-depth look at the past successes, current critiques and concerns, and ideas about where Tactical Urbanism is going as it’s mainstreamed into the planning and design fields. Thanks for reading.
Sales Information Sheet An Indomitable Beast The Remarkable Journey of the Jaguar
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 8/5/2014
Alan Rabinowitz Hardcover: E-Book:
978-1-59726-996-4 978-1-61091-227-3
$30.00 $29.99
NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 304 8-pg. color photo insert; 10 b/w figures, maps, tables Author Residence: Mahopac, New York Comparative Titles: • The Jaguar’s Shadow: Searching for a Mythic Cat, Richard Mahler. ISBN: 978-0-300-12225-1, Hardcover, Sept. 2009, $27.00, Yale University Press. Bookscan: 569. • Borderland Jaguars: Tigres de la Frontera, David E. Brown. ISBN: 978-0-87480-696-0, Paperback, Sept. 2001, $19.76, University of Utah Press. Bookscan: 920. Previous Works: • Jaguar: One Man’s Struggle to Set Up the World’s First Jaguar Reserve, Alan Rabinowitz. ISBN: 978-1-55963-802-9, Paperback, Feb. 2000, $40.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 3121, Warehouse: 8899. • Beyond the Last Village: A Journey of Discovery in Asia’s Forbidden Wilderness, Alan Rabinowitz. ISBN: 978-1-55963-799-2, Hardcover, Aug. 2001, $60.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 6688, Warehouse: 10701. • Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed, Alan Rabinowitz. ISBN: 978-1-59726129-6, Hardcover, Nov. 2007, $37.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 2342, Warehouse: 4798. Sales Handle Big cat expert Alan Rabinowitz takes readers on an epic journey into jaguar country in this account of the largest-scale conservation endeavor ever attempted for a single species. Description The jaguar is one of the most mysterious and least-known big cats of the world. The largest cat in the Americas, it has survived an onslaught of environmental and human threats partly because of an evolutionary history unique among wild felines, but also because of a power and indomitable spirit so strong, the jaguar has shaped indigenous cultures and the beliefs of early civilizations on two continents. In An Indomitable Beast: The Remarkable Journey of the Jaguar, big-cat expert Alan Rabinowitz shares his own personal journey to conserve a species that, despite its past resilience, is now on a slide toward extinction if something is not done to preserve the pathways it prowls through an ever-changing, ever-shifting landscape dominated by humans. Rabinowitz reveals how he learned from newly available genetic data that the jaguar was a single species connected genetically throughout its entire range from Mexico to Argentina, making it unique among all other large carnivores in the world. In a mix of personal discovery and scientific inquiry, he sweeps his readers deep into the realm of the jaguar, offering fascinating accounts from the field. Enhanced with maps, tables, and color plates, An Indomitable Beast brings important new research to life for scientists, anthropologists, and animal lovers alike. This book is not only about jaguars, but also about tenacity and survival. From the jaguar we can learn better strategies for saving other species and also how to save ourselves when faced with immediate and long-term catastrophic changes to our environment. Selling Points • This is a big, bold story of conservation vision and implementation. It is inspiring, exciting, and engrossing. • Alan Rabinowitz commands a large personal following. His personality, big ideas, sense of adventure, and ability to capture emotions and excitement in writing will draw readers to this book. • This book is the first to describe how the jaguar corridor—a connected genetic corridor from Mexico to Argentina— was created by the jaguar, not humans, and is the only existing corridor in the world for a large carnivore and must be protected.
Author Bio Alan Rabinowitz, one of the world’s leading experts on big cats, is cofounder and CEO of Panthera, a nonprofit organization devoted to saving wild cat species. Previously, Rabinowitz served for almost thirty years as executive director of the Science and Exploration Division for the Wildlife Conservation Society. The author of six previous books, Rabinowitz has been profiled in numerous publications, including the New York Times, National Geographic Adventure Magazine, Outside Magazine, Scientific American, Men’s Fitness, GEO, Natural History, and Audubon. He has been featured in television specials by the National Geographic Society and the BBC, and, most recently, in an IMAX film about tigers in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India. Table of Contents Prologue Chapter 1. In the Beginning . . . Chapter 2. The Pleistocene Jaguar Corridor Chapter 3. The First People of the Jaguar Chapter 4. When Jaguars Talked to Man Chapter 5. Conquest of Jaguar Land Chapter 6. The Killing Grounds Chapter 7. Into the Jaguar’s World Chapter 8. Unraveling the Mystery Chapter 9. Thinking to Scale Chapter 10. The Underground Railway of the Jaguar Chapter 11. Do Jaguars Live Here Anymore? Chapter 12. In Search of Jaguarness Chapter 13. Survival in a Changing World Chapter 14. The Reluctant Warrior Epilogue References
PROLOGUE
I was five years old, walking hand in hand with my father through the massive doors of the Lion House at the Bronx Zoo, built half a century before my birth. It had been a particularly bad week at school for me and though my father and I never talked much, he knew one of the few places that made me happy. I slipped away from his grip and rushed forward, the clopping of my shoes on the wooden floor drowned out by the cacophony of sounds from the caged, restless cats. The sun beamed through the skylights as I rushed past the lion, the leopard, the tiger, letting the wild, musky smells engulf me. There was only one cage I was interested in.
I could see before I reached him that the jaguar had stopped pacing and was waiting, starring out to identify the sound that was rapidly approaching. Reaching the cage I leaned against the safety railing, meant to keep people from going too close to the bars, and faced my cat. It was always the eyes that drew me in, eyes that seemed filled with sadness and pain. Ignoring the people standing nearby, I started whispering in a voice that no one else could hear, speaking about thoughts and feelings that no one else in my life was privy too. That no one else in the world deserved to hear.
Twenty-five years later, I was in the jungles of Belize, following the largest jaguar tracks I had ever encountered. There was a new animal in my study area and I wanted to know where it was going, hoping I might catch a rare glimpse of it. But hours later, all tracks and sign suddenly disappeared and evening was closing in over the jungle. Turning to go back to camp, I suddenly froze. There he was. The jaguar I had been tracking had circled around and had been tracking me. It could have rushed me at any time and I would never have known what hit me. I shivered, realizing how exposed I’d been. Then I squatted down to make myself small, not entirely sure why I was doing that. I didn’t know what to expect next but I still surprised by what the jaguar did. He sat down also.
I was scared and I was awestruck. The jaguar just looked at me. And for just a moment, I remembered the feeling I had starring into the face of the jaguar so many years earlier as a child at the Bronx Zoo. Only this time, the sad, broken child was a man, and in the eyes of this jaguar I saw only wildness and strength. I leaned forward a little, as I had done so often by the cage at the zoo. “It’s all right now.” I whispered. “It’s all going to be alright.”
CHAPTER 1. IN THE BEGINNING…
The earliest memories in my life are filled with pain, embarrassment, and coming to terms with the reality, reinforced by adults, that I was one of life’s broken creatures. Born with a debilitating stutter and placed in public school classes for “special” children, I found it easiest to live inside my own head and withdraw from the world of people as much as a child can. My place of greatest comfort in those early years was the closet in my room of my parent’s New York City home. In this small, dark world, I felt normal, I wasn’t scared to speak, and I could live out my fantasies. My companions were my little menagerie of chameleons, green turtles, garter snakes, and hamsters. I felt that they were the only living beings around me that listened, but did not judge. They had feelings, but they had no voice to express themselves. They were like me.
My parents were World War II generation Eastern European Jews. They were sympathetic to my disability, willing to try anything that might help me – speech therapists, psychologists, medication, hypnosis. When nothing worked, they resigned themselves to the fact that I was simply “different” and there was nothing more to discuss, including my own feelings about it. They believed that life’s difficulties, of which they had experienced many themselves, were dealt with without discussion, without emotion, without self-pity. So I talked to my little pets and cried only when I was alone in the darkness of my closet.
My father, a High School Physical Education teacher in New York City and a former Army Paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne Division, was a dominant presence in my childhood. Drilling into me the idea that I would have to fight my way through life, physically and mentally, he taught me to how to box and wrestle while he battled his own demons in a way that created a house filled with tension that rarely heard the sound of laughter. The greatest empathy my father showed me were the trips to the Bronx Zoo, when he would take me to the Lion House and leave me alone to wander among the big cats. He had no idea how or why those animals helped me. He just knew they did.
Visiting with the big cats at the Bronx Zoo taught me early in life that you could be big, strong, and clever, yet still locked inside a cage from which there was no escape. Despite this sobering realization, I also believed that if the cats and other animals at the zoo had a human voice, if they could cry, laugh, or plead their case, they would not be locked up so easily in small cages for display. I knew I had to find my voice to escape my own cage. And when I found that voice, I
promised the cats at the zoo every time I visited them, that I would be their voice. I would find a place for us.
Much of my childhood is a blur. I had few friends and rarely socialized with others. In sixth grade I once stabbed my hand with the point of a pencil in order to avoid speaking in front of the class. There were fights and bloody noses, stints in detention, and visits to the principal. I was never the first to lay a hand on someone, but I never backed down from confrontation. My grades were adequate but not stellar, except for science, which I considered to be the language of reality, apart from the perceived reality of human beings. In 1970, desperately wanting to escape my home and experience more than of the world, I applied to and was accepted into McDaniel College, a small liberal arts college in western Maryland.
I took all the science courses I could handle while I figured out a possible career path. During my second year of college I was taken camping into the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia where, for the first time, I felt safe, alone, and at peace in the outside world. After that, at every opportunity I would head off from my college dormitory into the woods to camp or hike, sometimes with the few friends I had made, often alone. In my junior year, I enrolled in a new course that was offered at the college - animal ecology. Two weeks into the course, I realized I had found the way to use science to save animals. Only one thing was still missing – my voice.
In the summer before my last year of college, my parents told me of an experimental clinic for severe stutterers in upstate New York that they had heard about. I applied immediately. After two months of intensive therapy and continual practice of manipulative mouth exercises, I actually gained control of my speech for the first time. I was still a stutterer. In fact, part of the therapy was to accept the fact that I would always be a stutterer. But now, with the knowledge and the tools they had given me, I could be a fluent stutterer. I could speak an entire sentence, even an entire thought, without my mouth locking up. And I could fulfill the promise made to the cats so many years earlier.
After graduating summa cum laude in both biology and chemistry, I enrolled in a PhD graduate program in ecology and wildlife biology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The years that followed, living and working in the Smoky Mountains, conducting research on bats, raccoons, and black bears, were the happiest, most fulfilling years of my life at that point. I was still uncertain about the future, but at least I was happy in the present. Then I unexpectedly
found myself in contact with the man who would become my lifelong mentor and friend, Dr. George Schaller.
George Schaller headed the International Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (then the New York Zoological Society) based at the Bronx Zoo and was at the University of Tennessee visiting my professor, Dr. Mike Pelton, one of the world’s leading experts on black bears. While in the last phase of writing up my PhD dissertation, I was asked to take Schaller for a hike into The Great Smokey Mountains National Park where he wanted to compare the black bear habitat of this region to what he was seeing while working on the Giant Panda in China’s Wolong Preserve. The result of that excursion into the mountains with George was that by the end of the year, after completing my PhD, I was on a plane to the little country of Belize to survey jaguars. And my employer was none other than The Bronx Zoo.
Belize was my testing ground, not only as a field scientist, but to measure my commitment to working and living in remote areas under uniquely challenging situations. Despite the challenges, it wasn’t much of a test for me. Setting up home in a wild jungle with lots of animals among people of a different culture and language who had no preconceived ideas about me, couldn’t have felt more right. After the eight week survey, when I returned to New York and presented the results, Schaller asked me to continue the work and initiate a two year study on jaguars. I couldn’t have been happier.
Whatever I had to overcome for the jaguar survey was nothing compared to the setbacks and hardships I faced capturing and following jaguars out of an abandoned timber camp I had selected as my study area, called the Cockscomb Basin. I persevered, because failure was never an option to me. Eventually, I was to break new ground with my jaguar research and accomplish what no one else had ever done in conservation – set up the world’s first jaguar preserve. But it came with a price. My study was to cost the life of one of my workers, inflict lifelong injuries to myself, and change the lives of many Mayan families forever. I was also still too young and inexperienced to understand the larger implications of what I was doing, or to put into perspective my new understanding of jaguars and the people with whom they lived. Some clarification came when I wrote my first book, Jaguar, reflecting on my feelings and events in their entirety. Most of my understanding, however, would come much later.
After leaving Belize, the new Jaguar Preserve received unexpected international recognition and praise. In 1988, two years after the reserve was formally designated, His Royal Highness Prince
Philip, President of the World Wildlife Fund International, visited Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary and presented an award to Ignacio Pop, one of my Mayan field assistants and now first warden of the reserve. Meanwhile I had transitioned from Research Scientist to Staff Scientist with The Wildlife Conservation Society and Schaller was encouraging me to go further afield, and work with other wild cat species that needed research and recognition. The work in Belize and research on jaguars would now be continued by others. Or so I believed.
Over the next two decades I worked in Thailand, Borneo, China, Taiwan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Russia and Myanmar, tracking, studying, and gathering new data on clouded leopards, leopard cats, Asiatic leopards, and tigers. Whenever and wherever I could, I sought out wild areas, collected data, and tried to convince governments to set up new or larger protected areas that gave wildlife a secure home. I contributed to the designation of a World Heritage Site in Thailand and set up a more than 9000 square mile complex of contiguous protected areas in northern Myanmar, including the world’s largest tiger reserve. During these expeditions, while searching for some of the last northern strongholds of the Indochinese race of tigers, I discovered a new species to science, the most primitive living deer in the world, and re-discovered the only race of Mongoloid pygmies, the Taron, taking themselves to extinction in a tiny, remote mountain village in the eastern Himalayas. While writing scientific and technical papers, I documented all my thoughts, feelings and adventures in more popular books: Chasing the Dragon’s Tail, Beyond the Last Village, and Life in the Valley of Death.
In the later years my efforts were focused on one species alone, the tiger. The world’s largest and most endangered cat, one of the most iconic species of modern times, was rapidly sliding towards extinction. Though revered as a cultural symbol throughout Asia and the world, the tiger’s parts were highly prized for the Chinese medicinal trade so that a dead tiger was much more valuable than a live one. But by the time the world took serious notice of plummeting tiger numbers, there were not many left in the wild. We were losing the battle for the species.
What I had seen with the tiger, made me worry all the more about the jaguar. Fortunately the jaguar’s situation, while deteriorating in many areas through hunting and loss of habitat, was not yet close to that of its larger brethren the tiger and the lion. But that could change quickly, as the supply of tiger bone diminished and the insatiable demand turned to the parts of other big cats – lions, jaguars, and leopards. My other concern was that the research and conservation of jaguars that I had thought would follow my efforts and those of other early jaguar researchers had not happened to any extent. The jaguar preserve in Belize was plodding along, a few more people were working on jaguars in different parts of their range, but 15 years after setting up the
preserve, we didn’t seem to know much more about the life of this cat or even its distribution than when I was tracking it in the jungles of Belize. And no one seemed concerned.
In 1999, I obtained funds from the Wildlife Conservation Society to organize the first ever meeting of the world’s jaguar experts so that we could assess what was really known about this species and to devise a strategy for jaguar research and conservation moving forward. While the jaguar was much better off than the other big cats, conservation actions had to be taken now while the species still had a chance. I was hoping we could agree upon a set of priorities that would set the stage for saving the most important jaguar populations throughout the species’ range. But I was not prepared for the new scientific data on jaguars that would emerge, data that would rock the conservation world.
As explained in later chapters of this book, the realization of the existence of what I was to call the Jaguar Genetic Corridor was a huge leap forward in understanding how to save this species. It also presented an almost insurmountable task of figuring out how to use limited resources to carry out the necessary conservation actions. The resulting program, the Jaguar Corridor Initiative, would take more than a decade before we could see significant results of all our efforts, and much more time before the entire corridor would became a reality.
But I still wanted more. After three decades of witnessing the continual declines in big cat populations worldwide, I wanted to understand what had brought the jaguar to the place it was right now. What biological, cultural, and political factors of the New World and the people who inhabited it allowed there to be a 21st century jaguar genetic corridor unlike anything else that existed with any other living big cat species. And as I gained greater understanding of how the jaguar was indeed different from the other cats – in structure, in temperament and in behavior – I wanted to also explain what seemed inexplicable, perhaps even unscientific. I wanted to understand “jaguarness,” the essence of the animal I had spent countless hours watching and talking to as a child, then following, studying and fighting for as an adult. Why had I been so attracted to this animal more than all the others in the Lion House at the Bronx Zoo? And if there was something special about this cat, something that helped comfort and motivate a troubled, insecure child, could a better understanding of “jaguarness” help us not only to save jaguars but to help humans in their own quest for survival? I believe I was able to answer that question.
Sales Information Sheet The Carnivore Way Coexisting with and Conserving North America's Predators
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 5/1/2014
Cristina Eisenberg Hardcover: E-Book:
978-1-59726-982-7 978-1-61091-208-2
$30.00 $29.99
SCIENCE / Life Sciences/Biological Diversity Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 288 Author Residence: Bigfork, Montana Comparative Titles: • Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators, William Stolzenburg. ISBN: 978-1-59691-624-1, Paperback, June 2009, $16.00, Bloomsbury. Bookscan: 3803. • Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution, Caroline Fraser. ISBN: 978-0-8050-7826-8, Hardcover, Dec. 2009, $28.50, Metropolitan Books. Bookscan: 1258. • The Spine of the Continent: The Race to Save America’s Last, Best Wilderness, Mary Ellen Hannibal. ISBN: 978-0-7627-86787, Paperback, Aug. 2013, $17.95, Lyons Press. Bookscan: 150. Previous Works: • The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity, Cristina Eisenberg. ISBN: 978-1-59726-397-9, Hardcover, Apr. 2010, $35.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 381, Warehouse: 1558. Sales Handle Written by a scientist with a gift for storytelling, this compelling combination of cutting-edge science and field research brings large carnivores to life and argues for their protection. Description What would it be like to live in a world with no predators roaming our landscapes? Would their elimination, which humans have sought with ever greater urgency in recent times, bring about a pastoral, peaceful human civilization? Or in fact is their existence critical to our own, and do we need to be doing more to assure their health and the health of the landscapes they need to thrive? In The Carnivore Way, Cristina Eisenberg argues compellingly for the necessity of top predators in large, undisturbed landscapes, and how a continental-long corridor—a “carnivore way”—provides the room they need to roam and connected landscapes that allow them to disperse. Eisenberg follows the footsteps of six large carnivores—wolves, grizzly bears, lynx, jaguars, wolverines, and cougars—on a 7,500-mile wildlife corridor from Alaska to Mexico along the Rocky Mountains. Backed by robust science, she shows how their well-being is a critical factor in sustaining healthy landscapes and how it is possible for humans and large carnivores to coexist peacefully and even to thrive. University students in natural resource science programs, resource managers, conservation organizations, and anyone curious about carnivore ecology and management in a changing world will find a thoughtful guide to large carnivore conservation that dispels long-held myths about their ecology and contributions to healthy, resilient landscapes. Selling Points • Cristina Eisenberg presents cutting-edge science and policy analysis while writing evocatively of her field research in a way that brings the science to life for readers. • An important look at how creating landscape-scale permeable corridors for large carnivores can be an effective tool for coping with global change and mitigating the effects of a burgeoning human population. • A reasoned and readable explanation of how large carnivores are bellwethers for changes in the ecosystems they inhabit and why restoring healthy carnivore populations can help degraded habitats recover.
Author Bio Cristina Eisenberg holds a postdoctoral appointment at Oregon State University, in the College of Forestry, where she conducts trophic cascades research focusing on wolves and teaches ecological restoration and public policy. Dr. Eisenberg has authored multiple peer-reviewed scientific and literary journal articles and several book chapters. Her first book, The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades and Biodiversity, was published in 2010 by Island Press. Table of Contents Introduction: Into the Big Wild PART I. Wildways Chapter 1. The Spine of the Continent and Beyond Chapter 2. The Ecological Role of Large Carnivores Chapter 3. Crossings PART II. Where the Large Carnivores Roam Chapter 4. Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos) Chapter 5. Wolf (Canis lupus) Chapter 6. Wolverine (Gulo gulo) Chapter 7. Lynx (Lynx lynx) Chapter 8. Cougar (Puma concolor) Chapter 9. Jaguar (Panthera onca) Epilogue Glossary Resources Index
Chapter One The Spine of the Continent and Beyond
In early 2003, a two-year-old male lynx (Lynx canadensis) was cruising through his territory near Kamloops, British Columbia, searching for prey. As he maneuvered through the forest, padding easily in deep snow, he picked up the scent of food. He lowered his nose, took a step, and paused. All at once, what should have been just another in a lifetime of simple steps turned ill-fated. He found himself caught. No matter what he did, he could not free his foot from the hold of a trap. Soon a human came along and jabbed something sharp in his rump, which made him unable to move. When he came back to his senses, his life had changed in surprising ways. Although the young lynx didn’t know it, at this point, in addition to a bulky collar, he had acquired a name: BC03M02. Wildlife managers and scientist had moved him to the US for a lynx reintroduction program. Eventually he was released into southern Colorado’s high country. It was much drier there than in his northern Rocky Mountain home where he was born, and there were not as many snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus), his favorite prey. But he found a willing, fecund mate and enough to eat. Life was good; in two years he sired three litters of kittens. And then one day in late 2006, something in his brain, some inchoate longing, some homing instinct, made him feel like roaming. At first he simply traveled from one snowshoe hare stronghold to another, finding food when he needed it. After a while he started ranging farther, and eventually just kept going. He ended up crossing landscapes unlike any he’d experienced before: the Wyoming Red Desert, followed by the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
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Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) biologists determined that over the next months the lynx covered 2,000 miles. His last recorded collar signal before the battery gave out occurred in late April, 2007. Eventually BC03M02 found his way remarkably close to where he was born, near Banff National Park, Alberta. And there his life ended, in another trapline—a lethal one set to legally harvest fur-bearing mammals. Superbly healthy at the time of his death, well-fed, with a luxuriant coat of fur, he set a world record for the longest known distance traveled by his kind. Despite his tragic end, BC03M02 proved that even in our fractured world, it’s possible for a carnivore to roam widely. But ultimately, the media hoopla about how far he had traveled belied the tragedy of his death. In recent years, lynx from the CPW reintroduction project also have dispersed south, into New Mexico’s mountains. Researchers did not anticipate these dispersals, which involved crossing interstate highways, traversing areas of high human use, and dodging death in myriad ways. 1 En route, these dispersers had to find snowshoe hares to eat—not always an easy task. Indeed, I consider such landscape-scale peregrinations acts of faith. Other species besides lynx have an innate need to wander. These instinctive journeys involve both migration, defined as seasonal, cyclical movements from one region to another and back for breeding and feeding purposes, and dispersal, the process animals use to leave their natal range and permanently spread from one place to another. 2 Many species, such as pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) and elk (Cervus elaphus), migrate as part of their annual life cycle. Fewer species disperse. Wolves (Canis lupus), wolverines (Gulo gulo), cougars (Puma concolor), jaguars (Panthera onca), lynx, and grizzy bears (Ursus arctos) have natural histories that often include long dispersals.
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In our developed world, landscape-scale dispersals are becoming increasingly challenging for all species, but are still happening. In February 2008 in California’s Tahoe National Forest, while conducting a marten study (Martes americana), Oregon State University graduate student Katie Moriarty’s remote-sensing camera photographed what appeared to be a wolverine. California's first substantiated wolverine sighting since the 1920s, the grainy image created a furor. Scientists began by trying to figure out where it had come from. The nearest known population was about 900 miles away, in Washington. DNA tests of scat samples collected from the animal proved that it was genetically related to Rocky Mountain wolverines and had dispersed from an out-of-state population. 3 In spring 2009, a two-year-old female Yellowstone wolf wearing an Argos satellite collar made an astonishing 1,000-mile trek to north-central Colorado. Aspen-crowned mountains and deep valleys in that part of Colorado harbor abundant food for wolves: healthy deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and elk herds. However, it’s not exactly safe to be a wolf in Colorado, due to low human tolerance for this species and other hazards. This wolf hung around Eagle County for a few weeks, but eventually died after eating poison intended for coyotes (Canis latrans). One of the most compelling long-distance dispersals began in Oregon in September 2011, when a young male wolf left northeast Oregon’s Imnaha pack. Called OR7 by the Oregon Division of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), he cut quite a swath through the state as he moved toward the southern Cascade Mountains. ODFW began posting images of his walkabout, which showed up on their maps as a thick, black zigzagging line. Popularly dubbed Journey, this wolf drew public attention as he wandered around Oregon in search of a mate. He looped and doubled back, but each week trended farther south. Just before Christmas 2011, he reached Crater Lake.
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After Christmas, a public question arose: how low would this vagabond wolf go? Others wondered whether he was looking for love in all the wrong places. Right before New Year’s Eve, the public got their answer to the first question. Journey entered California, becoming the first wolf confirmed in the state since 1924. For the next fifteen months he stayed in Northern California and out of trouble. He preyed on deer and left cattle alone, but did not find a mate. In mid-March 2013, he returned to southwest Oregon, where he remained by the end of that year. This wolf’s California sojourn inspired the state legislature and Game Commission to consider putting the wolf on the state Endangered Species List and begin to create a wolf management plan. These transboundary stories make our hearts beat a little faster and give rise to complex emotions: wonder, grief, hope. How many other such dispersals have there been of which we are unaware? Why do so many have tragic endings? And how can we improve the outcomes, now that we are aware of them? Audacious as such dispersals may seem, some animals can’t help making them. This behavior is imprinted in their DNA, in the shape of their bodies, and in how their minds work. Moreover, they do it with casual grace, as if such heroic dispersals amounted to just another day in their lives. There goes a wolf, loping a thousand miles in a harmonic, energy-conserving gait, its hind feet falling perfectly into the tracks left by its front feet. And a wolverine, effortlessly running up mountains and back down in minutes, covering more ground and elevation more rapidly and than any other terrestrial mammal. If it were a simple act of will, most of these stories would have happy endings. But nevertheless, such dispersals fill me with hope that perhaps we will get it right soon, given the opportunities and powerful lessons these animals are providing.
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The corridor that the carnivores use for dispersal in the West extends from Alaska to Mexico. It holds many stories and goes by various names. Long ago, the Blackfeet called it mistakiis—the Earth’s backbone. Conservation organization Wildlands Network refers to this cordillera as The Spine of the Continent. 4 And I call this pathway worn into our continent by carnivore footfalls across the ages The Carnivore Way. When I found our wild Montana home, I made a dispersal of my own that taught me to think about conservation on a landscape scale. My earliest lessons in our new home had to do with learning about the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, arguably, one of the wildest intact ecosystems south of Alaska. Getting to know this vast landscape, where mountains and public lands stretch from horizon to horizon, made me keenly interested in corridor ecology—the science of how animals move across landscapes and inhabit them.
The Earth’s Backbone Our home lies roughly at the center of the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, which contains some very big country. This 28 million acre ecosystem extends east to where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains, south to Montana’s Blackfoot River Valley, west to the Salish Mountains, and north to Alberta’s Highwood Pass. The Continental Divide splits it north to south. Its jumbled terrain contains a crazy quilt of mountains: the Livingstone, Mission, and Whitefish ranges, among many. Watersheds best characterize this ecosystem: the Elk, Flathead, Belly River, and Blackfoot. It contains a triple divide peak from which rainfall flows into the Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic oceans, and thousands of glacial lakes. But anyone who has spent time here knows the Crown of the Continent is far more than the sum of its parts, its wildness seemingly endless. 5
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The large carnivores are part of what makes this place so ecologically remarkable. One of the two ecosystems in the forty-eight coterminous United States that contain all the wildlife species present at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803), the Crown of the Continent provides critical habitat for animals that need room to roam. Ecologist John Weaver has found seventeen carnivore species here, a number unmatched elsewhere in North America, including the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Alaska. 6 According to Weaver, the Crown of the Continent matters for three principal reasons. First, because of its historical and current large carnivore-rich wildlands. Second, because of its connection to northern ecosystems that harbor abundant large carnivores. Third, because of its diversity. The Crown of the Continent has four climatic influences: Pacific Maritime in the west, prairie in the east, boreal in the north, and Great Basin in the southwest. These influences create a variety of ecological communities, from shortgrass prairie to old-growth rainforest. 7 Within this ecosystem, rivers have incised narrow, fertile valleys into the mountains. These valleys represent the last bastions of wildness, where a grizzly bear can travel easily, finding abundant food and little trace of humanity. I live in one of these valleys. Yet, while the grizzly bear and wolf population outnumbers the human population where I live, much is at stake, even in a place as wild as this. In the mid-2000s I began doing research on wolves in Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, which lies in the core of the Crown of the Continent. This peace park is composed of two national parks: Glacier National Park in the US and Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada. Glacier, founded in 1910 at the urging of New York naturalist George Bird Grinnell, comprises 1 million acres. Waterton, founded in 1895 as a forest preserve, comprises 124,000 acres contiguous to Glacier. One hundred and seventy such peace parks exist world-wide, but
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Waterton-Glacier was the first. Dedicated to protecting biodiversity and natural and cultural resources, peace parks help maintain connectivity across boundaries. In 1995, the United Nations designated Waterton-Glacier a World Heritage Site. 8 A closer look reveals why this is a critical linking landscape. At Logan Pass, the highest pass in Glacier accessible by car, the millions of visitors who stop here annually see protected lands stretching out in every direction. The hundreds of peaks all around make it obvious why the Blackfeet consider this the Earth’s backbone.” 9 Yet this area’s wildness is not quite as big as it seems. Twenty miles away, the Blackfeet Reservation, which consists mainly of working ranches, forms Glacier’s eastern boundary. The tribe has been fighting extensive natural gas exploration on their land. Waterton-Glacier contains two principal wildlife dorridors: the Flathead Valley and the Belly River Valley. Both cross international boundaries. The first begins in southeast British Columbia, where the Flathead River flows south across the border into northwest Montana, forming the western boundary of Glacier National Park. This watershed provides an essential dispersal corridor for everything from grizzly bears and wolves to native westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkia lewisi). But because it contains rich coal deposits, minerals, and coalbed gas, much is at risk. To protect it from development and keep this watershed healthy, conservationists long have been advocating expanding Waterton Lakes National Park into British Columbia. The second major corridor, the Belly River Valley, begins at the feet of Chief Mountain. This 9,000-foot massif sacred to the Blackfeet stands in Glacier near the US-Canada border. From its headwaters, the Belly River flows north into Canada, lending its name to the valley it carved out of limestone. One of the wildest places in this landscape, during the nineteenth
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century fur trading era this valley was popular for trapping wolves, grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, and cougars. However, by the 1920s, these and other fur-bearing mammals had been trapped out of existence. Later in the twentieth century, when these species gained protection in the US, the Belly River Valley was one of the first places they returned. At the Chief Mountain port of entry, a granite obelisk and narrow clearcut demarcate the border crossing and provide a strong reminder that legal boundaries are very real in terms of land management and for the large carnivores who cross them regularly. In Waterton Lakes National Park, the mountains abruptly meet the prairie, with no foothills to soften this knife-edged transition. A bunchgrass and wildflower sea slams into a wall of mountains. Waterton, small as it is, represents an invaluable refuge for carnivores. The landscape that extends north along the Rocky Mountains past Waterton toward the Kananaskis wilderness and Banff National Park connects US populations of far-ranging species, such as grizzlies, to Canadian populations, ensuring their long-term survival. This connectivity makes the Crown of the Continent unique. In comparison, Yellowstone is an ecological island because human development has cut off many of its carnivores from other populations. North of the US-Canada border, most large carnivore species are “liberally managed,� due to their relative abundance and connection to source populations in the far north (Yukon and Alaska). Beyond national parks, humans can kill most large carnivore species via hunting and trapping. To use wolves as an example, in Alberta, a landowner is entitled to shoot a wolf at any time of year and without a license within eight kilometers of his or her private or grazing-leased public land. The government permits baiting wolves with poison. Some southwest Alberta townships offer a wolf bounty. Despite all of the above, Alberta has a variable, but well-
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established wolf population, with several packs ranging along the East Slope of the Rocky Mountains, from Banff to the US-Canada border. 10 Waterton ecologist Barb Johnston has spent decades working with wildlife in this and other national parks, such as Banff, which is 1.6 million acres in size. When I asked her why a park as small as Waterton, which at 124,000 acres lies at the other end of the spectrum from Banff, is so important to landscape-scale conservation she said, “Usually when you talk about carnivores, the main theme is large, undeveloped space that they can roam in. Waterton doesn’t fall into that category, because it is so tiny. But because it is positioned where it is, we are part of a travel corridor for carnivores. Waterton is adjacent to source populations for carnivores, particularly grizzly bears and wolves, but also wolverines. We are a critical linking land, because we are also adjacent to what makes population sinks for species that don’t do so well in humaninhabited areas.” 11 Outside Waterton, wilderness meets the Anthropocene. Coined by ecologist Eugene Stoermer, but popularized by Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen in 2002, the term Anthropocene refers to the geological epoch that began with the Industrial Revolution in the late seventeenth century. Ranchlands, developed over a century ago for cattle production, bound Waterton. And 200 miles north lies Calgary, one of the largest Canadian cities. Banff National Park, the most visited Canadian park, lies forty miles west of Calgary, along Highway 1. This four-lane road, also known as the Trans-Canada Highway, slices through the heart of Banff via the Bow Valley. Built in the early 1950s to connect the Canadian interior to the West Coast, this originally low-volume, two-lane highway once had little impact on wildlife. In 1950, Calgary had 130,00 people; by 2011 it had over 1 million. Also by 2011, approximately 30,000 vehicles passed through the Bow
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Valley daily. 12 Such human impacts, which bring with them an accelerated extinction rate, typify the Anthropocene, also known as the Age of Man. 13
1
Tanya Shenk, Post Release Monitoring of Lynx (Lynx canadensis) Reintroduced to Colorado (Fort Collins: Colorado Division of Wildlife, 2011). 2 Paul Beier, “Dispersal of Juvenile Cougars in Fragmented Habitat,” Journal of Wildlife Management 59, no. 2 (1995): 228-37. 3 Katie Moriarty, et al., “Wolverine Confirmation in California after Nearly a Century: Native or Long-Distance Immigrant?” Northwest Science 83, no. 2 (2009): 154-62. 4 Charles C. Chester, “Yellowstone to Yukon, North America,” in Climate and Conservation: Landscape and Seascape Science, Planning, and Action, ed. Jodi A. Hilty, Charles C. Chester, and Molly S. Cross, (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2012), 240-52. 5 John L. Weaver, The Transboundary Flathead: A Critical Landscape for Carnivores in the Rocky Mountains, Working Paper No. 18 (Bozeman, MT: Wildlife Conservation Society, 2001); Ben Long and the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem Education Consortium, Crown of the Continent: Profile of a Treasured Landscape (Dallas: Scott Publishing, 2002). 6 The fisher (Martes pennanti), a small carnivore, is missing from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. 7 Weaver, The Transboundary Flathead. 8 Charles C. Chester, Conservation across Borders: Biodiversity in an Interdependent World (Island Press, Washington, DC, 2006), 20-23. 9 Charles C. Chester, “Yellowstone to Yukon, North America,” 240-52. 10 Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division, Management Plan for Wolves in Alberta (Edmonton, AB: Forestry Lands, and Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife Division, 1991). 11 Barb Johnston, interview by Cristina Eisenberg, December 4, 2012, Waterton Lakes National Park, AB. 12 Adam T. Ford, Anthony P. Clevenger, and Kathy Rettie, “The Banff Wildlife Crossings Project: An International Public-Private Partnership,” in Safe Passages: Highways, Wildlife, and Habitat Connectivity, ed. Jon P. Beckmann, et al. (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010), 157-72. 13 Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006), 183-9.
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Sales Information Sheet State of the World 2014
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 4/15/2014
Governing for Sustainability The Worldwatch Institute Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-541-0 978-1-61091-542-7
$23.00 $22.99
NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy/Environmental Policy SCIENCE / Environmental Science Trim Size: 7 X 9.25 Pages: 280 Figures, photos, tables Author Residence: Washington, DC Comparative Titles: • Governing Sustainability, W. Neil Adger and Andrew Jordan. ISBN: 978-0-521-73243-7, Paperback, Mar. 2009, $35.99, Cambridge University Press. Bookscan: 47. • Global Environmental Governance, James Gustave Speth and Peter Haas. ISBN: 978-1-59726-081-7, Paperback, May 2006, $22.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 1567, Warehouse: 6313. • Global Environmental Politics, Pamela S. Chasek, David L. Downie, and Janet Welsh Brown. ISBN: 978-0-8133-4896-4, Paperback, July 2013, $45.00, Westview Press. Bookscan: 150. Previous Works: • State of the World 2012, The Worldwatch Institute. ISBN: 978-1-61091-037-8, Paperback, Mar. 2012, $22.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 1255, Warehouse: 8766. • State of the World 2013, The Worldwatch Institute. ISBN: 978-1-61091-449-9, Paperback, Apr. 2013, $22.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 2188, Warehouse: 9105. Sales Handle The latest volume in the Worldwach Institute's highly regarded series, this edition examines key trends in environmental governance. Description Citizens expect their governments to lead on sustainability. But from largely disappointing international conferences like Rio II to the U.S.’s failure to pass meaningful climate legislation, governments’ progress has been lackluster. That’s not to say leadership is absent; it just often comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. Action—on climate, species loss, inequity, and other sustainability crises—is being driven by local, people’s, women’s, and grassroots movements around the world, often in opposition to the agendas pursued by governments and big corporations. These diverse efforts are the subject of the latest volume in the Worldwatch Institute’s highly regarded State of the World series. The 2014 edition, marking the Institute’s 40th anniversary, examines both barriers to responsible political and economic governance as well as gridlock-shattering new ideas. The authors analyze a variety of trends and proposals, including regional and local climate initiatives, the rise of benefit corporations and worker-owned firms, the need for energy democracy, the Internet’s impact on sustainability, and the importance of eco-literacy. A consistent thread throughout the book is that informed and engaged citizens are key to better governance. The book is a clear-eyed yet ultimately optimistic assessment of citizens’ ability to govern for sustainability. By highlighting both obstacles and opportunities, State of the World 2014 shows how to effect change within and beyond the halls of government. This volume will be especially useful for policymakers, environmental nonprofits, students of environmental studies, sustainability, or economics—and citizens looking to jumpstart significant change around the world. Selling Points • Informed by the policy and research experience of the Worldwatch Institute • Contributors are renowned international experts in their fields
Author Bio Founded in 1974 by farmer and economist Lester Brown, Worldwatch was the first independent research institute devoted to the analysis of global environmental concerns. Worldwatch quickly became recognized by opinion leaders around the world for its accessible, fact-based analysis of critical global issues. Now under the leadership of population expert and author Robert Engelman, Worldwatch develops innovative solutions to intractable problems, emphasizing a blend of government leadership, private sector enterprise, and citizen action that can make a sustainable future a reality. Table of Contents PART I. Overview Foreword: David Orr Introduction: Tom Prugh and Michael Renner Chapter 1. What is Governance? D. Conor Seyle and Matthew Wilburn King PART II. Political Governance Chapter 2. Governance and Humanity's Failure to Make Long-term Plans: Matthew Wilburn King Chapter 3. Public Governance in the Public Interest: Deliberative Democracy and Sustainability: Matt Leighninger and Tom Prugh Chapter 4. Next American City: Diana Lind Chapter 5. Humanity as Ultrasocial Organism and the Implications for Governance: John Gowdy Chapter 6. Eco-Literacy and Governance: Monty Hempel Chapter 7. Earth Domination or Stewardship? Peter Brown and Jeremy Schmidt Chapter 8. Earth Jurisprudence: Cormac Cullinan Chapter 9. Governance and Sustainability in China: Isabel Hilton and Sam Geall Chapter 10. People's Movements Against Destructive Development in India: Shakuntala Makhijani Chapter 11. Climate Justice: Lessons for the Sustainability Movement: Aaron Sachs Chapter 12. Women’s Role in Governance: Bob Engelman Chapter 13. The Impact of Disasters on Governance: Michael Weber Chapter 14. Issues in Goverance: Inge Kaul Chapter 15. Post-2015 Development and Governance: Maria Ivanova Chapter 16. The Internet and Governance: Rick Worthington Chapter 17. How Local Government is Leading Us Toward Sustainability: ICLEI PART III. Economic Governance Chapter 18. Leave it to the Market? The Need for Public Policy: Michael Renner and Sean Sweeney Chapter 19. Financialization and Democracy: Thomas Palley Chapter 20. Democratizing the Workplace: Gar Alperovitz Chapter 21. The Rise of Benefit Corporations: Colleen Cordes Chapter 22. Green Governance and the Commons: David Bollier and Burns Weston Chapter 23. Lessons from the Effort to Pass U.S. Cap-and-Trade Legislation: Petra Bartosiewicz and Marissa Miley Chapter 24. The Resource Curse and Governance: Evan Musolino and Katie Auth Chapter 25. Labor and Sustainability: The Need for a Just Transition: Nina Netzer and Judith Gouverneur Chapter 26. Humanity’s Tolerance for Risk: Hybrid Public / Private Goods: Josephine Mitschke and Ian Johnson Chapter 27. Arctic Resources and Governance: Yu Hongyuan PART III. What Does It All Mean? Chapter 28. The Book is Not the Endpoint: Summary and Outlook: Tom Prugh and Michael Renner
From “The Too Polite Revolution: Understanding the Failure to Pass U.S. Climate Legislation a” by Petra Bartosiewicz & Marissa Miley Passage of an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions has been one of the great, unrealized ambitions of the environmental movement of this generation. With the effects of global warming already in our midst, and environmental catastrophe very much a threat in this century, curbing man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas that most significantly contributes to human-caused global warming, has become imperative. To this end, over the past two decades the U.S. environmental community has mounted a series of increasingly well-funded and organized efforts toward adopting federal legislation to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But such a comprehensive bill has proved elusive. In the past decade, more than twenty bills have been proposed in Congress to create a federal market-based carbon emissions cap; not one of them has become law. The 2008 presidential election was supposed to change all that. Though not a time-tested environmental ally, Barack Obama named clean energy among his top domestic policy priorities and called for a graduated cap on carbon dioxide emissions while on the campaign trail. “No business will be allowed to emit any greenhouse gases for free,” he pledged. Obama, moreover, was a skilled organizer with the largest
a
This essay was adapted from a 2013 report by Petra Bartosiewicz and Marissa Miley, “The Too Polite Revolution: Why the Recent Campaign to Pass Comprehensive Climate Change Legislation in the United States Failed,” which was originally commissioned by the Rockefeller Family Fund in conjunction with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Unless stated otherwise, the term “green groups” refers to those national environmental organizations that spearheaded the climate legislative effort, primarily EDF, NRDC, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, and the Alliance for Climate Protection. In addition, two of the green groups the authors reference have changed their names: the Pew Center on Global Climate Change is now the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and the Alliance for Climate Protection is now the Climate Reality Project.
grassroots base of any president in history. “For the first time in decades, a President will enter office at the spearhead of a social movement he created,� noted Time in January 2009. 1 With a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate under a Democratic president for the first time in fourteen years, a coalition of national green groups, backed by deep-pocketed funders, mobilized for what they believed was a historic opportunity to address global warming. The policy vehicle the green groups put their efforts behind was a cap-and-trade system similar to one already in effect in the European Union. Under such a program, the government places an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions and ratchets it down over a specified period of time. Individual polluters are issued emissions permits, which can then be traded in a market exchange with other polluters. According to its proponents, cap and trade thus employs financial incentives for companies to move toward more efficient, lower carbon energy solutions. 2 It was, of course, no secret that any kind of carbon emissions regulation in the United States would provoke vehement protest from major polluters in the oil, gas, and electric industries. Since the early 1990s these corporations have spent more than $3 billion in total lobbying dollars on Capitol Hill, in part to ensure that similar proposals do not get very far. Opponents to climate legislation have also flexed their muscle in the international arena. Because of industry pressure, the United States never ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. It is the only signatory not to have sanctioned what is the most significant global climate agreement to date. 3 With this in mind, in this most recent legislative campaign the green groups resolved to bring industry to the table. In 2007, major environmental organizations and
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corporations came together under the banner of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). By the end of 2008, the coalition comprised nearly three dozen members, among them the country’s most influential environmental advocacy groups, led by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, along with a corporate membership that included some of the country’s biggest polluters: General Electric, Dow Chemical, Alcoa, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, and DuPont. 4 The environmental groups aimed to broker a deal with traditional adversaries and show lawmakers on Capitol Hill that there was industry support for carbon regulation. The green groups were banking on the political power of the major corporations to sway members of Congress, especially those from states where coal was produced or consumed, to support a climate bill. The corporations, meanwhile, had watched rising public awareness of climate change and believed comprehensive carbon regulation was imminent. Naturally, the businesses wanted a hand in shaping whatever federal legislation might be crafted. “You’re either at the table or on the menu,” said Michael Parr, senior manager of government affairs at DuPont, one of the founding USCAP companies. 5 But despite passage of a cap-and-trade bill in the House of Representatives in June 2009—itself a historic achievement—no such legislation ever made it to a floor vote in the Senate during that Congress. By mid-2010, after several attempts at crafting a bill had failed, the campaign was officially declared over. Given the backlash felt by House members who had cast a tough vote only to see it come to naught, the Senate’s inability
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to pass even a compromise bill effectively killed prospects for any comprehensive carbon cap in the near future and perhaps longer. This chapter examines the assumptions that drove the cap-and-trade campaign, in particular the choice of the country’s leading environmental organizations to place their faith in a strategy that required them to make deep concessions to the country’s biggest polluters. While significant external factors contributed to the bill’s failure—among them a souring economy, a sharp rightward shift in the Republican Party base, and the president’s choice of health care as the major legislative priority of his first term— the green groups made tactical errors that diminished their chance of success. At the core of this failed campaign was the green groups’ belief that any victory they achieved would be modest and incremental. Repeated failed attempts at passing carbon cap legislation had primed the green groups to seek a compromise from the start. The resulting cap-and-trade proposal was brokered among a small group of stakeholders and was largely absent of broad-based, grassroots support. The diminished role of the grassroots in the climate campaign was no anomaly. Rather, it reflects a fundamental structural disconnect in the environmental community between the big Washington D.C.based green groups who have a predominantly inside-the-Beltway approach and the panoply of local, state, and regional environmental groups who focus on coalition building and citizen engagement. In keeping with this disconnect, the bulk of the money that financed the cap-andtrade campaign came from a small cadre of wealthy hedge fund owners and foundations headquartered primarily in California. This underscored the green groups’ reliance on a few large stakeholders rather than on a wide array of on-the-ground supporters. These
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major funders pooled their resources and coordinated their strategies leading up to the climate campaign. While this may have been done with the intention of marshaling their finances toward a singular goal, it also had the effect of drawing advocacy groups to a preordained mission, rather than trusting the groups to use their ingenuity and expertise to seek out solutions on their own…
From “China’s Environmental Governance Challenge” By Sam Geall and Isabel Hilton On posters and banners across China’s cities, the new leadership has made “Ecological Civilization” and a “Beautiful China” two of its most prominent slogans. But underlying these buzzwords is a complex, unenviable and worsening problem. China’s environmental and climate governance is at a crisis point: while China attempts a transition to a more sustainable model of development, a difficult enough process for one-fifth of the world’s population, legacy political structures and associated powerful interest groups have made necessary reforms all the more difficult by restricting, rather than harnessing, the potential for citizen participation in environmental protection. As the latest annual review from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection has illustrated, creating a “Beautiful China” will be no easy task. In China’s countryside, the report said, the environmental situation is “grim.” The cities are not much better: in
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198 cities inspected last year, more than 57% of the groundwater was rated “bad” or “extremely bad”, while more than 30% of the country's major rivers were “polluted” or “seriously polluted”. The air in 86 out of 113 key cities did not reach air quality standards. A recent study in The Lancet suggested that air pollution in China caused around 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010 alone. 6 China, as is commonly known, is now the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) by volume, accounting for 29% of CO 2 emitted in 2012. Perhaps less well known, is that in the same year its average per capita CO 2 emissions increased by 9% to 7.2 tonnes CO 2 , which, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, puts China’s per capita emissions roughly on a level with the European Union. 7 For most people in China, such dire assessments will not have come as a surprise: the visible effects of pollution are everywhere. In early 2012, heavy smog blanketed more than 1 million square kilometres of China for several days. More recently, in October 2013, record-setting levels of smog shut down the major north-eastern city of Harbin. According to a Pew Research Centre survey, Chinese citizens’ concerns about the environment rose sharply in 2013: 47% considered air pollution a “very big problem”, up from 36% in 2012. 8 Chinese government officials have stated that pollution may have become the nation’s single greatest cause of social unrest. Chen Jiping, formerly of the Chinese Communist Party’s Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs, claimed in 2013 that the country now sees 30,000 to 50,000 so-called “mass incidents”, or protests, every year. Of these, Chen said: the “major reason for mass incidents is the environment, and everyone cares about it now.” Other studies indicate that the frequency of such
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environmentally related social incidents has been increasing by 30% every year. As Chen put it, “If you want to build a plant, and if the plant may cause cancer, how can people remain calm?” 9 Local authorities in Guangdong province, in southern China, recently bowed to this rising discontent when they cancelled the construction of a US$6-billion uranium processing plant, after hundreds of protesters took to the streets, having organized the demonstrations through social media and online messaging services. The city government continued to defend the project until the last moment, finally issuing a one-line statement on its website: “To respect people’s desire, the Heshan government will not propose the project.” 10 The protests, and the local government’s last-minute turnaround, are phenomena that increasingly worry senior government officials: over the past several years, a succession of so-called “not in my backyard” protests have opposed large industrial facilities and infrastructure. The first such major uprising, in 2007, focused on the proposed construction of a petrochemical plant manufacturing paraxylene, or PX, in Xiamen, in south-eastern China. 11 Since then, waves of social unrest have halted many more: another PX plant in Dalian, north-eastern China, a copper and molybdenum refinery in Shifang, in the west, and incinerators in Panyu, in Guangzhou, and Xierqi, in Beijing, to name only a few. The spectre of urban discontent, amplified by the growth of new media and mobile computing, looms large for China’s decision-makers – as does its potential to derail economic development plans – and the social unrest that is feared if economic growth were to falter.
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China now has 591 million Internet users, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, and more than 460 million mobile Internet users. Sina Weibo, the largest micro-blogging service, has more than 500 million registered users. More than ever before in the history of the People’s Republic, news and opinions can be shared among the public with ease – and the environment has become a key issue of concern. In effect, new media have given voices to a generation of citizens, many of whom are becoming economically enfranchised, but are frustrated by their lack of a meaningful political stake in planning and other decisions that will affect theirs and their children’s health. 12 Tang Hao, an academic at South China Normal University, summarized the situation in a typically insightful fashion, noting that in China, “pleasant living environments are getting harder to find – and scarcity leads to competition and conflict.” But, since the country has no mechanisms in place for managing such competition,” Tang wrote, “the outcome is unruly conflict.” 13 …
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Campaign pledge from “Obama Advocates Cap-and-Trade system,” E&E Greenwire, October 9, 2007. Obama’s grassroots base: Michael Scherer, “Obama's Permanent Grass-Roots Campaign,” Time, January 15, 2009. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871921,00.html 2 A. Denny Ellerman and Paul L. Joskow, The European Union’s Emissions Trading System. Prepared for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (Arlington, VA, May 2008). http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/EU-ETS-In-Perspective-Report.pdf. 3 Data from the Center for Responsive Politics for lobbying by the electric utility and oil and gas industries, between 1998 and 2012. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=i 4 Fortune 500 List, 2008. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/full_list/ The Toxic 100 Air Polluters Index 2012, based on 2007 data: http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxicair2012/ 5 Authors’ interview with Michael Parr, July 2011. 6 Ministry of Environmental Protection, The People’s Republic of China, 2012 Report on the State of the Environment, 4 June 2013; Global Burden of Disease Survey 2010 (The Lancet, 2012); Edward Wong, “Air Pollution Linked to 1.2 Million Premature Deaths in China,” The New York Times, 1 April 2013.
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PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency “2012 sees slowdown in the increase of global CO2 emissions” at: http://www.pbl.nl/en/news/newsitems/2013/2012-sees-slowdown-in-the-increase-in-globalco2-emissions, 31 October 2013. 8 Jennifer Duggan, “China’s environmental problems are grim, admits ministry report,” Guardian, 7 June 2013; Pew Research Center, “Environmental Concerns on the Rise in China” at: http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/09/19/environmental-concerns-on-the-rise-in-china/ 19 September 2013. 9 Bloomberg News, “Chinese Anger Over Pollution Becomes Cause of Social Unrest”, 6 March 2013. 10 Kelly Ip “Uproar over uranium plant still smolders,” The Standard (Hong Kong), 15 July 2013. 11 Jonathan Ansfield, “Alchemy of a protest: the case of Xiamen PX” in: Sam Geall (ed.) China and the Environment: The Green Revolution (London: Zed Books, 2013), pp. 136-202. 12 Steven Millward, “China Now Has 591 Million Internet Users, 460 Million Mobile Netizens,” Tech in Asia, 17 July 2013. 13 Tang Hao, “China’s ‘nimby’ protests sign of unequal society,” chinadialogue, 29 May 2013, at: https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/6051-China-s-nimby-protests-sign-of-unequalsociety
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Spring 2014
Sales Information Sheet People Habitat 25 Ways to Think About Greener, Healthier Cities
Discount: Trade Pub Date: 1/6/2014
F. Kaid Benfield Paperback: E-Book:
978-0-9897511-0-0 978-0-9897511-1-7
$25.00 $24.99
ARCHITECTURE / Sustainability & Green Design Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 304 Author Residence: Washington, DC Comparative Titles: • Sustainable Urbanism, Douglas Farr. ISBN: 978-0-471-77751-9, Hardcover, Nov. 2007, $80.00, Wiley. Bookscan: 4956. • Walkable City, Jeff Speck. ISBN: 978-0-374-28581-4, Hardcover, Nov. 2012, $27.00, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Bookscan: 9338. • Urban Design for an Urban Century, Lance Jay Brown, David Dixon, and Oliver Gillham. ISBN: 978-0-470-08782-4, Hardcover, Jan. 2009, $85.00, Wiley. Bookscan: 386. Previous Works: • Solving Sprawl: Models of Smart Growth in Communities Across America, Natural Resources Defense Council. ISBN: 9781-55963-432-8, Paperback, Mar. 2003, $25.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 307, Warehouse: 1092. Sales Handle Written with intellect, insight, and from-the-heart candor, these real-world stories from a leading voice on sustainable cities illuminate the challenges and opportunities of urban living. Description With over 80 percent of Americans now living in cities and suburbs, getting our communities right has never been more important, more complicated, or more fascinating. Longtime sustainability leader Kaid Benfield shares 25 enlightening and entertaining essays about the wondrous ecology of human settlement, and how to make it better for both people and the planet. People Habitat explores topics as diverse as “green” housing developments that are no such thing, the tricky matter of gentrifying inner cities, why people don’t walk much anymore, and the relationship between cities and religion. Written with intellect, insight, and from-the-heart candor, each real-world story in People Habitat will make you see our communities in a new light. Selling Points • Kaid Benfield is an accessible, independent voice with a major online platform and ready audience. • Content covers diverse urban issues from identity to gentrification to religion. Author Bio F. Kaid Benfield is Special Counsel for Urban Solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington, DC. Benfield is also an adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Law; co-founder, LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system; co-founder, Smart Growth America coalition; author of several books on smart growth and sprawl, and a regular contributor to the websites The Atlantic Cities, the Sustainable Cities Collective, and NRDC’s Switchboard. He was selected as one of the world’s “top urban thinkers” on the city planning website Planetizen and one of “the most influential people in sustainable planning and development” by the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.
Table of Contents Prologue: Cities of the Imagination Chapter 1. It’s Not Really about Cities Chapter 2. What Seems Green May Actually Be Brown Chapter 3. But When Green Elements Align, the Results Can Be Impressive Chapter 4. Revitalization Can Be Powerful Chapter 5. In a Revitalizing District, Some Gentrification Might Be OK; but Not too Much Chapter 6. Cities Need Nature Chapter 7. There Can Be So Much in a Name—or Not Chapter 8. Sustainability Requires Attention to Legacy Chapter 9. But the Past Is Not the Future Chapter 10. Community Isn’t What It Used to Be, Apparently Chapter 11. Meet the Environmental Paradox of Smart Growth Chapter 12. Design Matters, but It Can Be Messy Chapter 13. There Must Be a There Chapter 14. Human Habitat Should Nourish the Mind, Body and Spirit Chapter 15. Americans Don’t Walk Much, and I Don’t Blame Them Chapter 16. Driving Should Be an Option Chapter 17. Getting to School Shouldn’t Be So Hard Chapter 18. Walk, Drink, Walk Back Chapter 19. Successful Suburbs Will Adapt to the Twenty-first Century Chapter 20. Childhood Should Be about Exploring Chapter 21. Grow Food, but Not Just Anywhere Chapter 22. Cities are Made for Faith, and Vice Versa Chapter 23. Think Globally; Plan Locally Chapter 24. Sustainability Is where the Heart Is Chapter 25. Sprawl Is Dying. Will Smart Growth Be Next? Epilogue: People Habitat and the Landscape Bibliography
Prologue: Cities of the Imagination
New York City (photo by F. Kaid Benfield)
As children, we spend a lot of time imagining things we haven’t experienced yet, and imagining unknown parts of things we have begun to experience. That’s the way it was for me and cities as a kid.
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his book was born from my imagined impressions of cities before I actually experienced them, from my measure of cities against that imagination, and from my imagination yet again, as I consider how real cities might reach our best aspirations for them
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PEOPLE HABITAT
as habitat for people. It is the fourth book about some aspect of cities with my name on the cover. I am excited about it: It is the one truest to my heart and was the most fun to write. Unlike the others, each of which pursued a singular topic in depth and explored points of advocacy on behalf of my employers, this one comes from me alone. I intend it to be broad in its reach, exploring many issues related by no more of a central premise than asking readers to think with me about how to make human settlement as good as possible. That may sound a bit glib, but I hope to persuade you to join me in considering some of the more difficult issues, the ones where the answers aren’t so clear. I owe the title People Habitat to my friend Trisha White, an expert on the interactions between the built environment and wildlife. Trisha believes wildlife does best when nature’s critters have a realm that is primarily their own, and when we humans have the same—a “people habitat” distinct from places where wildlife is primary and we are secondary. I thought Trisha captured a lot in that simple phrase, which I first heard at a meeting and never forgot. People “habitat” may borrow a word from the field of wildlife ecology but it evokes a different sort of ecology, one centered on humans. Nature works best when it is in balance, and that leads me to a guiding principle: like the natural environment when operating at its best, the built environment created by us humans should achieve harmony among its various parts and with the larger world upon which it depends. A second guiding principle is that, while the ecology of the natural world concerns itself primarily with the interdependence of species and the health of ecosystems, the ecology of people habitat concerns itself also with our relationships as humans to each other, and with the health of communities that support those relationships and allow us to flourish. Thinking spatially, wildlife habitat may be conceived as a realm that starts in a nest or den and extends outward from there. People habitat is similar: our domain begins in our homes but also extends outward, to our neighborhoods, our cities or towns, and even to the regions beyond, which I discuss in the first chapter. I believe we humans have an opportunity and a duty to make our habitat work both for us as people and for the sustainable health of the planet writ large.
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For most of us, our experience of the human environment—our own people habitat, if you will—begins as children, as we discover the things around us. My friend Chuck Wolfe, for example, wrote a terrific essay called “Rediscovering the Urban Eye of a Child,” which was published on his blog myurbanist (and, under a different title, on the website of The Atlantic).
Udine, Italy (photo courtesy of Chuck Wolfe)
An astute observer of cities and a gifted photographer, Chuck traces his roots for both, recalling trips as a child to cities abroad with his father, an urban planning professor. He shares a number of photos he took as a 12-year-old in and around Mediterranean cities. If the colors have lost some oomph over the years, those photos remain well-composed and, as Chuck writes, reflective even then of the urbanist attributes he values today such as public spaces, walkable streets, and the textures of historic architecture. Knowing Chuck, I wasn’t surprised to learn from his writing that he was a precocious and observant child; but I was struck by his assimilation of urban wisdom from his father at that age. I had a very different background.
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In particular, as a kid living with working-class parents in a small, sleepy southern city, I mostly imagined—rather than experienced— larger American cities of consequence, or historic cities abroad. I was in my late 30s before I could afford a trip out of the country, and I am quite sure I did not even know there was such a thing as urban planning until almost as late in life. My parents had tons of smarts and great instincts, but no higher education, and I was pretty much on my own for finding my way into college, then law school, and eventually a profession. I made it up as I went along. I still am. My hometown of Asheville, North Carolina was hardly without its merits, most of all its location smack in the middle of the majestic southern Appalachian Mountains, with the Blue Ridge to the northeast and the Great Smokies to the southwest. We could get to a mountaintop picnic area or trail faster than I can now get to work, and I loved it (while taking my unique natural surroundings for granted, of course, as kids are wont to do). When not exploring nature, chances are I was playing tennis, teaching myself guitar, or spending time with various church youth groups, because that’s what many of us did in that time and place. We did have a smallish downtown, though, and instinctively that’s where I wanted to be on a Saturday, if I wasn’t doing one of those other things. When I was around the age when Chuck took his photos, I would hop on the city bus, take myself downtown, and hang out. I loved the city library, the tiny downtown park and larger main square, the Woolworth’s, the movie theater, the music store. Especially the library and music store. Downtown, sleepy though it was, seemed like a place where things happened, where grownups more important than I did…what, exactly? If I considered that part at all, it was with my imagination. I suppose that, most of all, downtown Asheville was a place with some liveliness: people shopping, selling, eating out, going to movies, or whatever. As a de facto only child (I wasn’t, technically, but that’s perhaps a story for a different kind of book) of two working parents, I was alone a lot of the time, well before the phrase “latchkey kid” entered the lexicon; hanging out in a place with a bit of life mitigated that problem.
Prologue: Cities of the Imagination
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Asheville (photo courtesy of Jane 023)
So, in my own way, I had stumbled upon some of the amenities that even small-city downtowns, if they are good ones, can provide: animation; a variety of activities close at hand; the possibility of a chance encounter with a friend or interesting stranger. Asheville also had, and still has, lovely residential neighborhoods—many with spectacular views, because the city contains real (if small) mountains within its borders. But I went to the residential areas to see friends or attend planned events; I didn’t go just to go, as I did with respect to downtown. (Some readers may now know Asheville as a popular destination town of character and creativity—as it was once before, around the turn of the 20th century and a couple of decades thereafter. But I grew up there in between its heydays. Church socials were where it was at.) My forays into our city center notwithstanding, “real” cities were things I saw on TV, or occasionally heard about from distant relatives who, for reasons still not clear to me, actually lived in Manhattan. In my mind, New York City was very tall, exotic buildings and lots of stores and bright lights. A subway! Los Angeles was Disneyland, the beach, cool-looking freeways, and Hollywood. Cleveland was a place with a baseball team whose games came in late at night on a clear-channel radio station.
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These imagined places were about as far from my everyday reality as one can imagine, which may be why I was drawn to them so strongly (in addition to the fact that all the people on TV who supposedly lived in them seemed so cool). I now have friends and colleagues who actually grew up in New York City and, honestly, I have a hard time conjuring what it was like for them, since to me real cities were for grownups, not kids. I did have two immensely important, in-person childhood experiences of big cities. When I was a preteen, I took a trip to Los Angeles to visit my half-brother. I actually went alone, changing planes in Atlanta, with the airline alerted to look after me. Alex and his wife met me at what is now LAX airport.
Vintage postcard, Los Angeles (Public Domain)
It was pretty awesome at that age, being away from my parents, and especially seeing Disneyland and the freeways, along with taking a moonlit horseback ride that seems unfathomable anywhere near today’s LA. Later that summer—or was it the next?—my mother took me to New York City to visit different relatives. It was an all-night bus ride to Washington, DC, where we changed to the train for New York. All the tourist sites were exciting and, being the nerdy kid that I was, I wanted to see the United Nations. I still have a little blue UN
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flag from that trip. These short visits provided still more material for my budding urban imagination. And my urban imagination remained just that; there were no more big cities for me until I went off to college in Atlanta. In fact, one can understand my life’s quest, in a way, as a journey seeking to attain those cities of my child’s imagination. I always had a sense that cities were my true home, where I felt most comfortable on an everyday basis. But that didn’t necessarily make them less elusive: The great American writer Thomas Wolfe, an Asheville native, memorably wrote, “You can’t go home again.” Indeed you can’t, especially if “home” was an experience linked as much to places imagined as to those that were real. But that hasn’t kept me from trying. When in Atlanta, I soaked up everything the city had to offer that I could afford, and quite a few things that I couldn’t, now that I think about it. Atlanta had a lot going on in those days, making its transition from a sleepier place to an exciting one where businesses boomed and people flocked; this was long before downtown was largely abandoned and the whole place choked to death by suburban sprawl and gridlocked traffic. It was a great time to be there. Next came Washington, DC for law school, which actually wasn’t so great in those post-riot years (parts of the city were burned in 1968); but I stayed, and over time I have watched Washington become the great international city that it now is. And through travel I’ve now experienced many more cities. All along the way, I’ve been picking up bits of information and clues about what makes cities great. I’ve never had any formal training in that, and didn’t have any professional connection to these issues, either, until late in my career. I’m basically a self-taught urbanist. To bring this piece of writing back home, I’m still making my own way, really, just as I did as a kid in the South over four decades ago. I learned not from my forebears and childhood urban experiences, as my friend Chuck did, but from my curiosity, and from a sense that life (and place) could be better. I suspect that many readers are on that same quest to make cities better. To that end, I am sharing 25 essays related to points I believe are useful to consider as we enjoy and improve this wondrous inven-
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tion that we call “cities.” It is less expository writing than storytelling, more illustration than proclamation. While I will always say exactly what I think—or believe I am learning—about these subjects, polemic writing and thinking don’t interest me. The nooks and crannies do. I will also present some discussion of particular places or supplementary bits of information that add related ideas to the principal essay themes. It was difficult to choose just 25 subjects, but the choices were not arbitrary. By intention, these ideas are not all in line with prevailing environmental and urbanist thinking, not all fully formed and, truth be told, not all fully consistent with each other. I believe that’s as it should be. We live in a world of questions as much as answers; anyone who pretends to have all the answers is faking it, in my humble opinion. I should also add that I make no claim that my 25 subjects are the 25 most objectively important, though I hope you will agree that some of them belong in that group. Rather, they are subjects on which I feel I have something to share, something I have discovered that interests me and that I hope will interest you. To me the notions in these 25 essays include salient ones, challenging ones, and a couple that are just fun. They can be read in any order you like. They are the stories I most wanted to share, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
More about This Book In 2007, Ian Wilker, my then colleague at the Natural Resources Defense Council, recruited me for a new blog, to be called Switchboard, he was starting at the organization. Knowing my love of writing and reflection, Ian thought I would be a natural. Several years and well over a thousand blog posts later, I suppose he has been proven right. I have been flattered that my articles have proven popular with readers, and flattered further that several other websites now publish my work regularly. I didn’t begin with that ambition; I just had things I wanted to say, discoveries I wanted to share, questions I wanted to raise. Ian’s site became my medium, and I still haven’t run out of ideas for it.
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Many of the essays and themes in People Habitat were born on Switchboard. A thousand-plus pieces of writing have given me a lot of raw material and quite a chance to consider and refine ideas about the places where we live, work, and play. A reader of my blog will recognize some of the subject matter, brought up to date and in many cases combined and expanded in what I hope are fresh ways. Regulars may also recognize in the writing some of my architect, planner, and environmental friends, from whom I am constantly learning and whose ideas I mention often. I love sharing their insights. In borrowing from the blog, I attempted to choose topics with lasting resonance. (It is important to distinguish my work on this book with that of my principal employer. Throughout the period during which I wrote this book, I was employed by the Natural Resources Defense Council in its Washington, DC office. NRDC is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Beijing. I wrote the book on my own time, however; NRDC’s staff and resources were not involved in its concept or review in any way. The opinions expressed in the book are mine and mine alone.)
Sales Information Sheet Chasing Water A Guide for Moving from Scarcity to Sustainability
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 6/3/2014
Brian Richter Hardcover: Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-536-6 978-1-61091-538-0 978-1-61091-537-3
$50.00 $25.00 $24.99
SCIENCE / Environmental Science Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 208 22 black and white figures, 4 black and white halftones, 6 tables Author Residence: Crozet, Virginia Comparative Titles: • Water Resources, Shimon Anisfeld. ISBN: 978-1-59726-495-2, Paperback, Aug. 2010, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 355, Warehouse: 1582. • Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It, Robert Glennon. ISBN: 978-1-59726-816-5, Hardcover, May 2009, $27.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 2413, Warehouse: 10548. • Balancing Water for Humans and Nature: The New Approach in Ecohydrology, Malin Falkenmark and Johan Rockstrom. ISBN: 978-1-85383-927-6, Paperback, July 2004, $45.95, Routledge. Bookscan: 145. Previous Works: • Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature, Sandra Postel and Brian Richter. ISBN: 978-1-55963-444-1, Paperback, Oct. 2003, $25.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 1771, Warehouse: 6611. Sales Handle International water expert Brian Richter provides practical tools and inspiration to empower local action in the face of an approaching global water crisis Description Water scarcity is spreading and intensifying in many regions of the world, with dire consequences for local communities, economies, and freshwater ecosystems. Current approaches tend to rely on policies crafted at the state or national level, which on their own have proved insufficient to arrest water scarcity. To be durable and effective, water plans must be informed by the culture, economics, and varied needs of affected community members. International water expert Brian Richter argues that sustainable water sharing in the twenty-first century can only happen through open, democratic dialogue and local collective action. In Chasing Water, Richter tells a cohesive and complete story of water scarcity: where it is happening, what is causing it, and how it can be addressed. Through his engaging and nontechnical style, he strips away the complexities of water management to its bare essentials, providing information and practical examples that will empower community leaders, activists, and students to develop successful and long-lasting water programs. Chasing Water will provide local stakeholders with the tools and knowledge they need to take an active role in the watershed-based planning and implementation that are essential for water supplies to remain sustainable in perpetuity. Selling Points • An accessibly written, user-friendly primer on water scarcity around the globe by a leader in river science conservation who has spent more than two decades promoting sustainable water use and management and advising some of the world’s largest corporations and investment banks on water issues. • An honest look at how wasteful use and mismanagement of water by humans are causing water scarcity, but tempered by the good news that affordable solutions are readily available and can be implemented on a local scale by citizens committed to sensible water planning and management.
Author Bio A global leader in river science and conservation for more than twenty-five years, Brian Richter is Director of Global Freshwater Strategies for The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization, where he promotes sustainable water use and management with governments, corporations, and local communities. Brian has consulted on more than 120 water projects worldwide and serves as a water advisor to some of the world’s largest corporations, investment banks, and the United Nations. He is coauthor, with Sandra Postel, of Rivers for Life: Managing Water for Humans and Nature. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1: Running Out of Water Chapter 2: Taking Stock of our Water Budgets Chapter 3: Options for Resolving Water Bankruptcy Chapter 4: Who is Responsible for Water? Chapter 5: Seven Principles for Sustainability Chapter 6: Bringing Power to the People Chapter 7: How to Survive a Water Crisis: Murray-Darling Basin, Australia Chapter 8: Chasing Hope Acknowledgments About the Author Index
Chapter One Running Out of Water In March 1934, Benjamin Baker Moeur, then-governor of the state of Arizona in the U.S., became extremely agitated upon hearing that the neighboring state of California was preparing to build a dam on the Colorado River to deliver more water to growing cities in southern California. The river, which in its lower reaches forms the border between California and Arizona, had recently shriveled to a fifth of its normal water flow after five years of parching drought across the western part of the country. Moeur had not been advised of any plans to build a dam on the lower Colorado, but he worried that California was going to take more than its fair share of a river that was already showing signs of strain. Upon hearing the news of the dam’s construction, the governor immediately sent six members of the Arizona National Guard to investigate. They traveled upriver from Yuma aboard a ramshackle ferry boat named the Nellie Jo, newly christened as the “Arizona Navy” for its reconnaissance mission. In an escapade reminiscent of the Three Stooges comedies that began appearing in movie theaters that same year, the Nellie Jo ran aground on a sandbar just below the dam construction site and the guardsmen had to be rescued by construction workers. The guardsmen continued to monitor the dam work for seven months, sending daily dispatches to the governor by radio. When the guardsmen reported that construction activities had finally touched upon Arizona’s shore, Moeur became incensed. He invoked martial law, issued a proclamation to “Repel an Invasion,” and sent out a hundred-man militia unit in eighteen trucks, some with mounted machine guns, to halt construction. 1 Another 17 truckloads of troops were prepared to head upriver in a ferry boat flotilla when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes stepped in, asking Moeur to back down and pacifying him with assurances that all dam construction would be stopped until the dispute could be settled. But Ickes was livid over Moeur’s aggressive actions, and he retaliated by suing Arizona in the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the state from interfering with the construction of Parker Dam. After all, he reasoned, California’s right to divert water from the Colorado had been explicitly authorized by Congress in 1922 through the Colorado River Compact, also known as the “Law 1
of the River,” which allocated portions of the river to each of the seven states through which the river flows. Much to Ickes’ surprise, the Supreme Court ruled in Arizona’s favor. The Court noted that Parker Dam, to be built by a federal water agency, had never been authorized by the U.S. Congress, and Arizona had not yet signed the Colorado River Compact because it disagreed with the small amount of water it was being given through the compact. Eventually, Moeur dropped his opposition to Parker Dam in exchange for a commitment from Ickes to provide federal funding for substantially expanding irrigation projects in Arizona with water from the Colorado. Arizona subsequently signed the Colorado River Compact in 1944. The drought of the 1930s came and went, but water development projects sanctioned in that decade fixed the fate of the Colorado River for the century that would follow (Figure 1-1). Hoover Dam, when completed in 1936, became the largest dam in the world at the time. Parker Dam was finally completed in 1938. A Colorado River Aqueduct built in 1939 connected the reservoir created by Parker Dam with city taps in southern California. Other canals sent enormous volumes of water to irrigation projects in California’s Imperial Valley and the Gila Valley of Arizona. [Figure 1-1 here] The increasingly heavy use of the Colorado’s water over the past 80 years has created a highly precarious and contentious situation for all that depend on the river today. Phillip Fradkin, writing in his book A River No More, described the Colorado as “the most used, most dramatic, and most highly litigated and politicized river in this country.” The interstate water compact of 1922 set the stage for a litigious drama that continues to this day. That agreement, which sliced the Colorado’s water pie into seven pieces for the states sharing the river, was based on an estimate that the river carried 17.5 million acre-feet 2 (21.6 billion cubic meters) of water each year on average. The Compact allocated 15 million acre-feet (18.5 billion cubic meters) among the seven states, half of it going to the states sharing the upper river, and the other half to the downstream states. In hindsight, it is easy to see that there were defects in the architecture of the compact. Granting rights to consume more than 85% of the river’s average flow was a recipe for disaster from the beginning: What would happen in years when the river carried less than the average 2
volume? What about Mexico’s needs, where the river emptied into the Gulf of California, nourishing fisheries and watering delta farms along the way? The compact acknowledged the need to negotiate water sharing with Mexico in the future, but did its authors really think that leaving just a trickle of water to its downstream neighbor would be a fair bargain? To make matters worse, we now know that the engineers of the day had overestimated the river’s average water bounty when the compact was drafted. The period used as the basis for calculating the average flow of the river—1905 to 1922—included periods of abnormally high rainfall. Recent scientific assessments based on a much longer period of measurements now place the river’s average flow at least 15% lower, somewhere between 14.3 and 15 million acrefeet (17.6 to 18.5 billion cubic meters), and climate scientists now caution that the river is headed for even drier times. 3 The bottom line: The river was over-allocated from the very beginning. Those that depend on the Colorado River are still living with the consequences of a 1920s compact based on wrong data and exclusively utilitarian objectives. The sterile accounting of cubic meters of water does not begin to describe the social strain and economic pain experienced by the river’s dependents when the river performs below average. During the recent drought of 1999-2003, electricity generation from the big hydropower dams on the river dropped by more than 20%, sending a shock wave through electricity bills across the southwestern U.S. 4 Farmers watched their irrigation canals run dry and their crops wither. Lowered water levels in Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by Hoover Dam, left boat marinas high and dry, leading to 900,000 fewer tourist visits and lost revenues of $28 million, along with a loss of 680 jobs in the area. 5 The most telling measure of the compact’s failings is the fact that the river today runs completely dry before reaching the sea – not just in dry years, but in virtually every year. Many would assert that fully consuming a river’s water is our manifest destiny, or the logical conclusion of using a precious resource to its fullest potential. But others see much more than cubic meters and kilowatts in a river. In describing the Colorado River Compact in a Los Angeles Times editorial in 2012, water scientist and author Sandra Postel lamented that “All seven U.S. states in the basin were represented, but two voices were missing. One was that of Mexico. The other was the river itself.” With every available crumb of the Colorado’s water pie being consumed, the river has lost much of its once-legendary ecological richness. In the river’s delta, a place that the great 3
American conservationist Aldo Leopold once called a “wilderness of milk and honey,” punctuated with deep green lagoons and marshes full of waterfowl and fish, only a sunbaked, salt-caked barren wasteland remains. As the river ran dry, fisheries in the delta and the Gulf of California in Mexico were decimated, including a large population of totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), a fish that can grow to more than 100 kilograms (250 pounds). Any visitor to the desiccated delta today would find it very difficult to envision a behemoth fish like the totoaba swimming there. It would be like trying to imagine life on other planets. The over-allocated river has spawned social inequity as well. For more than a thousand years, an indigenous tribe of Cucapa’ – the “people of the river” – has relied on fishing and subsistence farming in the delta. When the river compact was being negotiated in 1922, no messenger was sent to the delta to invite the Cucapa´ to the bargaining table. When Mexico in 1944 wrestled with the U.S. for rights to the last of the river’s dregs, Mexican officials were seeking water to grow asparagus and cotton in Mexicali, not fish or melons to feed the Cucapa´. The river’s natural bounty once supported more than 6,000 Cucapa’. Fewer than 600 remain. 6 History has in many ways validated Governor Moeur’s anxieties of nearly a century ago: There are limits to what a river can give, and great care must be given to judgments about sharing water because those decisions can bind like a knot and become difficult to untie. As the states sharing the river continue to negotiate its future, they should ask a question never asked as the Colorado River Compact was being negotiated 90 years ago: Do we really want to take it all? We possess the means to wring every last drop from the planet’s rivers and lakes, or to suck its aquifers dry, but is that what we want to do? Or do we instead want to leave some water alone, enough to sustain the biological engines of our planet, or to serve as a hedge against dry times and an uncertain future, or simply to irrigate our souls with the intrinsic beauty of flowing water? Can a river still be a river when the water is all gone? [Figure 1-2 here] Those questions are now increasingly being asked and answered for depleted rivers, lakes, and aquifers around the world. Australia’s Minister of Water, Tony Burke, put it this way in explaining the goals of the 2012 Basin Plan for the Murray-Darling system: “Everybody needs to have healthy rivers. No one wins when our rivers die. And what’s been happening for a long time now is that we’ve pulled so much water out of the rivers that they’re living as though it’s drought, ages before any drought actually arrives.” 7 4
When rivers and other freshwater ecosystems are maintained in healthy ecological condition, they provide myriad benefits and services to society. Natural vegetation such as floodplain forests and wetlands slow the flow of water, reducing its destructive force. As the water slows it is cleansed by biological processes and can recharge groundwater aquifers. The fresh water moving through a river ecosystem to coastal areas maintains proper salt balances and carries nutrients to estuaries, enabling fish, shellfish, and other animals to breed and grow. The sediment carried by rivers forms and replenishes coastal beaches and barrier islands that buffer the shoreline against ocean storms. Nature does this invaluable work for free, but only if we leave enough water to nature to allow it to function properly. We did not adequately understand these natural processes and their importance to our well-being in 1922 when the entirety of the Colorado River was allocated for human use, nor have these natural ecosystem services been adequately considered as so many other rivers, lakes, and aquifers have been depleted. Scientists are now much better able to quantify how much water must be left to sustain nature’s health. Fortunately, consideration of those ecosystem needs is finally beginning to appear in water-sharing plans and agreements around the world. 8
A Lifetime of Worrying Over Water Colorado River water ran through my own veins for the first two decades of my life, which I suspect left me imprinted with an awareness of water scarcity. My father became smitten with San Diego while spending four years there during his service in the U.S. Navy in the early 1950s. When he left the Navy in 1955 he went back home to Texas, married my mother, drove her to San Diego on their honeymoon, and then welcomed me into the world a year later. My parents had escaped Texas in the nick of time. The worst drought in history was wracking the state, killing hundreds of thousands of cows and leaving stunted corn rotting in the fields. That drought drove half of all Texas ranchers and farmers into bankruptcy, and the rest into near-madness. My family rode the wave of optimism and population growth in San Diego that was unleashed by the re-directed flow of Colorado River water into southern California in the 1940s. The city grew by a half million new residents by my tenth birthday, severely straining the limits of the city’s entitlement to the Colorado’s water. A drought during my teenage years inspired a popular bumper sticker slogan urging us to “Save Water - Shower with a Friend.” The state of California eased its water strain by building the State Water Project in 1978, reaching 800 5
kilometers into northern California’s rivers to bring water to southern coastal cities. By the time I left for graduate school in the 1980s, San Diego was importing 95% of its water supply from far-distant rivers. The city has never stopped looking for more water. I have never stopped thinking about droughts and water shortages. I remember in high school pondering the thought that if I were to become a water expert, I would have job security for life. I have spent the past 25 years on that path through my work with The Nature Conservancy, which has provided me the opportunity to travel the world working on water solutions to benefit people and nature. I have witnessed firsthand the consequences of water shortages, providing some insight. Throughout those years and travels, I kept asking the same questions I first asked when I was learning of the Colorado River’s limits: •
Who was experiencing water shortages, and where?
•
What happens to people and other species when water shortages occur?
•
Why do communities and countries run short on water?
•
Is there some way to avoid shortages, or overcome them once afflicted?
In this book, I will share some of what I have learned and offer my own evolving answers to these questions. In the remainder of this chapter, I will provide an overview of the places where water scarcity is happening and begin describing the impacts of water shortages around the world. That will leave the remainder of the book to explain what causes water shortages and what we might do about them.
Water Scarcity in the World In 1985, Boutros Boutros Ghali – who would become Secretary-General of the United Nations seven years later – warned that “the next war in the Middle East will be fought over water, not politics.” It was a warning shot heard around the world, leaving many countries to ponder their own water futures. More recent water warnings have not been limited to the Middle East. Kofi Annan, Ghali’s successor at the U.N., cautioned in 2001 that “Fierce competition for fresh water may well become a source for conflict and wars in the future.” He was in turn succeeded at the U.N. by Ban Ki-moon, who expressed concern in 2008 that “many conflicts around the world are being fuelled or exacerbated by water shortages.” In 2013, Ban Ki-Moon went a step further, warning that the world was on course to run out of fresh water unless greater efforts were made to secure water supplies.
6
The 1934 conflagration over Parker Dam on the Colorado River marked the last time in U.S. history that a state took up arms against another state, but not the last water fight to take place beyond the U.S. In fact, as suggested by the U.N.’s repeated cautionary warnings, water conflicts have grown in number around the world and intensified over time as water supplies have become increasingly strained. Aaron Wolf and his colleagues at Oregon State University have been carefully documenting the history of water skirmishes around the world. Aaron points out that the last true all-out water war among nations took place more than 4,500 years ago, between the citystates of Umma and Lagash in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin, in the area of present-day Iraq. However, the absence of outright military action belies the potency of water scarcity as an undercurrent in political conflict and social unrest. The six-day war in the Middle East in 1967, for example, was in part sparked from tension over a Syrian project to divert the Jordan River, and water remains a divisive issue between Israel and its neighbors to this day. Because of longrunning contention and lack of coordinated management of the Jordan River, it has shriveled to a fraction of its original size, and the water level in the Dead Sea – into which the river flows – has been dropping by more than a meter each year. This drying of precious water sources, including heavy depletion of the region’s aquifers, greatly exacerbates political tension in the area. Water itself has been used as a weapon. In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein punished the Marsh Arabs, who are Shi’a Muslims, in southern Iraq for their insurrection against his regime by using dams to shut off the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers into the Mesopotamian Marshes. The marshes, once the third-largest wetland area in the world, have been occupied for more than 5,000 years. But without adequate water flow they quickly withered to a tiny fraction of their original size. The Marsh Arabs, whose population was estimated at 250,000 in 1991, dropped precipitously to less than 40,000 when they were forced to leave their ancestral home. 9 Much more recently, in October 2012, more than 5,000 farmers and activists from the state of Karnataka in India attempted to seize control of the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam on the Cauvery River, in an effort to shut off water releases to the downstream state of Tamil Nadu. Unlike Saddam Hussein’s intentions, the people of Karnataka were not doing this to punish their downstream neighbors, although more than 120 years of dispute over the Cauvery’s water has certainly brewed a good deal of hatred between these Indian states. Instead, they were acting out 7
of desperation. During droughts such as that in 2012, there simply is not enough water in the Cauvery to irrigate their farms. To them, water hoarding is the only alternative to going broke or starving to death. In the past couple of decades, I have listened to many heated debates among neighbors, communities, and countries over water shortages. I have seen the tension, hostility, and suffering that comes with water scarcity, as well as its devastating impacts on wildlife and ecosystem functioning, from the Klamath River in Oregon to the Apalachicola River that flows through Georgia, Alabama and Florida in the U.S.; from the Tana River in Kenya to the Zambezi River in Mozambique; from the Yaqui River in Mexico to the Yangtze River in China. In my own hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, a severe drought in 2002 nearly drained the community’s water supply, falsifying the long-held belief that water shortages threatened only the western half of our country. The more I learned about these places and conflicts, the more I wanted to dive deeper into understanding the incidence and spread of water scarcity across the globe. I wanted to better understand how water was being used in those places, what had led to shortages, and what could be done to resolve conflicts in water-strapped places. I began working with Martina Flörke at the University of Kassel in Germany and Kate Brauman at the University of Minnesota to develop some new global maps of water scarcity. Martina has been a key contributor to the development of a global hydrology model called “WaterGAP.” She is one of a growing number of researchers around the world who are developing computer models to assess the status of our planet’s water sources. Most of the global water modeling groups are based in academic institutions such as the University of Kassel and University of Frankfurt in Germany, Utrecht University and the University of Twente in the Netherlands, or at the City College of New York. Using supercomputers to perform the millions of calculations in their models, these global water modelers use the best-available estimates of rainfall, snowfall, evaporation, water use, and many other factors to gain an understanding of water conditions around the globe. They calibrate their models by comparing their model results with on-the-ground data collected in tens of thousands of monitoring stations where river flow or groundwater levels are being measured. They have recently even begun to use water measurements taken from satellites that provide estimates of changes in the water volumes of lakes, glaciers, ice caps, and aquifers. 10 8
While many different approaches and indicators have been used to characterize or quantify water scarcity, Martina, Kate, and I came up with a very simple “water depletion” index that we use to depict the water scarcity status of each water basin. 11 Using outputs from the WaterGAP model, we have estimated how much of the average water flow is left in more than 11,000 water basins after being used in cities, industries, and farms. We then compared that remaining volume of water against the volume that we would expect to find if nobody was using the water. In essence, we were trying to depict how much water – on a percentage basis – is regularly being depleted from each water source by human use. The map in Figure 1-3 is one product of our efforts. [Figure 1-3 here]
We developed this index of water depletion because it is clear to us, as so well illustrated by the Colorado River, that as local water sources are increasingly depleted, the vulnerability of local communities and aquatic ecosystems to severe impacts from water shortages goes up accordingly. Our assessment has revealed that – unlike the Colorado River – few places are experiencing water shortages on a continual basis. Instead, water shortages tend to be episodic in nature, emerging during dry seasons or during droughts. It can be very difficult or expensive for entire communities of water users to reduce their consumption quickly, or to a large degree, during a dry period. For that reason, when water users get into the habit of consuming a large portion of a water source’s yield on a regular basis, they are poised for disaster when those dry periods eventually arrive. This vulnerability to episodic water shortages can be illustrated with the Brazos River in Texas. Figure 1-4 illustrates the degree to which the river was depleted during each month over a typical two-year period. On average, about half of the Brazos is depleted, but heavy use of the river causes it to dry to very low levels in months or seasons lacking rainfall, placing all water users in jeopardy. One of those users is Dow Chemical’s manufacturing plant in Freeport, Texas, located near the river’s mouth. In November 2012, fearing that its plant – one of the largest chemical manufacturing plants in the world with more than 8,000 employees – would run out of water if drought conditions persisted, the company petitioned the state to shut off all water users with lower-priority water rights to ensure that the company’s water entitlement would be satisfied. Because such an action would have left more than 700 farmers without water, the Texas Farm 9
Bureau quickly filed a lawsuit against the state to prevent the cutoffs. 12 Fortunately, the tension was relieved in early 2013 as rainfall refreshed the river’s flow, but without substantial reduction in water use along the Brazos, this reprieve is likely to be only a temporary one. [Figure 1-4 here]
Our map in Figure 1-3 illustrates the fact that water scarcity is not happening everywhere. We found that less than one-quarter of all water sources are experiencing some months with water depletions of more than 50%. Of great concern, however, is the fact that half of the world’s cities with populations greater than 100,000 are situated in those water-stressed places. Many of those cities are having great difficulty in securing the water supplies needed to support their growing populations. The hotspots on our map correspond to rivers that are regularly drying up completely, such as the Yellow and Tarim rivers of China, the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers of the U.S., the Indus of Pakistan, and the Murray-Darling of Australia. Other water-scarcity hotspots include the depleted High Plains Aquifer in the U.S., the North Arabian Aquifer of Saudi Arabia, and the desiccated Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Table 1-1 provides a list of some of the most depleted water sources according to our estimates. We have also documented how the water is used in water-scarce places; more than 90% of all water depletions go to irrigated agriculture. [Table 1-1 here]
The Pain of Water Scarcity The World Economic Forum has now placed water supply crises near the top of its list of global risks on the basis of potential impact and probability. 13 Abundant evidence of water hardship can be found by searching the internet for water news related to any of the water sources listed in Table 1-1. Together with my students at the University of Virginia, I have been compiling a global database of the economic and other impacts caused by water shortages. 14 Whenever we find a news article, journal paper or website that discusses the impacts of water shortages somewhere in the world, we make note of it in our database. Similarly, Aaron Wolf and his colleagues at Oregon State University have been building a “Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database” 15 to identify places where water conflicts have erupted or where they are being resolved, such as through water treaties among countries that share the same river or aquifer. 10
Some generalities can be drawn from the many case histories of water scarcity accumulating around the world: The economic impacts of running out of water can be devastating. The state of Texas lost nearly $9 billion dollars of revenue during a drought in 2011, with much of that loss on farms that could not be irrigated due to water shortages. China loses $15 billion each year due to groundwater depletion, and another $24 billion in lost water availability due to pollution. 16 The cost of securing additional water can be very expensive. When communities exhaust their local water sources, additional water will have to be obtained from elsewhere. A pipeline might need to be built to bring in water from other places, or a desalination plant might need to be constructed so that seawater or brackish (salty) groundwater can be turned into fresh water. These options come with heavy upfront construction costs and hefty, never-ending electricity costs for pumping and treating the water. Water shortages impair the functioning of both grey (manmade) and green (natural) infrastructure systems. Power plants and hydropower dams cannot operate at full capacity, river navigation and barge transport comes to a halt, rivers can no longer sufficiently dilute and assimilate the wastes they receive, and estuaries stop producing fish and shellfish because there is not enough freshwater inflow to maintain proper salt concentrations. Water depletion is a major cause of aquatic species imperilment. 17 Human lives and livelihoods are compromised. Water shortages can be deadly for many poor people living in developing regions of the world that cannot readily access clean drinking water supplies. When local water sources are dried up or polluted, many – usually women and children – are forced to walk long distances to reach other water, taking a heavy toll on their health and their ability to participate in other chores or go to school. The declining ability of many poor families to grow their own food due to water shortages is leading to mass outmigration in many water-scarce regions. In the worst cases it is leading to bankruptcy, divorce, suicide, and fractured communities. The quality of our lives is diminished. Everything that we value in flowing or ponded water, including recreating in it, relishing its aesthetic qualities, observing the other species it supports, and worshiping it through spiritual practice is lost when a river or lake dries up.
Learning from the Past to Build a Better Water Future 11
The calamity of water scarcity in the Colorado River can in part be blamed on a lack of accurate information – the data available to scientists at the time when the Colorado’s waters were allocated among the states were inadequate for understanding the variable nature of the river’s water bounty. Today, we are much better able to estimate and understand how much water may be available in our water sources during average years, dry years, and wet years. The question is, will we use that information to better manage water in a way that sustains what we value and gives us what we need, and enables us to better avoid the perils of scarcity? Hundreds of books and thousands of technical papers have been written on the subject of water management, and yet so many communities continue to crash into the wall of scarcity. We urgently need to design, experiment with, and give life to some fundamentally new forms of water democracy. The 20th century taught us that top-down, state-run technocracies are simply not willing or capable of properly allocating, monitoring, and governing water in a way that would forestall scarcity. To avert scarcity going forward, I believe that we will need to enable and empower more localized decision-making and management processes that can be “rightsized” to the particular needs, uses, economics, and cultures associated with the sharing of water sources. Ultimately, effective water management will require both technical capacity and appropriate engagement of water users and other local interests. Empowering local communities of water users will require that we overcome pervasive water illiteracy. The stark reality is that most people alive today could not begin to sketch the global water cycle, do not know how the water sources they depend upon are being used and by whom, and do not even know where their water comes from. Lacking such knowledge, they cannot possibly contribute to any sort of citizen-centered water democracy in any meaningful and productive way. The World Economic Forum, in its global assessment of water scarcity, put it this way: “We are now on the verge of water bankruptcy in many places with no way of paying the debt back.” This allusion to financial accounts is quite apt. As discussed in the next chapter, solving the problem of water shortages begins by learning how to balance our water budgets.
1
Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water (New York: Penguin, 1993) 12
2
One acre-foot of water is the volume of water required to inundate one acre of land to a depth of one foot. 3 A recent summary of climate studies for the Colorado River Basin is available in the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study (Denver: US Bureau of Reclamation, 2012) 4 Sally Adee and Samuel K. Moore, May 28, 2010, “In the American Southwest, the Energy Problem Is Water,” IEEE Spectrum, http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/in-the-american-southwest-theenergy-problem-is-water/1 5 Barbara Morehouse, George Frisvold, Rosalind Bark-Hodgins, “How Can Tourism Research Benefit from Multi-disciplinary Assessments of Climate Change? Lessons from the US Southwest,” in Developments in Tourism Climatology, eds. Andreas Matzarakis, Christopher der Freitas and Daniel Scott (Freiburg: International Society of Biometeorology, 2007), 274-281. 6 Mark K. Briggs and Steve Cornelius, “Opportunities for Ecological Improvement Along the Lower Colorado River and Delta,” Wetlands 18(1998): 513-529. 7 “Murray-Darling Basin Plan,” video posted by Tony Burke, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, December 6, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wumfo3AJ57c 8 See for example Sandra Postel and Brian Richter, Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature (Washington DC: Island Press, 2003). 9 Joanne Yao, “Iraq’s First National Park: A Story of Destruction and Restoration in the Mesopotamian Marshlands,” Circle of Blue, September 4, 2013, http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2013/world/iraqs-first-national-park-a-story-of-destructionand-restoration-in-the-mesopotamian-marshlands/ 10 Jay Famiglietti, “Global Water Mass: GRACE Satellite Monthly Data 2002-11,” accessed September 28, 2013, http://www.visualizing.org/datasets/global-water-mass-grace-satellite-monthly-data-2002-11 11 In this book I use the term “watershed” to refer to the area of land draining to a specific point, such as a lake or a point along a river, as described more fully in Chapter Two. Other commonly-used equivalents include “catchment” or “river basin.” 12 Asher Price, “Farmers Battle State Environmental Agency in Brazos River Basin Dispute,” Austin American-Statesman, December 26, 2012, accessed September 28, 2013, http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional/farmers-battle-state-environmental-agency-inbrazo/nTf9w/ 13 World Economic Forum, “Global Risks 2012,” Geneva. 14 “Examples of the Impacts of Water Shortages,” last updated April 29, 2013, http://www.conservationgateway.org/Files/Pages/examples-economic-impacts.aspx 15 “The Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database,” accessed on September 28, 2013, http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/database/DatabaseIntro.html 16 The World Bank and State Environmental Protection Administration of China, Cost of Pollution in China: Economic Estimates of Physical Damages (Washington DC: The World Bank, 2007). 17 Sandra Postel and Brian Richter, Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature (Washington DC: Island Press, 2003).
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Sales Information Sheet Blue Urbanism Exploring Connections Between Cities and Oceans
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 7/8/2014
Timothy Beatley Hardcover: Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-404-8 978-1-61091-405-5 978-1-61091-564-9
$55.00 $25.00 $24.99
ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning NATURE / Oceans & Seas Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 184 45 images Author Residence: Charlottesville, Virginia Comparative Titles: • The World is Blue, Sylvia Earle. ISBN: 978-1-4262-0639-9, Paperback, Oct. 2010, $12.00, National Geographic. Bookscan: 3430. • The Ocean of Life, Callum Roberts. ISBN: 978-0-670023547, Hardcover, May 2012, $30.00, Viking Adult. Bookscan: 2715. • Local Climate Action Planning, Michael R. Boswell, Adrienne I. Greve, and Tammy L. Seale. ISBN: 978-1-59726-962-9, Paperback, Nov. 2011, $37.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 149, Warehouse: 610. • Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems, Peter Newman and Isabella Jennings. ISBN: 978-1-59726-188-3, Paperback, Jan. 2008, $35.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 1304, Warehouse: 4949. Previous Works: • Green Cities of Europe, Timothy Beatley. ISBN: 978-1-59726-975-9, Paperback, May 2012, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 171, Warehouse: 749. • Biophilic Cities, Timothy Beatley. ISBN: 978-1-59726-715-1, Paperback, Oct. 2010, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 671, Warehouse: 2436. • Planning for Coastal Resilience, Timothy Beatley. ISBN: 978-1-59726-562-1, Paperback, June 2009, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 447, Warehouse: 1077. Sales Handle How can we integrate ocean health into our urban planning and policies to become better stewards of the oceans? Description What would it mean to live in cities designed to foster feelings of connectedness to the ocean? As coastal cities begin planning for climate change and rising sea levels, author Timothy Beatley sees opportunities for rethinking the relationship between urban development and the ocean. Modern society is more dependent upon ocean resources than people are commonly aware of—from oil and gas extraction to wind energy, to the vast amounts of fish harvested globally, to medicinal compounds derived from sea creatures, and more. In Blue Urbanism, Beatley argues that, given all we’ve gained from the sea, city policies, plans, and daily urban life should acknowledge and support a healthy ocean environment. The book explores issues ranging from urban design and land use, to resource extraction and renewable energy, to educating urbanites about the wonders of marine life. Beatley looks at how emerging practices like “community supported fisheries” and aquaponics can provide a sustainable alternative to industrial fishing practices. Other chapters delve into incentives for increasing use of wind and tidal energy as renewable options to oil and gas extraction that damages ocean life, and how the shipping industry is becoming more “green.” Additionally, urban citizens, he explains, have many opportunities to interact meaningfully with the ocean, from beach cleanups to helping scientists gather data. Ultimately, he explains that we must create a culture of “ocean literacy” using a variety of approaches, from building design and art installations that draw inspiration from marine forms, to encouraging citizen volunteerism related to oceans, to city-sponsored research, and support for new laws that protect marine health. Equal parts inspiration and practical advice for urban planners, ocean activists, and policymakers, Blue Urbanism offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and great potential for urban areas to integrate ocean health into their policy and planning goals.
Selling Points • Beatley's strong reputation as a leader in sustainable urbanism • Timely topic as coastal cities begin planning for effects of climate change and sea level rise • New approach to ocean conservation that draws on untapped potential of urban places and citizens • Examples from cities around the world, including Rotterdam, New York City, Perth, Singapore, Los Angeles, and Wellington, NZ Author Bio Timothy Beatley is Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for more than twenty-five years. He is the author of many books, including Biophilic Cities, Resilient Cities, and Green Urbanism, all published by Island Press. Table of Contents Preface: A New View of Cities on the Blue Planet Acknowledgments Chapter 1. The Urban-Ocean Connection Chapter 2. The Reach of Cities, Urban Lifestyles and Ocean Health Chapter 3. Satisfying Urban Fish Eaters Sustainably Chapter 4. Blue Urbanist Design Chapter 5. Reimagining Land Use and Parks in the Blue City Chapter 6. Towards an Ocean Literacy Chapter 7. Building New Connections between Oceans and Cities Chapter 8. Forging a Blue Urban Future Notes Index
Chapter 1: The Urban-Ocean Connection Our urban future and ocean world are intimately intertwined in numerous ways. The ecological services provided by a healthy ocean are immense—from maintaining the weather patterns that have given rise to our modern civilization to the oxygen-producing effects of life in the sea to carbon sequestration benefits. All cities, no matter how close or distant from an ocean, receive benefits from marine resources. The world’s oceans are a major carbon sink, soaking up an estimated 2 billion metric tons of CO2 per year, likely delaying the severity of weather-related climate change. Food from the sea—fish, mollusk, and plant—is a significant source of sustenance and protein for most of the world’s population. Much of our modern societal development draws on ocean resources, from goods moved along shipping channels to deposits of oil under the ocean floor. As oceanographer and ocean explorer Sylvia Earle eloquently explains, oceans are key to everything: “The ocean drives climate and weather, regulates temperature, holds 97 percent of Earth’s water, and embraces 97 percent of the biosphere. Far and away the greatest abundance and diversity of life occurs in the ocean, occupying liquid space from the sunlit surface to the greatest depths…” She continues, arguing that we all have an essential stake in healthy oceans: “Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.”
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There are many ways that urban consumption and production activities are dependent upon resources provided by ocean environments, sometimes directly, other times more indirectly. The pressures are many and multifaceted, often bordering on abstract because the supply chains and international treaties that incent exploitative behavior are far beyond the dayto-day activities of most of us. But to create Blue Urban cities, we must examine the current policy relationship between our oceans and cities, and the nascent alternatives to harmful practices.
Urban Sprawl: Urban Demands on Ocean Resources Our oceans provide plentiful resources, from food to oil to wind power. And yet, evidence indicates that most of the standard practices for extracting these resources are harming ocean health in significant ways. I call the incursions of modern urban life into the marine realm a form of “ocean sprawl”. Busy shipping lanes, development of wind farms, drilling rigs and industrial fishing boats— all impact the integrity of ocean ecosystems as they provide goods and services to humans. Arguably, oceans are the source of the natural resources that are the foundation of our modern lifestyles. There are increasingly intense direct pressures to extract resources from ocean beds, such as new proposals for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic. When we fill up the fuel tanks of our cars, we usually aren’t thinking about how dependence on oil-based transportation has real consequences for our oceans. For many of us watching the television during the summer of 2010, the images of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico were gut-wrenching. It was a visceral and painful reminder of how our oil-soaked and car-dependent lives and lifestyles severely and profoundly impact marine environments. And while there have
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been discussions about the adequacy of our regulatory system and the appropriate amount of offshore and deep sea drilling, as well as a recent settlement that imposed a $4.5 billion damage award on BP, little has actually changed. This reliance on fossil fuels has created perhaps the greatest threat to our oceans: climate change. Marine scientist Jeremy Jackson paints a discouraging picture of the changing chemistry, biology, and biophysical functioning of oceans that are rapidly heating-up, with a likely 3-4 degree Celsius increase in surface sea temperatures by the end of the century. Changes in global sea temperatures have already resulted in significant shifts in the distribution of marine species, and more will occur as species seek to adapt, if they can, to these temperature and habitat changes. 1 Ocean stratification, and reduced ocean mixing, will further contribute to the declining complexity and productivity of ocean ecosystems. The mixing of ocean water layers serves essential ecological and biological functions. In many parts of the ocean, for instance, nutrient upwelling (or the movement to the surface of nutrients otherwise trapped in lower layers) provides important food sources for species that form the bottom of the ocean’s food chain. The oceans have served as a “giant reservoir of carbon,� 2 likely reducing and moderating the impacts of our profligate fossil fuel use. The cost to oceans and ocean life has been high, as acidification of ocean waters has been (and continues to be) a death knell for coral reefs, and threatens to further disrupt essential marine food chains. Phytoplankton and other marine organisms form their shells from calcium carbonate, and as the pH of ocean waters decreases this becomes more difficult, as carbonate becomes less available. 3 . On a more optimistic note, the oceans may also represent our best hope for a more sustainable global future, as they hold great potential as a source of renewable production of energy that can ease our current fossil fuel dependence. Offshore wind production has many
3
advantages over land-based turbines, and there are now a number of offshore wind projects underway in US waters and around the world. The promise and potential of offshore wind is great indeed and the US Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America initiative estimates the US potential at some 4,150 GW, or some four times the nation’s current energy production 4 While many of these energy technologies and opportunities represent a positive trend toward more sustainable, lower-carbon models, they also create new pressures on off-shore marine environments (impacts on fish movement and habitat, for example) and must be designed and sited carefully to ensure impacts are minimal. The rise in global trade over the past half-century has increased our use of the ocean as a critical transportation zone as well. Immense levels of cargo ship traffic providing global transportation of everything from car parts to t-shirts to cell phones, have begun to pose a significant threat to whales, for example, which are maimed or killed when struck by huge transport vessels. Some progress has been made to reduce these whale fatalities, requiring modification of shipping lanes into and out of major port cities to minimize threats. Working together with the shipping industry, NOAA has recently established new shipping lanes and procedures (including a “real-time whale monitoring network”) for traffic into and out of the San Francisco Bay. 5 The impacts of shipping traffic on whale species can be severe, with a number of fatalities of blue whales, a species that seems especially vulnerable, reported in recent years along the California coast. 6 Finally, more people in the world get protein from fish than any other source. We harvest vast amounts of fish and seafood in ways that are profoundly unsustainable, and look increasingly like the industrial food production systems on land—short sighted, environmentally destructive, highly mechanized and subsidized. Most global fisheries are either at or beyond their
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productive capacity, yet over the last several decades the reach of global fishing fleets has been extreme and unforgiving. As the World Wildlife Fund reports, there has been a five-fold increase in the global fish catch in the last forty years or so, a function of ever larger and more destructive trawling, as well as other destructive fishing techniques such as purse seining and long lines, that exploit ever more distant parts of the ocean and depths. 7 New estimates (still conservative it should be noted) suggest that more than 70 million sharks are harvested annually for sharkfinning, wasteful and cruel, and with likely significant ecological implications.
The Long Reach of Polluted Waters Coastal cities have treated our oceans as garbage dumps and open sewers for centuries, believing they were too massive and expansive to be damaged or altered. Now science tells us otherwise. The accumulation of plastics in the ocean is one of the problems for which there is some popular awareness, and yet new studies indicate the effects are worse than we thought. Researchers at the University of California at Davis recently discovered that certain kinds of plastic, especially those made from polyethylene (plastic water bottles, plastic shopping bags), absorb large amounts of toxins from the water, compared with other plastics. Additionally, the study found that as the plastics degrade they adsorb even more toxics. 8 The research concludes that marine organisms thus face a “double threat� when they ingest plastics—if a turtle happens to survive eating a plastic bag it has mistaken for a jellyfish, for example, it may instead be slowly poisoned. [insert Figure 1-1 here] How to stop the polluting, how to staunch the flow of plastics to the ocean is a serious challenge, but one that urban policymakers are beginning to address with plastic bag bans and
5
fees. But cleaning up the existing trash is perhaps even more challenging. A research team in Australia recently concluded that if we were able to today completely stop the flow of plastics to ocean (a miraculous accomplishment) it would be 500 years before the ocean garbage patches— gyres—stopped growing in size. Closer to shore, the impacts are equal, if not more intense. Oceans have served as a major dumping grounds and liquid landfill for the discarded waste and detritus of urban life. Where would we put all of this waste if it couldn’t go directly into the sea? From plastics to municipal solid waste of various kinds, to untreated wastewater, we have designed our cities to take advantage of the vastness of the ocean, believing that we could deposit anything with impunity. But research shows this kind of uncensored disposal is greatly impacting ocean ecosystems. “In addition to plastic waste, land-source air pollution from urban areas is a significant problem for oceans. Coal-burning power plants to satisfy profligate urban energy demands sends large amounts of mercury into oceans, for instance, with its threats to both ocean life and human health, on the rise. A recently released United Nations Development Program report documents a doubling of mercury levels in the top 100 meters (300 feet) of ocean water over the last 100 years. 9 Industrial agriculture, which can occur thousands of miles from the coast, has begun to impact ocean health as excess nitrogen and phosphorus are washed downriver and poison estuaries, where rivers meet the ocean. The chemicals catalyze algal blooms that monopolize all of the available oxygen in the water and create “dead zones”, wiping out nearly all ocean life within the bloom. The dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico is the best known, but there are more than 400 dead zones worldwide, and the numbers are predicted to increase in the years to come.
6
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This has implications for human health in direct ways, since exposure to toxins released from
algal blooms can cause illness, or even death. 11
The Value of a Healthy Ocean The problem we find ourselves with is the longstanding “tragedy of the commons.� As with many things related to the natural environment, costs imposed on marine and ocean organisms and environments are external (externalized), largely hidden, and result from the cumulative impacts of many decisions and behaviors. Therefore it is quite difficult to change policies and behaviors that negatively impact our oceans because there isn’t one obvious cause and effect relationship, but many direct and indirect influences. And yet, there should be great incentive to study, understand, and change behaviors and policies that result in degraded ocean health. We know that the ecosystem functions provided by ocean carry a huge economic value. The Global Partnership for Oceans has nicely summarized much of this knowledge, including some important statistics: 350 million jobs globally are dependent on oceans and the annual trade in fish and seafood generates 108 billion dollars. The economic value of ecotourism related to coral reefs is alone some 9 billion dollars. 12 A key premise of Blue Urbanism is that there are large economic benefits from maintaining healthy oceans, large social, environmental and economic costs associated with diminishing ocean health, and future urban decisions should reflect and be guided by an understanding of these costs and benefits. Other industries you might not think of at first see great benefits from examining and studying marine life. Many drugs have been developed from compounds found in marine creatures. For example, well-known corals, sponges, and tunicates already provide components used in anti-cancer, anti-malarial, and anti-viral drugs 13. In the engineering sciences, studying
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ocean organisms can offer tremendous insights for materials development, propulsion studies, and regenerative design. From building design inspired by nautilus shells, to automated cars that are packed together and move like schools of fish, to swimsuit fabric that mimics shark-skin, we have learned much from studying ocean creatures. 14 At the Engineering School at the University of Virginia, researchers working on behalf of the US Navy have been developing a new underwater vehicle, attempting to replicate the highly efficient, graceful locomotion of manta rays. 15 Green, photosynthetic bacteria living deep in the ocean, some 2,400 meters (7,200 feet) under the surface of the Pacific, were recently discovered. They survive in such an inhospitable place by taking energy and nutrients from only a small amount of light and sulfur from hydrovents. This bacteria holds secrets for how life can occur in the most inhospitable environments, and perhaps it offer us insights into how to survive changes on our own planet, as well as helping us understand where to look for life on seemingly lifeless planets. 16
[Insert figure 1-2 here]
Changing Our Stewardship of Oceans The good news is that there are many places where great potential exists for positive, restorative interaction between urbanites and the sea. Many cities, from Boston to San Francisco to Miami are perched, on the edge of amazing ocean environments, offering tremendous potential for enhancing quality of life and forging meaningful contact with the ocean. We need to profoundly re-orient the perspectives of urban populations to develop the awareness and emotional connections, and harness the tremendous potential of cities and urban populations on behalf of ocean protection and conservation. Creating cities full of (terrestrial) nature and
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using energy and resources of all kinds sparingly remain important, but our efforts to create a sustainable society will fall short if we do not focus more attention on the marine and aquatic worlds. This means rethinking stewardship of and negative impacts on both the near-shore environments we are mostly familiar with as well as the open ocean and deep marine worlds that we are only beginning to understand, which lie far beyond the immediate surroundings of cities. Pride of place when it comes to residents of American cities rarely extends to include the marine world, but it should. In a recent interview, Brian Meux of the organization LA Waterkeeper, tells me about the Giant Kelp Forests just offshore from millions of residents of this sprawling city. Most don’t even know of the existence of this marine world, never mind being proud of it or wanting to take personal steps to care for or protect it. Brian tells me he hopes this will change: “My dream is that people here are as proud of our kelp forests as Hawaiians are of their coral reefs.” To expand this dream beyond LA to coastal cities around the world means we must nurture a love of the ocean environments around cities and urban centers. On a recent visit to Seattle I joined Janice Mathisen, who directs the Beach Naturalist program for the Seattle Aquarium, at Golden Gardens Park. The tide was out and a mysterious world was on display: exposed rocks and seaweed, a wondrous world of anemones, sea stars and moon snails. But most urbanites, if they even choose to visit and look at the tidal pools, lack the knowledge to identify what they see. Urban residents need some help in understanding this magical, nearby world, and here programs like the Beach Naturalists play an essential role. The program trains several hundred volunteer naturalists in the ecology and life found in the intertidal zone, and these volunteers patrol the city’s parks to help people understand more about life in the tidal pools.
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People are increasingly intrigued and curious about nature when given the chance to observe it directly and interact with wild creatures in a respectful way. From my research on biophilic cities, I have found that this is particularly the case for people living in highly urbanized environments. When given the chance, with the right combination of coaching and prodding, residents of urban areas can learn to see and appreciate the nature around them in ways that deliver important improvements in health and wellbeing and quality of life. [insert Figure 1-3 here]
Some cities are beginning to understand this important marine wildness, and its role in enhancing connectedness and quality of life. Wellington, New Zealand, a city surrounded by water, is actively cultivating its connections to the marine world. These efforts include a new marine reserve on one of its shores, a marine education center providing children and adults alike the chance to touch and see marine organisms, the world’s first marine bioblitz (engaging the citizens in the recording of marine diversity), and a powerful new vision of its “bluebelt,” a compliment to its historic and highly prized greenbelt system. Like Seattle, Wellington has abundant marine and coastal nature—many residents spend time scuba diving and snorkeling, boating, hiking along the city’s shoreline, and watching the summer phenomenon of manta rays and eagle rays that come into the harbor (and the orcas that follow them). It is true that in coastal cities especially there is immense “wildness” often just meters away, and engaging this ocean world can be fun, therapeutic, and provide great benefits to mental and physical health, as the experiences of cities like Wellington and Seattle demonstrate. Some of the good news described in this book are the many stories that show that, if given
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sufficient opportunity, urbanites do want to learn about and spend time in and around ocean environments. The charisma of ocean animals like sea turtles and whales, and the beauty of marine environments beyond their daily purview, can also foster feelings of stewardship and concern. [Insert Figure 1-4 here]
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Dorothee Herr and Grantily R. Galland, The Ocean and Climate Change: Tools and Guidelines for Action, IUCN Multilateral Office, found at: accap.uaf.edu/sites/resources/IUCN_OceanCC.pdf 2 Ibid, p.12. 3 For a more detailed discussion of this problem, see Ocean Acidification Network, “How will ocean acidification affect marine life?” found at: http://www.ocean-acidification.net/FAQeco.html#HowEco 4 “Progress Report: Seven US Offshore Wind Demonstration Projects,” www.renewableenergy.com. 5 “San Francisco Bay Whales: Feds To Reroute Ships for Marine protection,” Huff Post, San Francisco, July 13, 2012. 6 Peter Fimrite, “Ships in Blue Whales’ Feeding Grounds Pose Threat, San Francisco Chronicle, Septempber 6, 2011, found at: ww.sfgate.com/outdoors/article… 7 WWF, Living Planet Report 2012, p.84. 8 “Plastics and Chemicals They Absorb Pose a Double Threat to Marine Life,” UC Davis News and Information, January 15, 2012, found at: http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10453. 9 “UNEP Studies Show Rising Mercury Emissions in Developing Countries” January 9, 2013, found at: http://www.unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?DocumentID=2702&ArticleID=9366 10 Quirin Schiermeier, “Marine Dead Zones Set to Expand Rapidly,” Nature, November 14, 2008. 11 Dorthee Herr and Grantly R. Galland . IUCN Executive Summary, “The Ocean and Climate Change.” 2009. 12 Global Partnership for Oceans, found at http://www.globalpartnershipforoceans.org/oceans-our-living-resourceinfographic. 13 NOAA Stateof the Coast. http://stateofthecoast.noaa.gov/coral/coral_humanhealth.html 14 “Oceanic Biomimicry: 13 Designs Inspired by the Sea” found at: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2010/12/17/oceanic-biomimicry-13-designs-inspired-by-the-sea/ 15 The potential applications are many: “Due to the versatile and highly maneuverable design of rays, underwater autonomous vehicles based on this design could have potential industrial and military applications ranging from covert surveillance to long-term collection of data for scientists.” See “Ray-inspired underwater robot takes flight at the University of Virginia” found at: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/ray-inspired-underwater-robottakes-flight-at-the-university-of-virginia-video. 16 “Researchers find photosynthesis deep within ocean,” Arizona State University, June 25, 2005, found at: http://www.asu.edu/feature/includes/summer05/readmore/photosyn.html
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Sales Information Sheet Next Generation Infrastructure Principles for Post-Industrial Public Works
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 5/15/2014
Hillary Brown Hardcover: Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-59726-805-9 978-1-61091-181-8 978-1-61091-202-0
$65.00 $40.00 $39.99
ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning Trim Size: 7 X 10 Pages: 224 23 photographs, 7 figures, and 6 boxes Author Residence: New York, New York Comparative Titles: • Sustainable Infrastructure: The Guide to Green Engineering and Design, S. Bry Sarte. ISBN: 978-0-470-45361-2, Hardcover, Sept. 2010, $85.00, Wiley. Bookscan: 361. • The Hidden Potential of Sustainable Neighborhoods, Harrison Fraker. ISBN: 978-1-61091-408-6, Paperback, Sept. 2013, $40.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 33, Warehouse: 219. Previous Works: None. Sales Handle An innovative approach to designing multipurpose, networked infrastructure for greater resilience Description The 2007 bridge collapse in Minneapolis-St. Paul quickly became symbolic of the debilitated interstate highway system— and of what many critics see as America’s disinvestment in its infrastructure. The extreme vulnerability of single-purpose, aging infrastructure was highlighted once again when Hurricane Sandy churned its way across the northeast United States. Inundating New York City’s vital arteries, floodwaters overwhelmed tunnels and sewers; closed bridges; shut down mass transit; curtailed gas supplies; and destroyed streets, buildings, and whole neighborhoods. Next Generation Infrastructure takes a critical but ulimately hopeful look at how our infrastructure networks can be made more efficient, less environmentally damaging, and more resilient. Brown argues that, if we’re to chart a course for global sustainability, we must begin to design, regulate, and finance infrastructure that decouples carbon-intensive and ecologically harmful technologies from critical infrastructure systems, namely the essential systems for contemporary society: water, wastewater, power, solid waste, transportation, and communication. The book highlights hopeful examples from around the world, ranging from the Mount Poso cogeneration plant in California to urban rainwater harvesting in Seoul, South Korea, to the multi-purpose Marina Barrage project in Singapore. Brown encourages us to envision infrastructure within a larger economic, environmental, and social context, and to share resources across systems, reducing costs and extending benefits. This is a must read for professionals and students interested in a more resilient urban future including urban designers, architects, urban planners, urban policymakers, landscape architects, and engineers. Selling Points • Includes five key principles of next-generation infrastructure that provide a clear roadmap for improving our failing systems • Highlights global examples of successful multi-purpose, resilient, and low-carbon infrastructure projects • Infrastructure in the United States is in desperate need of repair and change, especially in light of a changing climate. In 2013, the system received a grade of D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author Bio Hillary Brown, FAIA, is Founding Principal of the firm New Civic Works and Professor at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. Previously, Brown served as Assistant Commissioner of the City of New York, where she was the founding director of New York’s Office of Sustainable Design. Brown led publication of the nationally recognized City of New York High Performance Building Guidelines and co-authored High Performance Infrastructure Guidelines. She has served on both the national and New York Chapter Board of Directors for the U.S. Green Building Council and is a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute and the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems. Table of Contents Foreword by David W. Orr Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction: Bold Endeavors Needed Chapter 2. Toward Infrastructural Ecologies: Interconnected, Multipurpose, and Synergistic Systems Chapter 3. Greening Heat and Power: An Integrated Approach to Decarbonizing Energy Chapter 4. Advancing Soft Path Water Infrastructure: Combined Constructed and Natural Systems Chapter 5. De-Stigmatizing Infrastructure: Design of Community – Friendly Facilities Chapter 6. Creating Resilient Coastlines and Waterways: Hard and Soft Constructions Chapter 7. Combating Water Stress and Scarcity: Augmented Sources and Improved Storage Chapter 8. Ways Forward: Think Systematically, Experiment Locally Notes Index
Chapter 1 Introduction: Bold Endeavors Needed
“There are sufficient resources to retrofit cities if we practice integrative infrastructure management. . . . if we begin to manage the city as if it really were a living ecosystem, which of course it is, or was, and should be.” Kenney Ausubel, Nature’s Operating Instructions: The True Biotechnologies
On August 1, 2007, four of the eight lanes of Minnesota’s 1-35W highway bridge were closed to accommodate roadbed repairs. Evening rush-hour traffic had been diverted into the four open lanes, creating an asymmetrical stress that compounded an underlying weakness in the bridge’s support system. When the center span collapsed, 17 of the 111 vehicles on the bridge were cast into the Mississippi River, 108 feet below, killing 13 people and injuring 145 (Figure 1-1). 1 [Figure 1-1 here] The I-35W tragedy quickly became symbolic of the debilitated state of a once-noble interstate highway system—and of what many critics see as America’s disinvestment in its infrastructure. But it also called attention to a broader problem: that a narrow focus on optimizing the parts of complex systems may undermine the sustainability of the whole. According to an evaluation conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the primary cause of the failure was the initial undersizing of the steel plates that joined critical members of the bridge’s steel truss system, compromising the bridge’s structural
redundancy, or ability to withstand extra stress. The NTSB highlighted four additional factors: additions to the bridge deck had increased the dead weight of the structure;2 safety inspectors, who tended to focus on corrosion and cracks, had failed to notice the slight bowing of the steel plates caused by structural stress—evident from photos;3 270 tons of repair-related loads, including raw materials, equipment, and personnel, had been positioned above the bridge’s weakest points just hours before the collapse; and traffic controllers had unwittingly added further stress on the structure. What the NTSB’s account does not address, however, is an increasingly common problem in the design and management of complex systems: the failure to see, and to appreciate the workings of the whole. In the case of the bridge collapse, any knowledge of problems that existed likely remained within each of the separate departments responsible for design, repair, inspection, maintenance, and operations. Thus, it might be argued that better information flow across “bureaucratic silos” might have had produced a different outcome, perhaps even preventing the tragedy. As Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins observe in Natural Capitalism, “optimizing components in isolation tends to pessimize the whole system. . . . You can actually make a system less efficient while making each of its parts more efficient, simply by not properly linking up those components. If they’re not designed to work with one another, they’ll tend to work against one another.”4 This book explores how we can optimize, rather than “pessimize,” the facilities and assets of public services—primarily energy, water, and waste management. It arose from the confluence of several streams of thought. First, if we’re to chart a course for global
sustainability, we must begin to decouple carbon-intensive and ecologically harmful technologies from critical infrastructure systems, namely the essential systems for contemporary society: water, wastewater, power, solid waste, transportation, and communication. Second, we have the opportunity, through the power of systems thinking, to imagine an alternative future and to take bold steps toward that potential. Lastly, although we possess the scientific and technological know-how to move forward, we are critically lacking a policy and implementation framework to support such efforts. Churning its way across the New York/New Jersey metropolitan region, Hurricane Sandy vividly demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of urban systems to storm surges, which are becoming stronger and more frequent due to climate change. It especially highlighted the interdependencies among infrastructure sectors. Inundating NYC’s vital arteries, floodwaters overwhelmed tunnels and sewers; closed bridges; shut down the electrical substations that control mass transit; curtailed gas supplies; and destroyed streets, buildings, and whole neighborhoods. For days and on into weeks, failures triggered by floodwaters deprived millions of electricity, heat, and water services. One premise of this book is that our current patterns of infrastructure development reflect an industrialized worldview—one that, in the interests of convenience, efficiency, and control, has largely isolated the various elements of our infrastructural systems. A post-industrial viewpoint, in contrast, focuses on understanding how the parts of such systems relate to each other and to the whole. From this perspective, the “hardware” of energy, water, and waste management is essentially viewed along ecological lines. Future proofing infrastructure means moving beyond compartmentalized thinking toward new, integrated approaches to planning,
financing, constructing, operating, and maintaining infrastructure. In both their conception and design, the innovative projects highlighted in this book are less “object focused” and more “outcome driven.” They encourage us to move forward with more sensitivity to the larger infrastructural context: to consider a location in terms of its economic, environmental, and social resources, and to share resources across different systems, thereby reducing costs and extending benefits. Through a systems approach to lifeline services, we can begin to move more rapidly toward sustainability. The Scope of the Problem In Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now, Felix Rohatyn recounts the story of America’s entrepreneurial investments in infrastructure—from the transcontinental railroads, to the Panama Canal, rural electrification, to the interstate highway systems—chronicling the unusual foresight and intrepid leadership behind each initiative and highlighting the manifold rewards, in terms of economic growth.5 In the face of the imperative to repair and strengthen existing assets or to reinvent them anew, what needs to be done, and where are we to begin? In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded U.S. infrastructure an average grade of D for adequacy and safety—a grade that was raised to D+ in 2013, thanks to a pick-up in incremental investments. The same 2013 report contended that repairing U.S. infrastructure assets to achieve “good” condition (essentially a grade of B) will require estimated cumulative investment of $3.6 trillion by 2020—a figure that does not even begin to address growth or expansion.6 The following are some highlights from recent assessments:
•
The United States loses 1.7 trillion gallons of drinking water annually through system leakage and 240,000 water main breaks per year.7 The cost to upgrade distribution, treatment, and storage would be $334.8 billion over 20 years.8
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Each year, more than 75,000 overflows from combined storm and sewage drains discharge 900 billion gallons of untreated sewage into U.S. waterways.9 The estimated cost of updating and expanding wastewater and stormwater systems is $298 billion over 20 years.10
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Significant power outages have risen from 76 in 2007 to 307 in 2011.11 Between 2005 and 2009, the United States experienced 264 large-scale blackouts. Estimates for electrical system upgrades call for $1.5 to 2.0 trillion in expenditures over 20 years.12
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Ensuring the safety and efficiency of existing mass transit systems will require between $18.2 and $29.6 billion in annual improvements in 2012 dollars.13
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As of 2012, 11% of bridges were classified as structurally deficient. To repair or replace substandard structures by 2028 would cost an estimated $76 billion.14 Funded at about 3.5 percent of total non-defense spending, and at roughly the same level
since 1976, U.S. infrastructure funding lags behind that of both developed and developing nations.15 Although the U.S. is roughly 2 ½ times the area of the European Union, the U.S. will spend annually, on average, $150 billion——less than one percent of our GDP, to the European Union’s $300 during the decade 2010 to 2020.16, 17 Infrastructure investment in the developing world also outpaces ours: relative to their GDPs, India and China spend 8 and 9 percent, respectively, on public works.18 In April 2013, President Obama was pushing for investment in U.S. infrastructure— one of his key priorities—for perhaps the fifth time. Among his proposed initiatives were a $50
billion economic stimulus based primarily on transportation investments, and $10 billion in public funding that would leverage private investment through a newly created, independent National Infrastructure Bank 19—pleas that have repeatedly fallen on the deaf ears of a Congress that is preoccupied with austerity. Yet Obama’s proposals parallel those of others around the world. In the United States, those who fear that forestalling infrastructure investment will cost the U.S. its competitive edge, both economically and politically, are sounding the clarion call for action. The degraded state of U.S. lifeline systems has failed to capture public attention. Infrastructure repairs and upkeep are notoriously unsexy expenditures, and politicians are more invested in cuttings ribbons at new projects than in funding basic maintenance, a trend that has further undercut the condition of our systems. Thus, despite the intermittent alarms sounded after catastrophic failures, there is little sense of urgency—or recognition that infrastructure systems are vital lifelines to economic growth, public health and safety, and other desirable social goals. Even more unusual is any understanding of how those lifelines are linked, directly or indirectly, to the integrity of natural systems.
Nature and Infrastructure Human life depends on ecological services provided by nature—from water purification to waste digestion to the regulation of natural hazards.20 These services originate in ecosystems: selforganized aggregations of living and nonliving elements that exist in a state of symbiosis, sharing energy, information, and matter for mutual benefit.
Human-engineered energy, water, and waste infrastructure systems are, like natural ecosystems, tightly coupled. 21 Electrical power generation, for instance, relies on water cooling, while water distribution and wastewater treatment require electricity; electrical energy still relies on coal transported by rail. Transportation services, water treatment, and electricity generation all rely on information technology.22 Nonetheless, since the advent of the industrial era, the convention has been to disaggregate the elements of infrastructural systems into different sectors, both physically and jurisdictionally, and to dissociate them from the natural ecosystem services on which they ultimately depend. The industrial paradigm was largely responsible for alienating public works from the ecosystem services upon which they depend. Few infrastructural transactions remain visible; most services are distributed below grade or wired high—and almost unseen—above. Power, water, and waste facilities are typically removed from populous areas. The web that connects public services, daily life, and the environment is rarely brought to mind: we don’t think “polluting coal combustion” as we flick on a light switch, and a refuse chute or garbage bin doesn’t summon images of vast landfills. There are direct, but not readily visible, correspondences between ecosystem services and man-made systems. Water filtration and treatment are analogous to the natural ground infiltration that supplies aquifers and reservoirs, and to the purification accomplished by wetlands. Incinerating or relegating waste to a landfill are imperfect counterparts to natural microbial decomposition. And when we “generate” energy, we are essentially releasing the solar power stored in biomass.
As the unparalleled costs associated with the hurricanes of the past decade demonstrate, we suppress or deny the interdependence of constructed systems, as well as their combined reliance on natural systems, at our peril. An evolving post-industrial viewpoint—one that reflects the holistic perspective associated with sustainability—emphasizes interconnectedness rather than separation. From this perspective, the constructed world is nested within the natural one and depends on its health and productivity. Natural ecosystems and human-made infrastructures are not simply a universe of discrete objects but vital working parts embedded in networks that share energy, matter, and information. When we move from an industrial to a post-industrial worldview, the question is no longer “How can we direct nature?” but “How can we capitalize on the connectedness of our critical systems to nature and to each other?”23 What if, for example, the services provided by power plants, sewage treatment plants, and other elements of infrastructure were based on an ecological model of interdependency, rather on an industrial model of segregation? Infrastructural Ecology Nature’s operating patterns depend on integration rather than segregation of functions. We know, for example, that planting legumes near other crops eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers; that spacing tree rows so that certain companion crops can be grown under and between them maximizes yield; and that planting nut-producing trees among wheat, soy, or other crop rows helps to protect against wind and to stabilize topsoil. These examples, drawn from the discipline of permaculture, have an analogy in the realm of infrastructure: as we begin to recognize the beneficial links among infrastructural systems, we can capitalize on the efficiencies that emerge when shared components perform more than one function, or when energy, water, or waste is
exchanged among them. Collectively, such synergies may lower carbon emissions, save resources, reduce or eliminate waste, and provide auxiliary civic benefits. As David Holmgren, one of the founders of the practice of permaculture, has observed, “integration of previously segregated systems appears to be a fundamental principle driving postindustrial design.”24 Such integration is at the root of infrastructural ecology. Like the discipline of permaculture, infrastructural ecology takes its cue from the way that nature, when left undisturbed, already works: by optimizing the flows of resources and information in ways that are specific to the environmental context. For example, biotic systems—relying solely on energy gathered from the sun—“cascade,” or pass along energy, water, and nutrients in a closed-loop arrangement that leaves no residual waste.25 The term industrial symbiosis was coined in the late 1980s to describe innovative ways to locate energy infrastructure, industry, and other commercial entities together for mutual benefit. The classic example of the “eco-industrial park,” established in Kalundborg, Denmark, in the late 1960s and 1970s, resulted from a collaboration among public and private entities driven by a common interest: to optimize energy and resource use (figure 1-2). Kalundborg’s hub is a coalfired power plant whose waste heat warms 3,500 homes, greenhouses, and a fish farm. The power plant shares surplus steam with an oil refinery and a pharmaceutical company, eliminating heat pollution from the receiving waters. Fly ash scrubbed from the power plant’s waste stack replaces two-thirds of the virgin gypsum that would otherwise be needed to manufacture sheetrock in the factory next door. Waste nutrients from the pharmaceutical plant feed a local pig farm, and waste from the fish farm is used locally as crop fertilizer. This web of waste reduction and reuse (22 separate exchanges as of 2011) generates new revenues for the partners, whose $60
million investment in the exchange infrastructure produced $15 million in annual savings. Annually, moreover, CO2 emissions are reduced by 64,460 tons, and 3.9 million cubic meters (137.7 million cubic feet) of water were saved.26 [Figure 1-2 here] Kalundborg’s mutually beneficial exchanges provide a model for what will be referred to here as post-industrial infrastructural systems. This term highlights new ways of thinking, in which constructed systems are continuous with and dependent upon natural systems and upon each other and hegemony over nature is not assumed. A post-industrial outlook also implies less emphasis on things and more emphasis on relationships; greater attention to reciprocity between systems; more contextual, or “situated” knowledge; and, ultimately, more adaptable regulatory institutions.
1. National Transportation Safety Board, “Collapse of I-35W Highway Bridge Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 1, 2007” (Accident Report. National Transportation Safety Board NTSB/HAR-08/03. Washington D.C. 2008), xiii, http://www.dot.state.mn.us/i35wbridge/ntsb/finalreport.pdf. 2. Ibid., 22. 3. Ibid., 157. 4. Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1999). 5. Felix Rohatyn, Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It must Rebuild Now (New York: Simon & Schuster,2009). 6. The $3.6 trillion largely reflects a replacement-in-kind approach, a concept critiqued herein. See American Society of Civil Engineers, “Infrastructure Report Card,” 2009 and 2013, http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/overview/executivesummary (accessed May 11, 2013). 7. Keith Miller, Kristina Costa and Donna Cooper, “Infographic: Drinking Water and Wastewater by the Numbers,” Center for American Progress, October 11, 2012, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2012/10/11/41256/infographicdrinking-water-and-U.Swastewater-by-the-numbers/. 8American Society of Civil Engineers, 2013: Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, (Reston, VA.: ACSE, 2009), 2, accessed May 4, 2013, http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/drinking-water/investment-and-funding. 9 ASCE, 2009: Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, 58. 10 ASCE, 2013. Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/wastewater/conditionsand-capacity 11 ASCE, 2013: Report Card for America’s Infrastructure http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/energy/conditions-andcapacity 12 The Brattle Group, “Transforming America’s Power Industry: The Investment Challenge 2010-2030” (2008), available at http://www.brattle.com/_documents/uploadlibrary/upload725.pdf 13 Center for American Progress analysis of FHWA data reported in: Federal Highway Administration, 2008 Status of the Nation’s Highways, Bridges, and Transit. Estimates are in 2006 dollars
14 ASCE, 2013. Ibid. http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/bridges/conditions-and-capacity 15. Last updated in 2001. U.S. General Accounting Office (now Government Accountability Office), U.S. Infrastructure: Funding Trends and Federal Agencies’ Investment Estimates, GAO-01-986T (Testimony before the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate, Washington DC, July 2001). 16. Benjamin Tal, “Capitalizing on the Upcoming Infrastructure Stimulus,” CIBC World Markets Inc. Occasional Report #66, January 26, 2009, http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/occrept66.pdf (accessed July 12, 2012.) 17. The discrepancy can be partly explained by the EU’s tradition of tax-based public spending, which leverages private-sector capacity to build highways, schools, waterworks, and other civil structures. 18. Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young, Infrastructure 2009: A Global Perspective (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2007), 15. 19. Peter Baker and John Schwartz, “Obama Pushes Plan to Build Roads and Bridges,” New York Times, March 29, 2013. 20. Ecosystem services have been divided into: Provisioning services such as food, fuel, and fiberwood products; regulating services, such as climate regulation, disease regulation or pollination; and cultural services, such as education, recreation and tourism. 21. Steven M. Rinaldi, James P. Peerenboom,and Terrence K. Kelly, “Critical Infrastructure Interdependencies,” IEEE Control Systems Magazine, December 2010, 13. 22. Ibid., 14. 23. Paul N. Edwards, “Infrastructure and Modernity: Force, Time, and Social Organization in the History of Sociotechnical Systems,” in Modernity and Technology, eds. Thomas J. Misa, Philip Brey and Andrew Feenberg (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003), 193. 24. David Holmgren, Permaculture Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (Holmgren Design Services, 2002), 165. 25. See endnote 14. 26. Teresa Domenech and Michael Davies, "Structure and morphology of industrial symbiosis networks: The case of Kalundborg," Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 10 (2011): 79–89.
Sales Information Sheet Land Use and Society, Third Edition Geography, Law, and Public Policy
Spring 2014 Discount: Text Pub Date: 7/8/2014
Rutherford H. Platt Hardcover: Paper: E-Book:
978-1-61091-453-6 978-1-61091-454-3 978-1-61091-455-0
$90.00 $50.00 $49.99
ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning LAW / Land Use Trim Size: 7 X 10 Pages: 344 33 photographs, 32 figures, 9 tables, and 7 boxes Author Residence: Florence, Massachusetts Comparative Titles: • Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, Peter Hall. ISBN: 978-0631-23252-0, Paperback, June 2002, $59.95, Wiley-Blackwell. Bookscan: 4728. • The City Reader, 5th Edition, Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout. ISBN: 978-0-415-55665-1, Paperback, Feb. 2011, $78.95, Routledge. Bookscan: 1169. Previous Works: • Disasters and Democracy, Rutherford H. Platt. ISBN: 978-1-55963-696-4, Paperback, May 1999, $39.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 587, Warehouse: 2585. • Land Use and Society, Revised Edition, Rutherford H. Platt. ISBN: 978-1-55963-685-8, Paperback, June 2004, $50.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 947, Warehouse: 5362. Sales Handle This 3rd edition of a core text takes a new look at the historical evolution of America’s land use and its connections to current urban design issues, with updated statistics and policies. Description The intersection between geography and law is a critical yet often overlooked element of land-use decisions, with a widespread impact on how societies use the land, water, and biodiversity around them. Land Use and Society, Third Edition is a clear and compelling guide to the role of law in shaping patterns of land use and environmental management. Originally published in 1996 and revised in 2004, this third edition has been updated with data from the 2010 U.S. Census and revised with the input of academics and professors to address the changing issues in land use, policy, and law today. Land Use and Society, Third Edition retains the historical approach of the original text while providing a more concise and topical survey of the evolution of urban land use regulation, from Europe in the Middle Ages through the present day United States. Rutherford Platt examines the “nuts and bolts” of land use decision-making in the present day and analyzes key players, including private landowners, local and national governments, and the courts. This third edition is enhanced by a discussion of the current trends and issues in land use, from urban renewal and demographic shifts in cities to the growing influence of local governance in land use management. Land Use and Society, Third Edition is a vital resource for any student seeking to understand the intersection between law, politics, and the natural world. While Platt examines specific rules, doctrines, and practices from an American context, an understanding of the role of law in shaping land use decisions will prove vital for students, policymakers, and land use managers around the world.
Selling Points • Third edition is updated with data from the 2010 census, a revised and streamlined survey of the historical context of land use and law, and a discussion of current trends and topics • Academically rigorous but accessible core text for upper undergraduate and graduate levels courses in land use planning and policy • Author is a well-respected geographer and professor who has served on many national panels and projects Author Bio Rutherford H. Platt is Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Cities, City University of New York (CUNY). He specializes in federal, state, and regional policies concerning land and water resource management and natural disasters. His books include Land Use and Society, Revised Edition, The Humane Metropolis, and Disasters and Democracy, and he was lead editor of The Ecological City. He has previously served on eight panels of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, twice as chair. He has served as a consultant to diverse organizations including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the World Bank. Table of Contents Introduction. Geography, Law, and Landscape: Reflections From 30,000 Feet PART I. Preliminaries: Land, Geography and Law Chapter 1. Land Use and Society: Fundamentals and Issues Chapter 2. Shaping the Human Landscape: The Interaction of Geography and Law PART II. From Feudalism to Federalism: The Social Organization of Land Use Chapter 3. Historical Roots of American Land Use Institutions Chapter 4. Building a Metropolitan Nation: 1900-1940 Chapter 5. The Polarized Metropolis: 1945-2010 Part III. Discordant Voices: Property Rights vs. The Public Interest Chapter 6. Property Rights: The Owner as Planner Chapter 7. The Tapestry of Local Governments Chapter 8. Zoning, Regionalism, and Smart Growth Chapter 9. Land Use and the Courts Chapter 10. Congress and the Metropolitan Environment Epilogue. Towards More Humane Urbanism List of Acronyms
Introduction
Geography, Law, and Landscape: Reflections From 30,000 Feet
To geographers and their fellow travelers, there are few greater treats than to fly a considerable distance over land on a clear day with a view unobstructed by the airplane wing. Let us imagine an idealized flight from San Francisco to Boston. Between the sourdough vendors and live lobster purveyors of those two airports stretches about 2,700 miles of air distance. Along the way, the route traverses a succession of geographic regions marked by vivid contrasts in terrain, in vegetation, in land use, and in extent of urban development. Even the casual observer can scarcely fail to notice and perhaps wonder about the diversity of geographical landscapes-both physical features such as deserts, mountain ranges, and plains, and human patterns of rural and urban land use. If the movie is really boring, the window-gazer may attempt to annotate the passing scene with speculation about what accounts for the extreme variation in what is seen or imagined in the landscapes below. This is thinking geographically. The aircraft ascends over the crowded East Bay cities of Oakland and Berkeley where world-class scholarship and abject poverty co-exist. The hills and flatlands are riddled with seismic faults that caused the Nimitz Freeway to collapse in the October 17, 1989 earthquake and where 3,300 homes burned in the hills two years later. Beyond the Coastal Range, we fly high above the geometric patterns of irrigated fields of the Central Valley which like the Imperial Valley to the south is handsomely subsidized by the federal taxpayer. Next we hurtle over the snowy peaks and steep declivities of the Sierra Nevada where the wilderness defender John Muir battled the pragmatic Gifford Pinchot, the first Director of the U.S. Forest Service, over
damming the Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide water supply for San Francisco after the 1906 Fire. (Muir lost that one, but proposals to undam Hetch Hetchy surface from time to time.) We streak across the sandy wastes of the Great Basin where early nuclear weapons were tested, and a vast underground complex for storing nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain remains unused due to endless political debate. Cities and irrigated agriculture reappear in the Mormon settlement region east of Great Salt Lake. The Wasatch Range, with its ski slopes and patches of clear-cutting in national forests, gives way to the upper Colorado River Plateau, another sparsely inhabited region of high desert, sage brush, and spectacular landforms. Downstream on the Colorado River, the one-armed geologist and geographer John Wesley Powell made his epic journey through the Grand Canyon in 1869 that stimulated his proposals for large-scale irrigation projects in the arid west. We pass near Dinosaur National Park, where one of Powell’s proposed projects, was defeated by David Brower who picked up Muir’s anti-dam annual snow cover, a clear sign of global warming, is a critical water source for cities and farms from Colorado to southern California, and northern Mexico. At the eastern side of the Rockies lies the Front Range Urban Corridor, a chain of cities extending from Greeley to Pueblo, Colorado, anchored by smog-bound Denver. We glimpse the glistening white “tent” of Denver International Airport––a spectacular stimulus to urban sprawl that is gradually filling up the brown nothingness between the airport and the rest of Denver. For the next hour, we traverse the vast checkerboard of the High Plains dominated by green circles of fields irrigated from groundwater distributed by rotating sprayers within the 160acre squares (“quarter-sections”) drawn by the Federal Land Survey over a century ago––a perfect illustration of geography, law, and technology interacting to create a distinctive landscape of industrial agriculture (figure I-1). (On successive flights, it appears that the green
circles are increasingly turning brown as irrigation is suspended due to high costs of pumping from the declining Ogallala Aquifer.) [Figure I-1 here]
We cross the Missouri River in the vicinity of the fabled “100th Meridian”, roughly corresponding to the 20-inch average annual rainfall contour, where dryland irrigation begins to yield to rain-dependent agriculture (with that rain however sorely diminished in recent years by chronic drought). Towns begin to reappear as “beads on a string” along mainline railroad lines and old section-line highways. The rectangular farmscape increasingly gives way to rectangular cities, all interlaced by interstate highways leading to the really big midwestern cities like Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago (figure I-2). The alternation of town and farm across the nation's heartland is a totally human-dominated landscape. Few natural or unused areas of land are observed until the Appalachian Upland is reached in Pennsylvania and New York State (where “fracking” for natural gas is today a highly controversial political and scientific issue). [Figure I-2 here] The aircraft descends in humid summer twilight over the northeastern urban complex named Megalopolis by the French geographer Jean Gottmann in 1961. This “stupendous monument erected by titanic efforts” (in Gottmann's laconic words) seems curiously dominated by forests and farmlands that still surround the metropolitan areas from Boston to Washington, DC and beyond (figure I-3). The failing daylight permits a glimpse of Quabbin Reservoir, Boston's primary water supply, surrounded by an “accidental wilderness” resulting from the forced abandonment of farms and villages when the state purchased the watershed in the 1930s. The plane swings over Boston’s version of Silicon Valley along Interstates 95 and 495 where the
Cold War fostered the illusion of prosperity from the 1950s into the 1980s. It banks over the densely built-up shoreline south of Boston and lands at Logan International Airport which, like our departure point at San Francisco, is constructed on artificial landfill. [Figure I-3 here] Thousands of travelers every day pass over the landscapes just described without taking any notice whatsoever. To those who do observe the passing scene, it may be seem to be a succession of meaningless images, like the geometric patterns produced by a kaleidoscope. But patterns of human land use are by no means random. To one with geographic instincts, the variation in the landscape offers not only aesthetic but intellectual stimulation. The geographer seeks to discern order, process, and coherency in the seemingly haphazard sequence of images. The perennial question of geography is: Why is this place the way it is, and like or unlike other places? This leads to additional questions, for example: What benefits or costs arise from specific practices or ways of using land, air, and water and to whom do they accrue? How can we better manage the use of land and other resources to promote the public welfare, however defined, and reduce social costs and Who should make the necessary decisions? These questions ultimately lead to the central question of our time: How may global resources be managed to sustain a world population that has more than doubled since 1950, as well the planet’s vast diversity of non-human life forms. Great challenges include widespread deforestation, rising levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, decline of biodiversity, land degradation, food shortages, energy shocks, accumulating wastes, and surface and groundwater pollution. Geographers of course do not claim any special monopoly on wisdom, nor do they offer ready solutions to these and other challenges. But they do offer the perspective on the “Why� question. They seek lessons from the experience of the past and present, which may profitably be
applied to the uncertainties of the future. If we can better understand how we got to where we are in our inhabitation of the earth, or portions of it that we label regions, nations, or communities, we may gain some valuable insights into how to deal with the challenges ahead. Unlike more narrowly focused disciplines, geography embraces the Big Picture of human-earth interaction, with major subfields concerned with physical, economic, political, cultural and other sets of causative variables. From time to time, certain geographical theories have been enshrined as explanations of human settlement patterns and uses of resources. In the 1920s, the theory of environmental determinism sought to explain human actions in terms of the influence of climate and physical characteristics of regions. In the 1960s, central place theory and gravity models attributed the spatial organization of human settlements and activities to economic forces operating through the private land market. More recently, “political economy� has provided another framework for post-modern analysis of cities and land use. This book takes a different tack. While not discounting the role of physical, economic, and other spatial variables, the primary focus of this book is the role of law as a major factor in the way humans use their resources and design their patterns of settlement. The connection between geography and law regarding land use is logical although, to some people, unexpected. While geography addresses the what and the why questions, law responds to the how and the who. The influence of law and politics is ubiquitous as a driver of human interaction with the natural world. This book seeks to explore the role of law, broadly construed, as a critical variable in determining how societies use (and abuse) the natural bounty of land, water, biodiversity, and climate within their reach. Of course, laws do not arise in a vacuum. Legal rules and policies are products of institutions (e.g., villages, tribes, dictators, legislatures, courts, government agencies) in
furtherance of societal goals such as capitalist profit, job creation, resource self-sufficiency, international standing, a habitable environment, or prevention of disease, fire, flood, drought, famine, pollution, or crime. The rules for human activities established by law differ according to the rule maker's perception of opportunities, threats, or social values. The rules often comprise an imperfect, partial, or even counter-productive response to the actual problem. Furthermore, laws established to address one problem may compound others. And laws have a habit of remaining in effect long after changes in circumstances have rendered them moot or even pernicious. (This discussion continues in chapter two regarding the Land Use and Society Model.) This book explores the influence of law over human use of land from the perspective of a writer trained in both geography and law. The specific rules, doctrines, and practices discussed are drawn from the American context, including its common law roots in England. But the role of law as a factor in the shaping of urban and rural land use, for better or worse, is a phenomenon of global applicability.
Organization of the Book
This edition of Land Use and Society updates and revises two earlier Island Press editions published in 1996 and 2004. The book originated in a series of class handouts that I wrote at various times to fill gaps in available text books dealing with land use, cities, and environmental management. Specifically, both the geographic and legal literatures seemed to be totally clueless regarding the pervasive interaction between those disciplines in the real world. This book is my attempt to meet the need for such inter-disciplinary treatment of land use and resource management in the United States.
This edition retains the historical flavor and approach of its predecessors while improving its flow and updating it to reflect the 2010 U.S. Census and my own evolving interests and learning process. As before, Part I, “Preliminaries: Land, Geography, and Law,” considers the meanings of land and types of land uses in the United States (Chapter 1), followed by reflections on the disciplines of geography and law and their interaction with respect to land use (Chapter 2). The latter concludes with a general model, “the Land Use and Society Model,” which represents graphically the process of social adaptation to perceived deficiencies of land use practices through law and related institutions. Part II, “From Feudalism to Federalism: The Social Organization of Land Use,” traces the evolution of land use institutions in England and the United States in somewhat more compact form than the previous editions. Chapter 3 combines former Chapters 3 and 4 as a more succinct survey of the urban evolution in Europe and the United States from the Middle Ages up to the twentieth century. Chapters 4 and 5 summarize twentieth-century urban experience in the United States, respectively, before and since World War II , with emphasis on the influence of racism and social injustice in national policies that have driven urban sprawl and neglect of central cities. Part III, “Discordant Voices: Property Rights vs. the Public Interest” turns to the “nuts and bolts” of land use decision making in the United States. Chapter 6, “The Owner as Planner,” introduces that enigmatic hero or villain–– the private property owner––along with a summary of what the concept of “ownership” means. Chapter 7, “The Tapestry of Local Governments,” examines the legal/geographic nature of municipal and county governments, as the primary instruments of public oversight of land use in the United States. Chapter 8 summarizes the principal tools available to manage or at least influence land use through local zoning and
subdivision regulations, regional collaborations, and Smart Growth strategies. Chapter 9, “Land Use and the Courts” reviews principles of constitutional law in relation to land use, particularly the perplexing “Takings Issue.” Little has been added to this discussion since the Supreme Court has been relatively (and perhaps mercifully) silent on land use issues since the 1990s. (This chapter is relatively freestanding and may be omitted by users of the book who do not wish to delve into constitutional issues.) Chapter 10, “Land Use and the Federal Government” reviews and updates selected federal environmental initiatives since the 1970s. Again, there has been a dearth of new Congressional land use initiatives since the last edition of this book but, subject to fiscal and political challenges, federal laws adopted since the 1960s largely remain in effect, often with beneficial results. The book ends on a note of cautious optimism inspired by the number of spontaneous local efforts to integrate nature and humans in urban settings across the United States. Today the nation and world are threatened on many fronts: political, economic, environmental, and public health. The great social upheavals of U.S. history, including abolition of slavery, labor reform, women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, and environmentalism, suggest that, despite setbacks, the clock does not revert to some earlier period of social evolution, despite claims to the contrary by Tea Party members and others nostalgic for a mythic past. Social change is incremental and often painful, but as viewed over time, it moves inexorably in a positive direction. That, at least, is my belief as informed by progressive thinkers and doers whose contributions are acknowledged throughout this book such as Frederick Law Olmsted, George Perkins Marsh, John Wesley Powell, John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, Jane Addams, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lewis Mumford, Aldo Leopold, Garrett Hardin, Barry Commoner, Rachel Carson, William H. Whyte, Jane Jacobs, John McPhee, Gilbert F.
White, William Cronon, Bill McKibben, Barack Obama, … The list goes on. The decade since the 2004 edition has seen a continuation of several trends in progress since the late 1990s, e.g.: 1) growing influence of “bottom-up” grassroots initiatives in place of “top-down,” technocratic, expert-driven urban and metropolitan strategies; 2) reduction of federal and state funding and influence over land use practices; 3) diminishing reliance on “command and control” land use regulation in favor of market incentives, subsidies, and “Smart Growth” approaches; and 4) a broader focus on neighborhoods, social diversity, and nontraditional economic functions (e.g. urban farming and markets) in comparison with past preoccupation of planners with downtown and its largely white, male business establishment. Social change does not happen easily. Reform in social policies and laws concerning land use is especially acrimonious: public interests clash with private rights, local governments rail against state and federal constraints, and “not in my backyard” interests oppose anything new in their “backyards.” This book will inform those debates with an appreciation of past experience and the importance of understanding geographic and legal context of any land use dispute. Public intervention to control harmful externalities, protect the public health and welfare, remedy social injustice, and achieve a physically and emotionally healthy environment is not ideological. It is the purpose of an organized and mature society
Sales Information Sheet Site Design for Multifamily Housing Creating Livable, Connected Neighborhoods
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 4/17/2014
Nico Larco, Kristin Kelsey, and Amanda Stocker West Hardcover: Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-546-5 978-1-61091-547-2 978-1-61091-545-8
$75.00 $40.00 $39.99
ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning Trim Size: 8.5 X 11 Pages: 202 122 photographs, 32 graphs/figures Author Residence: Eugene, Oregon Seattle, Washington Portland, Oregon Comparative Titles: • Designing Suburban Futures, June Williamson. ISBN: 978-1-59726-241-5, Paperback, May 2013, $35.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 88, Warehouse: 596. • Retrofitting Suburbia, Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson. ISBN: 978-0-470-93432-6, Paperback, Mar. 2011, $49.95, Wiley. Bookscan: 1158. Previous Works: None. Sales Handle This essential handbook introduces key design elements and case studies that will improve the livability and vitality of suburban multifamily developments. Description The United States is over eighty percent urbanized, yet over half of the population still lives in suburban settings, characterized by low-density, automobile-dependent development with separated land uses. These disconnected and isolated models of development have been linked to increased greenhouse-gas emissions and reduced quality of life, health, and social connections. In Site Design for Multifamily Housing: Creating Livable, Connected Neighborhoods, the authors explain that creating more livable and vital communities is within reach and the design and development of multifamily housing is a key component to reaching this goal. Multifamily housing is an important component of increasing density, which is necessary to achieve connectivity for compact and walkable development. Multifamily housing in suburban areas presents greater challenges than in urban areas due in part to larger lot sizes and street patterns that are often a mix of cul-de-sac, curved, looped, and dead-end streets. Increasing the livability of these developments is an important first step in affecting the livability of the country as a whole. This handbook introduces planners, developers, and designers to ten key elements of multifamily site design, comparing typical and recommended conditions. Case studies of successful large lot multifamily developments as well as retrofit proposals for existing developments with low internal and external connectivity will demonstrate how the tools in the book can be applied. Examples are drawn from Oregon, California, North Carolina, and Arizona. The ideas and tools in this book, including the planning checklist, code guide, and code summaries, will help users to create more livable, vibrant, and healthy communities. Selling Points • Builds on the existing literature on suburban retrofitting by offering practical tools for making suburban communities more livable and vibrant by improving the design of multifamily housing. • Offers case studies from across the country showing how the ideas in the book have been implemented successfully. • Includes a planner checklist, code guide, and code summaries to help professionals apply the ideas presented in the handbook to projects in development.
Author Bio Nico Larco, AIA is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Affiliated Faculty in Planning, Public Policy, and Management at the University of Oregon. He is also Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Sustainable Cities Initiative. Larco holds a Bachelor in Architecture and Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Psychology from Cornell University and a Master of Architecture and a Master of City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. His research work has been focused on livability and multifamily housing and he has published on this topic in the Journal of International Planning Studies, Journal of Urbanism, and Journal of Urban Design. Larco is a 2012/2013 Fulbright Scholar and was OTREC’s National University Transportation Center’s Researcher of the Year. Kristin Kelsey recently graduated from the University of Oregon’s Department of Architecture with a Dual Masters in Architecture and Interior Architecture. She is currently practicing in Salt Lake City, Utah. Amanda West is a graduate of the University of Oregon’s Department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management and has been a Project Manager at the Community Planning Workshop at the University of Oregon. Table of Contents The Handbook’s Purpose Introduction Site Design Criteria 1. Pedestrian Network 2. Street Network 3. Access Points 4. Edges 5. Automobile Parking 6. Street Design 7. Building Massing & Orientation 8. Open Space and Landscape Design 9. Bicycle Facilities 10. Relationships Project Profiles Heron Meadows, Eugene, Oregon Cherry Orchard, Sunnyvale, California Colonial Grand, Huntersville, North Carolina Sheldon Village, Eugene, Oregon Project Retrofits Riviera Village, Oregon Villas at Union Hills, Arizona Project Checklist Code Guide Code Guide Appendix Arlington, Virginia San Jose, California Eugene, Oregon Huntersville, North Carolina Asheville, North Carolina
Introduction
Increasing the livability and vitality of cities and suburbs is within reach and the design and development of urban and suburban multifamily housing is a key component of achieving this goal.
This book provides guidance for planners, developers, designers, and citizens to create more livable, connected, and vibrant multifamily developments and neighborhoods. Livability is a measure of a community’s quality of life and includes issues such as access to education, employment, entertainment, and recreation. The last few decades have seen a groundswell of interest in livability and how our built environment can hamper or promote it. Dense and compact development, the design of transportation systems, the design and distribution of open space, and the mixing of uses all contribute to an area’s livability.
The typical disconnected and isolated models of development seen throughout the country have been linked to reduced quality of life, health, and social connections. Yet because of codes, culture—and at times simply habits—of planning, development, and design professionals, this form of development persists. This book is focused on shedding light on these codes, cultures, and habits and on describing the aspects of multifamily site design that contribute to livability.
A key concern of the current livability movement has been to increase accessibility, safety, and social interaction by reducing the dominance of the automobile—and design is central to this concern. Single-use, low-density, segregated, and disconnected environments that are uninviting or hostile to pedestrians and cyclists strongly favor auto use. The design of these environments typically lack basic pedestrian amenities such as sidewalks, allow parking to dominate the landscape, provide no direct route to destinations, and frequently leave pedestrians and cyclists exposed to fast-moving and dangerous traffic.
When faced with these environments, residents make rational choices and select to go by car, even when their destination is within walking or biking distance. Changing the design
of these areas in a way that balances the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders with the needs of motorists is a key step in increasing livability.
Multifamily housing features prominently in livability discussions, as increased density is an important component of compact and walkable development. This is compounded by the fact that multifamily housing is typically located near destinations such as shops, services, and parks. This condition makes multifamily development an ideal candidate for the livability concept of the “twenty-minute neighborhood�—the idea that many of our daily needs should be located within a twenty-minute walk from our homes.
By focusing on local daily trips and not on work commutes, the twenty-minute neighborhood increases the quality of life for residents by making it easier for them to access the activities, goods, and services they regularly desire. Year after year, surveys have shown increasing interest in living in areas that are well connected to shops, services, and schools. While for some people this is merely a preference, for others it is lifechanging characteristic of their neighborhoods as greater accessibility increases independence for the elderly, the young, and the economically disadvantaged.
Focusing on the livability of multifamily housing can truly move the dial on livability. There are currently more than 20 million units of multifamily housing in this country and they are nearly evenly split between urban and suburban locations. Nationally, it is one of the fastest growing housing types and more than half of the new multifamily development in the next twenty years will be in infill and redevelopment areas. Increasing the livability of these developments and taking advantage of their location near a mix of uses is an important first step in affecting the livability of the country as a whole.
Connectivity and Livability A key aspect of livability is the accessibility of nearby destinations. An important means of increasing accessibility is increasing connectivity. Connectivity refers to the amount, directness, and type of routes within an area. The connectivity of an area affects the distance people must travel to desired destinations with higher connectivity correlating to
less difference between the ‘as-the-crow-flies’ distance and the actual walking distance between two points.
This is especially significant in suburbia as street patterns are often a fragmented mix of cul-de-sacs, curved, looped, and dead end streets. This causes direct paths to destinations to be virtually impossible and instead forces long, convoluted routes. These longer routes discourage walking and biking and reduce the walkability of an area.
In multifamily housing developments—especially large-lot developments—internal site routes connect residents to the buildings and amenities in their development while access points and external routes connect them to nearby areas such as commercial destinations, parks, and neighboring residential development. The number, length, distribution, and interconnectedness of these routes affect the overall connectivity of an area. This connectivity, along with the aesthetics and design of the path itself, can affect the ease of walking and biking and ultimately the decision residents make to walk, bike, or drive for short trips.
In well-connected areas, distances are shorter and physical barriers to walking and biking are removed, reducing residents’ reliance on automobiles and increasing ‘active modes’ of travel such as walking and biking. This can reduce vehicle miles traveled, which has positive impacts on health, congestion, air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.
The relationship between connectivity and site design plays out differently in urban and suburban locations. In dense, urban areas, the site design of multifamily housing projects— often smaller than two acres—is more constrained and connectivity is easier to achieve. Urban areas often have tight street networks with street-facing buildings built up to the lot line and parking typically located below or behind buildings. Connectivity in these areas is often dictated by the existing street network and not by the internal site design of multifamily projects. In these developments, it is the distribution and location of building and site entrances and the overall design of the façade that contributes mostly to the connectivity and livability of the area.
In suburban multifamily housing and large-lot urban projects (typically larger than two acres), however, site design is critical to the overall connectivity. These developments are often located in areas that have no legible block structure or, if one does exist, the developments often supersede that structure. Due to the size of these developments, they necessitate their own internal vehicular and pedestrian circulation and structure. With this, the connectivity of these areas is not universally or often even primarily carried by the street system. Instead, the organization of building, the form of the internal multifamily site circulation, the design of parking areas, and the distribution of site access points play leading roles in defining area connectivity. The site design of these developments is especially critical in defining an area’s livability and they are the primary focus of this book.
Suburban Multifamily Housing Although urban and suburban multifamily housing are related, suburban multifamily housing is sufficiently different to necessitate an introduction of its own. While multifamily housing may have historically been an urban typology, that is far from the truth today. Multifamily housing is a widespread example of dense residential development in suburbia and it holds great potential for increasing livability and promoting smart growth goals. There are currently over nine million units of suburban multifamily housing in the country and it has been one of the fastest growing housing types in the United States since 1970.
Multifamily housing is home to a wide variety of people and represents some of the most demographically diverse areas of suburbia. Many suburban multifamily residents are drawn to the suburbs due to its amenities or proximity to employment. These residents often choose multifamily housing because of the increased ease of changing places of residence, the lower cost, or the decreased maintenance relative to single-family housing.
While single-family housing is made up of primarily of nuclear families, about two-thirds of households in suburban multifamily housing are what the U.S. Census defines as “nonfamilies.� These are individuals living alone or with roommates, divorcees, widows, and
unmarried couples. In addition, suburban multifamily housing is significantly more ethnically and racially diverse than suburban single-family housing.
Suburban multifamily housing is built at densities of up to 30 units per acre and is typically located along arterials. Critical to the issue of livability and connectivity, this housing type is often located around commercial development and is often used as a buffer between neighboring commercial and single-family home developments. Because of their design, these developments unfortunately often act as large barriers that impede access of neighboring residents to these areas.
[Figures I-1 and I-2a-d here]
Suburban multifamily housing is different than multifamily housing found in urban areas in that it is often on large lots, includes multiple buildings within the same site, and typically has its own internal circulation infrastructure. Buildings tend to be two or three stories in height with double-loaded corridors, wood frame construction, exterior vertical circulation, and balconies. Parking is typically exterior to the building and often dominates the space around them. Many developments have assigned parking spaces, with one or more spaces per unit.
The Latent Potential for Livability in Suburban Multifamily Housing As suburban multifamily housing is mid to high density and located near commercial development, it creates a strong latent potential for walking and biking as it puts a large population of residents near daily destinations such as grocery stores, drug stores, banks, dry cleaners, restaurants, and cafes. While density and proximity to destinations exists, the primary factor in deciding if a development will capitalize on this potential for walking and biking is in a project’s site design.
Recent studies of suburban multifamily development have shown that increasing the connectivity of developments leads to dramatic increases in residents’ rates of walking and
biking to local commercial destinations. A 2009 study comparing well-connected and lessconnected multifamily developments found that the residents of well-connected developments made more than two and a half walking and biking trips per unit per week to their local commercial area.
This equaled nearly half of their total trips to their local commercial area and represented more than a 60 percent increase in walking trips compared to less-connected developments. In addition, almost three quarters of residents of well-connected developments walked or biked to their local commercial area at least once a week. Of these residents, nearly half did most of these trips walking, and more than 20 percent only walked or biked for these trips. For many residents of the well-connected development, walking or biking was the default mode of travel for local trips—and site design was the critical factor.
Given the number of units in typical suburban multifamily developments, there is potential for a striking number of walking and biking trips occurring in well-connected areas. A single, well-connected multifamily development of 200 units can generate more than 500 walking and biking trips in a single week, drastically reducing the dependence on the automobile, increasing residents’ independence, and minimizing surrounding traffic and pollution. Multiplying this shift across all of the suburban multifamily developments within a municipality can significantly change the transportation patterns of that city, alleviating congestion in key arterials and intersections and helping attain reduced automobile travel targets.
Suburban multifamily housing holds a tremendous latent potential to shift the livability of suburban areas. Many of the changes necessary to do this, both in the retrofits of existing developments and in the typical design approaches in new developments, are not expensive or difficult to layout. Often, the key to implementation is expanding the awareness of planners, developers, and designers to site design and connectivity issues so that moreconnected approaches are integral to the design, development, and regulatory process.
This book hopes to be a fundamental step in helping with that implementation.
[Add chart “Percent of Trips per Week to Local Commercial Areas”]
[Add box: “What it Means?”]
The Book’s Purpose This book is meant to serve as a desktop reference and guide to planners, developers, and designers involved in multifamily projects. It is part of the larger movement focused on creating more livable, sustainable, and vibrant communities, but it is more narrowly targeted on the multifamily housing typology and on the issue of connectivity.
While larger changes to our built environment may be necessary to fully realize livable communities—especially in suburbia—this book is focused on changes that are doable in the short term, work within existing and accepted development typologies and opportunities, and can be widely applied. This book looks at the incremental changes that can be made within existing development patterns and can have a profound effect on livability.
The book introduces ten key elements of multifamily site design, comparing typical and recommended conditions. Through text, images, and graphics, readers can become familiar with site design elements and learn how these elements affect residents’ day-to-day use of multifamily developments and their larger neighborhoods. The book also includes case studies of successful large lot multifamily developments as well as retrofit proposals for existing developments with low internal and external connectivity. A planner checklist, code guide, and code summaries are included to help professionals apply the ideas presented in this book to projects currently in development.
Because of the challenges that exist in large-lot development and the fact that most largelot multifamily developments are in the suburbs, many of the examples in this book are from suburban multifamily housing projects. While this is case, the principles presented in the book and in the examples shown apply equally well to urban and small lot multifamily
developments as well.
How to Use This Book This book has seven components: Introduction, 10 Site Design Criteria, Project Profiles, Project Retrofits, Project Checklist, Code Guide, and Code Appendix. Each section supports the others and most are organized around the 10 Site Design Criteria framework. At the beginning of each section is a “How-to” page that describes the organization and layout of that section.
Different parts of this book will be helpful to different types of professionals and/or different phases of the design, review, and regulatory process. The 10 Site Design Criteria, Project Profiles, and Project Retrofits, give an in-depth understanding of the issues related to suburban multifamily housing site design and are a critical base for professionals as well as interested and involved citizens. The Project Checklist, Code Guide, and Code Appendix are more technical in nature and are meant to be used by professionals as they are designing or developing multifamily housing projects or the codes that regulate them.
Below is a description of each of the book sections:
Site Design Criteria: The criteria section looks at key issues related to suburban multifamily site design and connectivity and provides description and examples of successful projects. The criteria are organized by scale and complexity, starting at the largest scale first. This section is critical for anyone interested in suburban multifamily site design.
Project Profiles: This section includes suburban multifamily projects from around the country, presents basic background information for each development as well as an analysis of the project’s pedestrian networks, access points, parking strategies, and street network design. Each project includes photographs that help illustrate key points.
Project Retrofits: This section shows how existing projects might be modified to incorporate some of the ideas discussed in the Site Design Criteria section.
Project Checklist: The checklist is a reference that can be used during project design and development or permit review. It is meant to be a guide for planners, developers, and designers and can be modified to include local code issues and conditions. Code Guide: This section looks at codes from five progressive cities across the country that have focused on multifamily housing development. The guide is organized by the 10 Site Design Criteria and includes specific code language from the case study cities.
Code Appendix: While the Code Guide includes edited sections of the codes from the different case study cities, the Code Appendix shows relevant code sections in their entirety. This section, along with the Code Guide, is an excellent reference for planners who are reviewing their current code.
Further Reading Cervero, R. and K. Kockelman (1997). “Travel demand and the 3Ds: Density, diversity, and design.” Transportation Research Part D-Transport and Environment 2(3): 199-219. Duany, A., J. Speck, et al. (2010). The smart growth manual. New York, McGraw-Hill. Dunham-Jones, E. and J. Williamson (2009). Retrofitting suburbia : urban design solutions for redesigning suburbs. Hoboken, N.J., John Wiley & Sons. Ewing, R., T. Schmid, et al. (2003). “Relationship between urban sprawl and physical activity, obesity, and morbidity.” American Journal of Health Promotion 18(1): 47-57. Frank, L. D., J. F. Sallis, et al. (2006). “Many pathways from land use to health Associations between neighborhood walkability and active transportation, body mass index, and air quality.” Journal of the American Planning Association 72(1): 75-87.
Handy, S., R. G. Paterson, et al. (2003). Planning for Street Connectivity: Getting from Here to There. Planning Adivisory Service Report #515. J. Hecimovisch. Chicago, IL, American Planning Association. Handy, S. L., M. G. Boarnet, et al. (2002). “How the Built Environment Affects Physical Activity: Views from Urban Planning.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 23(2S): 64-73. Haughey, R. M. (2005). Higher-Density Development: Myth and Fact. Washington, DC, Urban Land Institute. Hess, P. M. (2005). “Rediscovering the Logic of Garden Apartments.” Places 17(2): 3035. Larco, N. (2009). “Untapped Density: Site Design and the Proliferation of Suburban Multifamily Housing.” Journal of Urbanism 2(2): 189-208. Larco, N. (2010). “Suburbia Shifted: Overlooked Trends and Opportunities in Suburban Multifamily Housing.” Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 27(1): 6987. Larco, N., B. Steiner, et al. (2011). “Pedestrian-Friendly Environments and Active Travel for Residents of Multifamily Housing: The Role of Preferences and Perceptions.” Environment and Behavior. Moudon, A. V. and P. M. Hess (2000). “Suburban Clusters: The Nucleation of Multifamily Housing in Suburban Areas of the Central Puget Sound.” Journal of the American Planning Association 66(3): 243-264. Saelens, B. E. and S. L. Handy (2008). “Built environment correlates of walking: A review.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 40(7): S550-S566. Schmitz, A. (2000). Multifamily Housing Development Handbook. Washington D.C, ULI-The Urban Land Institute. Tachieva, G. (2010). Sprawl Repair Manual. Washington, Island Press.
Sales Information Sheet Foundations of Real Estate Development Financing A Guide to Public-Private Partnerships
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 8/1/2014
Arthur C. Nelson Hardcover: Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-561-8 978-1-61091-562-5 978-1-61091-563-2
$60.00 $35.00 $34.99
ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 155 30 photographs and figures, 10 tables Author Residence: Salt Lake City, Utah Comparative Titles: • Professional Real Estate Development: The ULI Guide to the Business, 3rd Edition, Richard Peiser and David Hamilton. ISBN: 978-0-87420-163-5, Hardcover, Apr. 2011, $99.95, Urban Land Institute. Bookscan: 1412. • Financing Economic Development in the 21st Century, Sammis B. White and Zena Z. Kotval. ISBN: 978-0-7656-2783-4, Paperback, Aug. 2012, $54.95, M.E. Sharpe. Bookscan: 44. Previous Works: • Reshaping Metropolitan America, Arthur C. Nelson. ISBN: 978-1-61091-033-0, Paperback, Jan. 2013, $35.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 226, Warehouse: 688. • TDR Handbook, Arthur C. Nelson, Rick Pruetz and Doug Woodruff. ISBN: 978-1-59726-981-0, Paperback, Nov. 2011, $47.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 56, Warehouse: 415. • Megapolitan America, Arthur Nelson and Robert Lang. ISBN: 978-1-93236-497-2, Hardcover, Nov. 2011, $74.95, APA Planners Press. Bookscan: 218. Sales Handle An introduction to basic financing tools for using public resources to leverage private real estate development Description American’s landscape is undergoing a profound transformation as demand grows for a different kind of American Dream—smaller homes on smaller lots, multifamily options, and walkable neighborhoods. This trend presents a tremendous opportunity to reinvent our urban and suburban areas. But in a time of fiscal austerity, how do we finance redevelopment needs? In Foundations of Real Estate Development Finance: A Guide for Public-Private Partnerships, urban scholar Arthur C. Nelson argues that efficient redevelopment depends on the ability to leverage resources through partnerships. Public-private partnerships are increasingly important in reducing the complexity and lowering the risk of redevelopment projects. Although planners are in integral part of creating these partneships, their training does generally not include real-estate finacing, which presents challenges and imbalances in public-private partnership. This is the first primer on financing urban redevelopment written for practicing planners and public administrators. In easy-to-understand language, it will inform readers of the natural cycle of urban development, explain how to overcome barriers to efficient redevelopment, what it takes for the private sector to justify its redevelopment investments, and the role of public and nonprofit sectors to leverage private sector redevelopment where the market does not generate sufficient rates of return. This is a must read for practicing planners and planning students, economic development officials, public administrators, and others who need to understand how to leverage public and non-profit resources to leverage private funds for redevelopment.
Selling Points • Author is a well-know expert in urban redevelopment issues. • This is a follow-up to the popular 2013 book Reshaping Metropolitan America. • Provides financial information in an accessible and easy-to-use format, including online spreadsheets. Author Bio Dr. Arthur C. Nelson, FAICP, is Presidential Professor of City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah where he is also the Director of the Metropolitan Research Center and Codirector of the Master of Real Estate Development Program. Table of Contents Foreword by Christopher B. Leinberger Acknowledgements Common Development Terms and Types Introduction. The Future of America is Private Real Estate Redevelopment Chapter 1. The Future is Public-Private Partnerships for Real Estate Redevelopment Chapter 2. The Purpose of Public-Private Redevelopment Partnerships is the Maximize the Triple Bottom Line Chapter 3. Basic Redevelopment Feasibility Analysis Chapter 4. Discounted Cash Flow Analysis for Private Real Estate Redevelopment Chapter 5. The Public Role in Leveraging Private Real Estate Redevelopment Chapter 6. Public Tools to Leverage Private Real Estate Redevelopment Chapter 7. Reshaping the Built Environment Appendix A. Simplified depreciation periods for building types Appendix B. Tools to Leverage Private Real Estate Redevelopment Appendix C. Selected Real Estate Finance and Development Terms and Concepts References Endnotes
Introduction: The Future of America is Real Estate Redevelopment
The future of America’s built landscape will be the redevelopment of its privately owned real estate.
Between 2010 and 2040, America will add about 100 million people. About $40 trillion will be spent on real estate development and the infrastructure needed to support it between 2010 and 2040. 1 In addition to increasing the inventory of homes by about 36 million units another 17 million units will be replaced. About $15 trillion will be spent on residential construction, a third of which or about $5 trillion will be redevelopment. I also estimate that at least a third of all residential construction will be for multi-level attached residential units.
The inventory of nonresidential space will increase by about 38 billion square feet but 92 billion square feet of this space will be redeveloped or repurposed, about 70 percent of all nonresidential space constructed. 2 Of the $13 trillion spent on nonresidential development about $9 trillion will be spent on redevelopment of those spaces.
To support the built environment, another $12 trillion will be spent on infrastructure, about twothirds of which or $8 trillion will be for the repair, rehabilitation and replacement of existing infrastructure.
All told, about $22 trillion or more than half of all construction spending in the U.S. to 2040 will be for the redevelopment of the existing built environment. Half or more of this will be the
development of existing nonresidential spaces and supporting infrastructure at commercial nodes and along commercial corridors.
More to the point: I estimate that nearly all of America’s new nonresidential spaces and nearly all new multi-level attached residential units can easily occur on the parking lots of existing nonresidential development (Nelson 2013). The reason is that most of America’s commercial nodes and corridors average about a 0.20 floor area ratio (FAR) which means that the building area is equivalent to just 20 percent of the land area. Mostly this means that the typical commercially-developed site is 80 percent parking lot and 20 percent building area. Because the average FAR could be doubled and still provide adequate parking there would be sufficient land in existing parking lots to meet all new and replaced nonresidential development, and all new multi-level attached residential development. The total potential investment would be about $30 trillion or three-quarters of all development to 2040.There is more. Market studies by such groups as the Urban Land Institute and the National Association if Industrial and Office Parks show that the next wave of nonresidential demand will be for infill and redevelopment in urban and suburban nodes, and along commercial corridors. Further, fiscal studies show that higher FAR development is more efficiently served than lower FAR development even if existing infrastructure has to be replaced; the reason is that such infrastructure will need to be replaced anyway, probably sooner than later. If new nonresidential development is steered to Greenfields where new infrastructure has to be installed, local governments will have two sets of infrastructure systems to finance: the existing system that will need to be replaced anyway and the new system that may serve low FAR development. Finally, studies show that higher FAR
developments generate more economic development than low FAR development, especially if it is also served by rail transit or bus rapid transit.
But redevelopment of the existing built landscape is more difficult than Greenfield development. Even though studies by the ULI and others show that redevelopment generates higher rates of investment return, numerous obstacles have to be overcome. Some of them are easy such as changing planning and development codes to be more responsive to redevelopment opportunities. Some are expensive in the near term because infrastructure has to be upgraded – though it would probably have to be upgraded eventually anyway. Some are related to land quality in that land assembly may be needed or brownfields remediated. Local and other government partners may be needed to facilitate these actions.
Other obstacles relate to investment timing and how collateral benefits are internalized. Investment timing means that higher returns may be further into the future than investors are comfortable with. One solution may be for local government to partner by providing financial resources that bridge between lower-return and higher-return years. Sometimes the bridge occurs when local government itself leases some of the space built by the investors.
Collateral benefits are another matter. Redevelopment often stimulates other real estate investment in the vicinity. Often, it is the first redevelopment project that demonstrates overall market feasibility for other redevelopment. Such pioneering development assumes a very large share of the risk in stimulating development in an area yet does not benefit proportionately from the very new development it stimulates. One solution may be for a local government partner to
provide some future benefits of collateral development in the short term to both leverage and reward pioneering redevelopment.
Much redevelopment thus needs public-private partnerships to work. The public sector may provide improved planning, infrastructure, land assembly and/or cleaning, short-term or bridge financing, and economic incentives plus other services. For its part, the private sector conducts the market and feasibility analyses to assure the market is ready for redevelopment, arranges most of the financing from lenders and investors, and constructs and manages the development. Public-private partnerships facilitate development that would not occur without one partner or the other. Such partnerships advance local economic development, stabilize communities, improve the local tax base, and reward private investors.
Foundations of Real Estate Development Finance: A Guide for Public-Private Partnerships is a primer on real estate finance for local government planners, economic development officials, public officials, citizens, and students in those and related fields. It is also a primer for real estate professionals and students on the tools that may be available to leverage private real estate investment, how they work, and under what circumstances they are appropriate. The book also shows how the public and private sectors can win through public-private partnerships.
Endnotes 1
This estimate is based on the average annual amount of public and private real estate development, and infrastructure development seen during the ten-year period from 2003 through 2013s, adjusted for 2010 dollars and adjusted further for growth to 2040, based on the Census of Construction Spending, accessed November 23, 2013 at http://www.census.gov/construction/c30/c30index.html
2
Some of this will occur as buildings are developed and then redeveloped two or more times over this 30-year period.
BICYCLING & WALKING IN THE
UNITED STATES
2014
BENCHMARKING REPORT
Spring 2014
Sales Information Sheet Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.
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2014 Benchmarking Report
BICYCLING & WALKING IN THE
Alliance for Biking and Walking Paperback: E-book:
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2014
BENCHMARKING REPORT
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Pages: 285 Illustrated Description Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.: 2014 Benchmarking Report is an essential resource and tool for government officials, advocates, and those working to promote bicycling and walking. The Benchmarking Project is an on-going effort by the Alliance for Biking & Walking to collect and analyze data on bicycling and walking in all 50 states and the 52 most populous U.S. cities. This fourth biennial report also includes 17 new small and midsized cities as a pilot benchmarking effort. Data highlighted in this report reveal bicycling and walking levels and demographics; public health indicators; bicycle and pedestrian safety; the economic impact of bicycling and walking; funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects; written policies on bicycling and walking; bicycle infrastructure; bicycling and walking connections to transit; bicycling and walking education and encouragement activities; and support levels of bicycling and walking through advocacy and staffing. The report is full of data tables and graphs that show how your state or city stacks up, and provides unprecedented statistics to help support your case for increasing safe bicycling and walking in your community. Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.: 2014 Benchmarking Report was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sales Information Sheet Forests in Our Changing World New Principles for Conservation and Management
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 7/1/2014
Joe Landsberg and Richard Waring Hardcover: Paperback: E-Book:
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SCIENCE / Life Sciences/Ecology NATURE / Trees & Forests Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 304 14 b/w figures; 5 tables Author Residence: Mt. Wilson, New South Wales, Australia Corvallis, Oregon Comparative Titles: • Forests in a Full World, George M. Woodwell. ISBN: 978-0-300-08882-3, Paperback, Nov. 2001, $21.00, Yale University Press. Bookscan: 136. • Conserving Forest Biodiversity: A Comprehensive Multiscaled Approach, David Lindenmayer and Jerry Franklin. ISBN: 9781-55963-935-4, Paperback, July 2002, $49.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 581, Warehouse: 3273. • Creating a Forestry for the Twenty-First Century: The Science of Ecosystem Management, Kathryn Kohm and Jerry Franklin. ISBN: 978-1-55963-399-4, Paperback, Jan. 1997, $50.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 420, Warehouse: 6242. • Forestry In a Global Context, Roger Sands. ISBN: 978-0-85199-089-7, Paperback, Jan. 2005, $55.00, CABI. Bookscan: 48. Previous Works: • Physiological Ecology of Forest Production: Volume 4: Principles, Processes, and Models, Joe Landsberg and Peter Sands. ISBN: 978-0-12-374460-9, Hardcover, Nov. 2005, $106.00, Academic Press. Bookscan: 36. • Application of Physiological Ecology to Forest Management, Joe Landsberg and S. T. Gower. ISBN: 978-0-12-391204-6, Paperback, Dec. 1996, $133.00, Academic Press. Sales Handle New thinking on the forests of today for students who will manage the forests of tomorrow Description Scientists tell us that climate change is upon us and the physical world is changing quickly with serious implications for biodiversity and human well-being. Forests cover vast regions of the globe and serve as a first line of defense against the worst effects of climate change, but only if we keep them healthy and resilient. Forests in Our Changing World tells us how to do that. Authors Joe Landsberg and Richard Waring present an overview of forests around the globe, describing basic precepts of forest ecology and physiology and how forests will change as earth’s climate warms. Drawing on years of research and teaching, they discuss the values and uses of both natural and plantation-based forests. In easy-to-understand terms, they describe the ecosystem services forests provide, such as clean water and wildlife habitat, present economic concepts important to the management and policy decisions that affect forests, and introduce the use of growth-and-yield models and remote-sensing technology that provide the data behind those decisions. This book is a useful guide for undergraduates as well as managers, administrators, and policy makers in environmental organizations and government agencies looking for a clear overview of basic forest processes and pragmatic suggestions for protecting the health of forests.
Selling Points • Takes on issues of topical importance to the world's forests, such as the impacts of climate change and its implications for management. • Accessible to students and lay readers, providing sound treatment of technical information on forests and how to conserve and manage them for resilience and good health as environmental stessors continue to increase. • A clear explanation of the economics of managing both natural forests and plantations, and why it matters. Author Bio Joe Landsberg is a forest scientist and consultant with a long history of active international scientific collaboration studying the role of climate and weather on global forests. During his illustrious career, he has served as chief of the CSIRO Division of Forest Research, worked for NASA in its Terrestrial Ecology Program, and, together with Richard Waring, developed a landmark computer model for CSIRO to assess the influence of climate on the growth and yield of forests. Richard Waring is emeritus distinguished professor of forest science at Oregon State University. In his long career, he has held guest and visiting professorships at leading institutions around the world, and has served as administrator of a NASA program exploring land-atmosphere interactions and as a long-term consultant to NASA on forest modeling projects. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction: A long look back, and a look into the future Forests in human history Resilience Outline of the rest of the book A look into the future Chapter 2. Forest types around the world The main forest types On being evergreen or deciduous Boreal forests Temperate forests Tropical forests Plantations and managed forests Summary Chapter 3. Weather and climate determine forest growth and type How trees grow Weather factors: Temperature Weather factors: Solar radiation Weather factors: air humidity Weather factors: Precipitation and hydrology Implications of forest clearance for hydrology and climate Summary Chapter 4. The causes and consequences of rapid climate change
The causes of global warming Fossil fuel burning and land use change How fast is the earth warming? A word about denialists On variation and uncertainty Extreme weather events The impacts and implications of climate change Summary Chapter 5. How we value and use forests Ecosystem services and universal values of forests The uses of forests Abuses of forests Summary Chapter 6. The economics and practices of forest management An outline of relevant economic theory Micro-economics: Commercial operations on state land Micro-economics: Commercial operations on private land Forest growth and yield estimates Fire and its management Summary Chapter 7. The future for forests Conserve the forests Management for the future: natural forests Management for the future: plantations Concluding remarks Glossary References
1
Chapter 1 Introduction: A long look back, and a look into the future
Our objective in this book is to describe and discuss forests and their significance in our world. Human societies need the products of forests — not just wood and wood products but all the ecological goods and services that forests provide: biodiversity and its essential benefits; carbon sequestration and storage; stable water supplies; land protection; recreation. But relatively few people are aware of these services and benefits, so we hope to contribute to raising awareness of these values and the importance of forests, and to providing the science-based information needed to guide political action and decisions about them. Towards achieving these objectives we consider how forests grow and why different types occur in different parts of the earth; what constrains their growth, why they are important to us and how they should be managed. Most people like trees. We plant and nurture them in our parks and gardens — in fact the very idea of a suburb suggests leafy, tree-lined streets — but there are big differences between trees in the suburbs or those scattered around farmhouses or in small woodlots, or in forests. Forests are embedded in our psyche: they have been important to us throughout our history, but most people, nowadays, know too little about their importance to the planet and to our lives and economies. People of different cultures and backgrounds view forests in different ways: some see them as rather mysterious wilderness, others simply as blocks of land with commercial potential. Forests are basic to the folklore of people who have lived in and with them for generations. Scandinavian and German myths and legends tend to involve dark and sometimes forbidding forests. In some countries, access to the forests to camp, collect berries and mushrooms, hunt, or simply to walk in and enjoy them is a right
2
entrenched in law. In the modern world virtually all forests are exploited by humans in various ways, mostly, of course, for wood production for industrial purposes or for fuel. Some natural forests are protected and well-managed but economic pressures are bringing about the destruction of many others. Tropical forests provide a living to — sadly, remnant — native peoples in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Amazon, but those forests are being destroyed at frightening rates by illegal logging or to establish oil palm plantations or cleared for crop production. Forests have been, and indeed remain, among the dominant vegetation types across the earth, but one of the most important processes by which humans have transformed the earth is through deforestation. In the following paragraphs we provide an outline of the history of human interaction with forests and a short synopsis of the history of deforestation around the world. In later chapters we consider some of the consequences and implications of destroying forests.
Forests in human history It’s now generally accepted by anthropologists and archeologists that our species evolved in the forests of central Africa somewhere around 3.5 million years ago — less than 1% of the total age of our earth Why those early ape-like creatures started to walk upright on two limbs instead of just going on the way they were, presumably swinging through the trees, is a matter of speculation. It seems inarguable that our very early ancestors moved from living in the central African forests to the savannah; the species called Homo sapiens emerged about half a million years ago and became essentially identical to modern humans about 50,000 years ago. Much of the early development of human societies was in the area covered by modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and eastern Iran, none of which was heavily forested.
3
From there, early humans radiated west along the north coast of the Mediterranean Sea and east, within the warm sub-tropical latitudes. There is also archeological evidence of Homo erectus (not yet H. sapiens) activity in China more than a million years ago. It’s estimated that the human population of the earth has increased from a few hundred thousand at the time of the retreat of the glaciers, around 10,000 years ago, to about 200 million at the beginning of what we in the western world call the Christian era. Of that 200 million, a significant proportion was in China. Morris (2010) says there is evidence that rice and millet were cultivated in the Yangtze valley between 8000 and 9000 years ago, and that 6000 years ago the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys were mostly sub-tropical forest. Forests were cleared as the steady growth of human populations led to the expansion of crop land around more and more villages. As the glaciers and ice sheets of the Ice Age retreated, forests expanded into huge areas where tree growth had previously been impossible. Human populations also increased as the ice retreated and people moved north into regions of Europe that had been uninhabitable. Human disturbance of forests in Europe seems to have become significant around 6000 years ago — approximately the same time as in China — and increased from then on. There are written accounts from the ancient Mediterranean civilizations — notably Greece and Rome — of extensive forest clearing for wood for fuel, building and shipbuilding, leading to denudation of the countryside. The damage was exacerbated by widespread over-grazing and browsing, particularly by goats. This led to soil loss by erosion, and reduced agricultural productivity, which may well have been a significant contributor to the decline of those civilizations. The Roman Empire at its peak, near the beginning of the Christian era, included about 60 million people; Rome itself reached about one million, a massive city population for the time. Wood was the most important building material and, throughout
4
the empire, trees were cut for housing and the great shipbuilding program of the Romans, as well as to provide fuel for domestic heating, iron-working and ceramics manufacture. The expansion of agriculture also resulted in increasing land clearance, so the Roman period saw considerable changes in forest cover, particularly in southern Europe. Clearance in Europe was checked by declining populations associated with the disintegration of the Roman empire, the invasions by Huns and Goths from the east, constant war, the spread of various lethal diseases, and famine. Populations recovered and increased between the 7th and 14th centuries, with accelerated land clearance; by the end of the 14th century “farmers had plowed up vast tracts of what had once been forest, felling perhaps half the trees in western Europe” (Morris, loc. cit., p. 367). The plagues known as the ‘black death’ caused human populations to crash in the 14th century and large areas of forests recovered, by natural regeneration, during that period. Morris (p. 380) also describes how, in the Chinese city of Kaifeng on the Yellow River, iron output increased six-fold between 800 and 1100 A.D. : “foundries burned day and night, sucking in trees to smelt ores into iron; so many trees, in fact, that ironmasters bought up and clear cut entire mountains… There was simply not enough wood in northern China to feed and warm its million (human) bodies and keep foundries turning out thousands of tons of iron.’’ This demand triggered the increased utilization of a new fuel source — coal. Morris does not concern himself with environmental impacts, although he does comment that “Kaifeng was apparently entering an ecological bottleneck” by which he means, presumably, that it was reaching a tipping point, where the surrounding ecosystems would collapse. In the modern era forests in China were devastated during Mao’s “great leap forward” when, to reduce China’s need to import steel and machinery, people were encouraged to set up back-yard steel furnaces to turn scrap metal (including their own pots, pans and farm implements) into steel. This resulted
5
in very little, if any, usable steel, while entire forests were cut down to fuel the smelters, leaving the land vulnerable to erosion and contributing to the massive environmental damage caused by the Great Leap Forward. Discussing the massive impact of humans on the land in the immediate preindustrial period, Morris (loc. cit) tells us that “One scholar complained in the 1660s that four-fifths of Japanese mountains had been deforested�. The same thing happened in Britain. The forests of Britain had been cleared for farmland well before the arrival of the Romans i and later were heavily exploited for timber; only 10% of England and Scotland were still wooded around 1550 and by the 1750s most of those trees were gone too. The demand for timber, and consequently much of the deforestation in England between the 16th and 18th centuries, was caused by shipbuilding: Britannia, as it was happy to tell the world, ruled the waves, and to do that it needed ships. The British navy was the means by which the island kingdom protected itself and projected its power; thousands of wooden ships were built through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The toll on the forests was enormous. English demand for access to American forests and wood supplies was one of the sources of tension between England and its American colonies in the 18th century. Ireland, by contrast, was still 12% forest in 1600, but colonists eliminated more than 80% of those trees by 1700. In Europe the need for timber drove exploitation of the forests, but the need to manage them in a systematic way that would ensure their survival and long-term productivity (today we would use the word sustainability) was recognized early, particularly in Germany, where formal forest management dates back to the 14th century. (Germany was not a single country at that time, so management practices, and control of the forests, varied between states. Some of the mixed temperate forests in Germany are
6
regrowth; they were at one time completely destroyed, as in the north-eastern United States (see our comment a little later, about the recovery of those forests). In his fascinating and salutary book “Collapse�, Jared Diamond (2005) examines the reasons various human societies of the past have collapsed. They are as varied as the societies he considers, but a common thread is environmental destruction and deforestation, leading to degeneration of the ecosystems on which every society relies, and ultimately the collapse of the societies. Deforestation was seldom the only problem, although in the case of Easter island, where trees provided the rollers to move stone statues, it was the primary cause of soil erosion, loss of soil fertility and productivity and the loss of material to make canoes for fishing. Eventually deforestation brought about the total disintegration of the Easter Island society. In the highly successful Mayan civilization on the Yucatan peninsular, which lasted from about 250 to 900 A.D, high population growth outstripped the availability of resources. The process was accelerated by deforestation of the hillsides, leading to soil erosion and the accumulation of infertile sediment in the valley bottoms and loss of agricultural production. In modern times the island of Haiti, in the Caribbean, is a failed state with unstable government, and frequent breakdowns of law and order. Heavily overpopulated and desperately poor, it has been almost completely deforested with disastrous effects on water supplies and agricultural production. Things are very different in the Dominican Republic which occupies the other section (two thirds) of the island. Forest cover there is good and the ecology seems to be healthy, Perhaps not coincidentally, the Dominican Republic is economically healthy and politically stable. A point we need to make with respect to all this historical deforestation is that it was rarely deliberate, at least not by native inhabitants. People needed wood and fuel and they needed to clear land for agriculture and living space. The forests, in many cases,
7
seemed huge and a few people with axes would not have felt they were doing significant damage. Each generation was comfortable with its actions and did not consciously set out to destroy the forests. In most cases each generation had increasing appreciation for a declining resource. Even in Australia, where permanent land settlement only started in the 19th century, the forests seemed endless and men with axes and cross-cut saws, wielded with immense labor, could not imagine that they would end up destroying a large proportion of them. Things are different now. With our communication systems, satellite coverage of the earth, and methods of disseminating knowledge, we have no excuse for not knowing what’s going on. We know how much forest there is, how fast it grows and how fast we are harvesting or destroying it. We understand the importance of forests and what their loss entails. In this book we discuss what we need to know to use forests sensibly, so we can benefit from them — as humans always have — without destroying them. But across the world, as we write, the destructive trend continues. Amazonian rainforests are being destroyed to make way for commercial production of soybeans, mainly for export to the United States. Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests are cleared to free land for agro-industrial purposes, such as oil palm cultivation. The rainforests of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and other Pacific islands are being destroyed to satisfy voracious Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese commercial interests. Poor decisions, such as those based on superficial economic analyses, without taking account of the long-term implications, can lead to irreversible loss of options in the future. For example: a recent analysis of the effects of climate change on forest production in California notes that pulp yields (for paper production), will decrease, but the land values for urban development will increase. Therefore, in conventional economic terms, additional urban development (sprawl) is considered justifiable: the gain
8
in land values is deemed to compensate for the loss in forests and forest productivity, although the environmental costs are likely to be high. We discuss the values of forests, and the economics of using them, in Chapters 5 and 6. The forest cover of Australia has been estimated at 33% at the time of European settlement. It is now 19%. The country has a remarkably cavalier attitude to its forest resources: clear-felling and logging of old-growth forests continue to this day, although this activity has now been greatly reduced, largely because of pressure brought by an increasingly concerned public. But much of Australia’s agricultural land — land that was covered by forests, or at least woodlands — now has serious salinity problems, because the deep-rooted trees that were once present, transpiring water all the year round and keeping the water tables down, are largely gone. There are some bright spots in all this. A forest is not necessarily destroyed when all the trees are cut down. It is destroyed when the land is no longer allowed to support trees, but is converted to crops, pastures, or urban development. If once forested lands are left alone after clear-felling the forests will, in most cases, regenerate and re-establish themselves, sometimes with astonishing rapidity. The trees may not, initially, be the same species, but under a stable climate will evolve to once more resemble a natural forest. We will discuss the processes involved in more detail later. The United States provides examples. It was colonized from east to west by Europeans, who in the 17th and 18th centuries cleared the forest from large areas of New England, for agriculture. As the colonists moved west and the more productive, and easily farmed, lands of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa came into agricultural production, and transport improved, it became uneconomical to farm in New England and New Hampshire so the cleared lands were abandoned. These areas are now thriving hardwood and mixed forests. Similarly, large areas in the south of the US were cleared of
9
forest to grow cotton. These too were abandoned and forests re-established themselves across millions of hectares. Large areas of denuded cotton lands have also been planted to conifer plantations which, with appropriate management to deal with the results of soil degradation by exploitive cotton culture, are highly productive. They are not always native trees, but plantations are part of the “family� of forests. We will discuss them in some detail later. In Russia, large areas of cooperative farmland have been abandoned since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, and abundant re-growth of forests is now evident. But, despite the few bright spots, and regeneration, overall the world is losing it’s forests at a depressing rate. This is not just the result of land clearance. All natural ecosystems are under serious stress as a result of the pressures generated by the demands and activities of more than seven billion humans. Fossil fuel burning has raised the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to levels that have not been seen for at least the last two to three million years, leading to rising global temperatures which, in some areas, are causing prolonged and unusual droughts (Chapter 4). Water shortage in itself may kill trees, and drought-stressed trees are more likely to burn, so forest fires are becoming more frequent and more damaging. There have always been forest fires, but the intensity of the fires that we are seeing now in California and Texas, Spain and Portugal and in Australia, is frequently higher than in the past, so the trees are killed and some of the forests do not recover. In terms of the concept of ecosystem resilience now becoming widely adopted (see the next section) these forests reach thresholds where the fires cause collapse of the system so that it cannot revert to its previous state, with serious implications for various systems that depend on, and interact with, the forested lands. Rising global temperatures also bring about changes in the life cycles of insects, including those that damage trees. The result,
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in some places, is unprecedented damage, which kills whole forests directly. Dead trees are also, of course, much more likely to burn. So there are plenty of problems. But there’s not much point in wringing our hands about them, and succumbing to despair. If any problem is to be solved, the first step is to recognize it, establish what causes and constitutes the problem and then determine how, at least in principle, it can be solved. In the case of forests, the first steps must be to identify the different types, where they occur and what threats they face. We also need to identify the values that humans place on forests, and the products they expect to get from them. These include wood, water, the preservation of biodiversity and value as recreational areas in which people can hike and camp and which can be enjoyed for their peace and beauty. In the western USA, northern Europe and Russia — and no doubt other places — forests are also hunting grounds. We want to conserve forests, to manage them sustainably for their value to us as humans and to all the other life forms that depend on or are affected by them, which means managing them so they not only do not deteriorate but, where possible, they are improved. In very few cases will forests be “locked up” — preserved as untouchable areas to which human access is forbidden.
i
Hugh Thomson. The Sherwood Syndrome. http://www.aeonmagazine.com/nature-andcosmos/hugh-thomson-britain-forests-myth
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978-1-61091-363-8 978-1-61091-362-1 978-1-61091-566-3
$85.00 $42.50 $41.99
SCIENCE / Applied Sciences Trim Size: 8 X 10 Pages: 320 33 photos; 47 line art; 7 tables; 28 boxes Author Residence: San Diego, California Paradise, California San Diego, California Comparative Titles: • Restoring Disturbed Landscapes: Putting Principles into Practice, David J. Tongway and John A. Ludwig. ISBN: 978-159726-581-2, Paperback, Nov. 2010, $35.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 117, Warehouse: 1093. • Ecological Restoration: Principles, Values and Structuring of an Emerging Profession, Andre F. Clewell and James Aronson. ISBN: 978-1-59726-169-2, Paperback, Jan. 2008, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 887, Warehouse: 3487. • Ecological Restoration: Principles, Values and Structuring of an Emerging Profession (2nd edition), Andre F. Clewell and James Aronson. ISBN: 978-1-61091-168-9, Paperback, Jan. 2013, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 119, Warehouse: 820. Previous Works: None Sales Handle A straightforward framework for developing and executing an ecological restoration project with maximum potential for success. Description Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration addresses a problem that is the reason many current restoration projects are not as effective or successful as they could be: a lack of understanding of the principles of sound planning and management. John Rieger, John Stanley, and Ray Traynor, who collectively have decades of experience implementing successful restoration projects, provide a straightforward framework for developing and executing an ecological restoration project in order to maximize its potential for success. The authors focus on process, planning, design, implementation, and management rather than science. They describe a simple project management plan, identify the design approaches and the commitments that decisions require, and explain how design theory is translated to on-the-ground project design. The book includes numerous illustrations, as well as a series of checklists and tables to help restorationists recognize and then correct problems that may arise. Selling Points • A long-awaited, one-of-a-kind guide to conceiving, planning, and implementing an ecological restoration project. • No other book on restoration planning and management combines scientific theory with practical, step-by-step instructions that can be implemented on projects around the world. • The authors are pioneers in the science and practice of ecological restoration, earning wide respect in the restoration community for their deep knowledge, professionalism, and expertise.
Author Bio John Rieger is a long-time practicing restoration ecologist, and cofounder and first president of the Society for Ecological Restoration. For the past thirty years he has actively promoted restoration throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. John Stanley is a cofounder of the Society for Ecological Restoration and a restoration ecologist with WWW Restoration, a consulting firm specializing in the protection, restoration, and management of watersheds, waterways, and wetlands. Ray Traynor, with a background inlandscape architecture and project management, is vice president and general manager of Axiom Xcell. Table of Contents Foreword Preface Acknowledgements Introduction PART I. Project Planning Introduction to Part I Chapter 1 Framework for Ecological Restoration Chapter 2 Restoration Project Management Chapter 3 Defining Your Project PART II. Project Design Introduction to Part II Chapter 4 Site Analysis Chapter 5 Design Approach Chapter 6 Design Chapter 7 Water and Soil Chapter 8 Plant Material PART III. Project Implementation Introduction to Part III Chapter 9 Restoration Project Documents Chapter 10 Construction and Installation PART IV. Project Aftercare Introduction to Part IV
Chapter 11 Maintenance and Stewardship Chapter 12 Weed Management and Invasive Species Control Chapter 13 Monitoring and Evaluation PART V. Synthesis of the Process Introduction to Part V Chapter 14 Bring It All Together Chapter 15 Summary of Project Planning and Management Principles Appendixes Appendix 1 Gantt Chart Primer Appendix 2 Project Cost Estimate Worksheet Appendix 3 Risk Management in Restoration Projects Appendix 4 Project Evaluation and Review Technique Appendix 5 Site Analysis Checklist Appendix 6 Seed and Plant Calculation Exercise Appendix 7 Plant and Planting Specification Appendix 8 Plan Review Checklist Appendix 9 Permitting Table Appendix 10 Completed Site Analysis Checklist Glossary References Cited About the Authors Index
Chapter 1
Framework for Ecological Restoration The size range and complexity of ecological restoration is broad. The uniqueness of each project site offers challenges to following a recipe book type approach. We have found that following a four phase framework provides a structured approach to an ecological restoration project which will greatly assist you in advancing your project with a minimum of wasted time and resources.
Four-phase Framework The four sequential phases of project development are: Planning, Design, Implementation, and Aftercare. This framework applies to restoration projects regardless of size, ecosystem or location. The framework approach emphasizes that the restoration practitioner begins with the end target in mind. It is structured to provide a more disciplined approach to the planning and design process, whereby objectives drive the action steps of the entire development process. Each step of project development can be divided into a series of “aspects� of the project. Starting with project management techniques, advancing through to aftercare the focus is always on results. The process of project development may involve a few to several steps depending upon the complexity of the project. Each step should be carefully evaluated and when appropriate incorporate lessons learned from previous experience. Attention at this point in plan development will help to avoid repeating failures, and focus on achieving results, before moving on to the next step. We encourage using the lists, tables and figures as a starting point for organizing thoughts, data, plans, and actions as the project progresses through the four phases of its development. Use the flowcharts, tables, and checklists, to begin the process of developing a sound and thorough ecological restoration plan. The flowcharts will assist you in understanding the relationship of the many steps in conducting an ecological restoration project. The checklists and tables will help in determining the specific information required at each step in the planning process so requirements and other project 8
commitments can be properly identified in advance to permit the smooth implementation of the project. The Plan Review Checklist (appendix 8) in the implementation phase is the result of numerous projects over many years and input from several individuals.
Project Planning The foundations of a project are established in the planning phase which will greatly facilitate project development to its completion. The process of coordinating with the stakeholders and obtaining a consensus among project sponsors is critical to the project development process. Building this foundation is crucial for the successful operation of the project. Whether it is practiced consciously or unconsciously project management is the foundation of all successfully implemented projects. We encourage developing well-crafted mission, goals and objectives for your project (chapter 3). The enumeration and clarification of the project goals has several advantages. They can be recorded and remembered for use in future projects. They can be communicated to team members, sponsors, stakeholders, key decision makers, and regulatory agencies and argued in these settings as appropriate. Goals and objectives will form the basis of many decisions, starting with design strategies, design approach, plant materials, and installation schedule. The process of developing goals and objectives will require thoughtful evaluation and coordination among the stakeholders. Consensus among project sponsors is critical in the project development process. All permitting or other regulatory agencies should take an active role in this important initial step of the process. Agency permitted projects often add additional constraints to a project with specific conditions that need to be considered as early as possible as they will directly affect the process of identifying and quantifying the evaluation criteria used to judge the performance of the restoration effort. In addition the conditions may add features not previously considered and could impact the budget and materials required. Initially the identification of goals and objectives can be done in a small group with more knowledge about the project site or the circumstances. This is the time to explore the maximum opportunities, to test the "what ifs". Brainstorming ideas will set the initial foundation from which considered discussion can commence. To assist in the 9
brainstorming of ideas it is important to conduct an initial site analysis. Results of a site analysis provide the basis for action steps. Some actions will be short-term and the results will be immediately noticeable. However, a thorough approach to restoration also focuses on the actions that have long-term implications. Once initially laid out for the stakeholders and project sponsors, it is now possible to conduct a more thorough site analysis and a SWOT-C analysis (a process of evaluating various factors identified during site analysis) (chapter 4) which will enable the development of the final goals and objectives. Once agreed upon the goals and objectives are then finalized and will establish the project requirements from which project plans and actions can be created. The systematic framework approach encourages the restoration practitioner to examine all of the factors that are at work on the project site that can influence the outcome of the restoration effort. The site analysis process introduced in chapter 4 requires a thorough and analytical approach to understanding the forces at work on the project site. Not all plans go as expected and that’s why many designers are now applying the risk management process to restoration projects (chapter 2, appendix 3). A risk assessment outlines what could go wrong on your project. The resulting risk avoidance plan is the key element of the risk management process. This technique helps the project development team reduce the impact of issues that threaten the successful implementation of the project. The aim of risk management is to develop backup plans early in the project development process so that when something goes wrong, the team has actions that can be immediately implemented so that impact to the project scope, schedule and cost are minimized.
Project Design Design, the second phase, is where one will encounter numerous choices and the path chosen will be directed in large part by the decisions made during the project planning phase. There may be only a few design options to meet project needs on small single plant community sites, however, on larger projects with more than one plant community one may need to use both management and construction strategies. If the focus is on a target species, a species of specific interest to stakeholders, combinations of strategies to create the specific habitat elements for the target species may be needed. At 10
various stages in the design phase there will be situations requiring the exercise of judgment. For example, the complexity and the variability of a site may not permit a precise distribution of plants by either sowing or planting. Chapter 6 provides general guidance principles and suggests ways to address specific situations. However, these situations usually require a good knowledge of the species behavior and/or ecology. The development of goals and objectives will in turn guide your approach to the restoration. The four variations presented in chapter 5 will guide the decisions needed to develop a cohesive plan. The initial concept plan will address the management strategies, if any, and construction elements may be limited depending upon the size and/ or complexity of the project site. From concept to the actual design, an iterative process of examining the site with its goals and objectives will force modifications as one gets further into the design decisions and the specifics required to execute the project. Frequently, we have found that changes will still be necessary as stakeholders, especially regulatory agencies, will have some additional observations. Negotiations and project management skills will be required to resolve issues and come to final consensus on the design. On more than one project we have had to make some changes we felt were unwarranted, but we could not resolve the issues satisfactorily. Hopefully, any changes will not affect the overall structure of your design. Since you have been communicating with all your project sponsors and stakeholders this disaster should not happen. Following these modifications, the next phase of the process is to develop more formal project plans with specifications. If the project is primarily a management oriented process, then having protocols developed and agreed to by your stakeholders will permit the operations to proceed. Invariably there will be some construction elements associated with management based projects. An example of an exception would be the use of prescribed fire to achieve a management objective. Any construction element should be clearly planned and described to ensure an efficient implementation phase.
Project Implementation The Implementation Phase encompasses those projects that are lacking complexity to extremely complex projects requiring several additional elements typically found in major engineered construction projects. It will be your decision of which steps to include in the 11
project plans and specifications to ensure the project is properly described to attain the results anticipated (chapter 9). Depending upon the size of the project and the complexity you may only require some simple line drawings and tables to keep the project under control. You will have to decide on the level of detail required for your project. Management based activities require a dramatically different set of parameters and instructions from construction and installation activities. Written instructions are the basis for informing people on what, how and when to conduct a specific activity, the "where" typically requires mapping or some other form of designation that has been established on site, such as permanent markers. Construction and installation activities are many with numerous means of execution and therefore require not only mapping, diagrams and plans, but also specifications to ensure that the product desired can be executed with minimum of damage to the remainder of the site. Clarity of instruction is of paramount importance. However, even with numerous reviewers misinterpretation is possible. An on-site, or at least, an on call person capable of answering questions or directing the work should be associated with the project. This person is a critical element in ensuring the results you desire. Inspection on-site also ensures that products and the condition of materials are acceptable. Poor material or unacceptable plants and seed will seriously affect the performance of the project. Routinely a maintenance period from 90 days to 2 years follows construction and installation of plant material. The plant establishment time period is concerned with survivorship of plants, irrigation if required, and weeding to prevent competition during this vulnerable time period. Typically the end of the plant establishment period is the completion of a project and it can be closed out and passed along to the stewards/owners of the property for long-term management as part of a program.
Project Aftercare In addition to routine maintenance activities and depending upon the regulatory or sponsor directions stewardship programs may be necessary for projects beyond the time period it takes to meet the success criteria established by the stakeholders. In some instances this may be due to the short time following installation and plant self-sufficiency not having been attained. Many different elements comprise an ecosystem with some 12
requiring many years, even decades to fully develop. Some ecological restoration projects may be subjected to stressors that require attentive care until the ecosystem can develop sufficiently to be resilient to the stressors. The purpose of aftercare is the continuance of the restoration efforts begun during the project implementation phase and assist in attaining the desired trajectory of maturation. The type of ecosystem involved will determine the activity or management. Projects implemented under an agency permit or other regulatory requirement often require monitoring for a duration of 3-5 years, while some significant or large projects can have monitoring requirements lasting in excess of 10 years. The maintenance and monitoring of a site is an often a forgotten aspect of land management, and if not forgotten, it is frequently poorly resourced with insufficient staff hours and insufficient funds. External influences that go unabated can quickly deteriorate the condition of the restored area. Most projects require some form of nurturing activities post-implementation to facilitate the development of the site and to ensure that stressors are minimized during the early stages. So, whether your aftercare activities include regular weed abatement or maintenance of barriers such as fences or dikes, some form of postimplementation follow up treatment is typically necessary to ensure that the re-introduced processes can continue advancing instead of being left in a state of neglect and decline. Monitoring will document the progress of the site. Regardless of whether or not your project has permit or sponsor requirements, an important aspect of aftercare is site monitoring and documentation. We encourage all restoration practitioners to collect data and write up progress reports to capture what is and is not working on the site. Our field is young, and the body of knowledge is growing each year. We all can learn from even the simplest, most straightforward project. Communication among practitioners is elemental to the advancement of restoration practice. We have introduced you to the four phases of an ecological restoration project and have discussed briefly the major actions taking place in each one (fig. 1.1). The chapters to follow will provide more extensive information and tools to assist in your journey through the restoration project development process. [fig 1.1 here] 13
Restoration Strategies Ultimately ecological restoration relies upon the autogenic (self-sustaining) capabilities of the ecosystem. The spectrum of ecological restoration activities can logically be divided into two major strategies, management, and construction and installation (fig.1.2). Management-based actions are intended to reinitiate processes that would have occurred without the stressors on site. This return initiates a host of autogenic responses. Construction begins with obtaining the necessary elements for doing the work and documenting what has been done. Following installation, a period of maintenance and monitoring ensures the persistence of the developing ecosystem. Construction involves the active fashioning of items put together by arranging or connecting an array of parts. Examples of construction and installation strategies include planting plants, installing rock features and changing the grade or elevation of the ground. The specific strategy or strategies you choose will depend upon the number of degrading stress factors affecting your project site, the time horizon of your project, your budget and project goals and objectives. Most projects require the restoration team to employ a combination of both construction and management strategies to successfully realize the project goals and objectives. [fig 1.2 here]
Management Strategies Management strategies generally involve changes in present and past management practices and the use of a variety of management techniques. Management strategies often include restoration activities of a long-term nature that don’t necessarily result in immediately visible changes to the landscape. Land management varies with the local culture and resources involved. In the U.S., fire suppression has been carried out to extremes. The removal of fire has changed the structure and composition of vegetation communities dramatically. An interesting contrast to the suppression of fire in the United States is the routine fire practice and harvesting of heath for hundreds of years in Great Britain. The resulting ecosystem is composed of numerous sensitive and localized species. Here fire is needed to keep the pines from taking over, an effort to maintain a specified succession stage. This strategy requires the site being degraded partially but not to the 14
point where the natural resilience of the ecosystem is damaged beyond self-regeneration. By returning fire as an element within the ecosystem nutrient cycling, and other processes are promoted. Fire has been gradually introduced into many of the forests of North America to encourage regeneration of woodland species. (fig. 1.3) [fig 1.3 here] Another example of a management strategy is changing livestock grazing practices in the western regions of North America. Reduction of cattle stocking levels, and exclusion or seasonal control of cattle grazing in riparian and meadow areas has been found to be effective in allowing the regeneration of the diverse plant communities and native wildlife populations. Shifting the livestock controls overgrazing and secondary impacts such as soil erosion alongside mountain streams. Controlling water elevations or managing its rise and fall to enhance or impede species; and periodic weeding to reduce competition, or to permit germination of native seed banks can also be considered management strategies. Sometimes restoration projects are undertaken for the sole purpose of addressing one species or element of an ecosystem. The practice of live-trapping brown-headed cowbirds (fig. 1.4) throughout the Midwestern and Western North America has resulted in population stabilization or increases of the Kirtland’s warblers in the Midwest, the blackcapped vireo in Texas, and the least Bell’s vireo in California. In New Zealand, the practice of removing exotic predators from islands prior to reestablishment of endangered or sensitive species has been developed into a routine practice. [ fig. 1.4 here]
Construction and Installation Strategies Construction and installation strategies for ecosystem restoration tend to be more resource intensive than management activities. Construction activities typically include: landform changes such as slope and elevation, and the erection of barriers and temporary irrigation systems. Construction activities may include the removal of structures (e.g., dams, diversions) and the removal or rerouting of infrastructure (e.g., pipelines, roadways). A good example is the reconstruction of a stream which was previously “moved” to make land more useable (often for agriculture) which involves both the 15
excavation of the “new� stream channel and the filling in of the rerouted stream channel. Construction strategies often require large sums of money to fund the activities and materials needed to restore the site. Whether you choose an approach that is more management oriented, versus an approach that is construction oriented, depends upon the site and your established goals and objectives. A study of a particular site might indicate that an element is missing which is largely responsible for the sustenance or continued existence of the ecosystem. Typically this element is abiotic in nature, such as the alteration of hydrology. Levees around the bays and shores that eliminate tides are the most obvious situations. Land elevations may be lower than previous due to land subsidence or loss of soil due to agricultural practices or higher due to sedimentation or fill.
16
KEEPING THE WILD AG AIN S T THE DOMESTICATI ON OF EARTH
Edited by George Wuerthner and Eileen Crist
Sales Information Sheet Keeping the Wild Against the Domestication of Earth
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 5/6/2014
George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist, and Tom Butler Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-558-8 978-1-61091-559-5
$24.95 $23.99
KEEPING THE WILD AGAINST THE DOME S TI C ATI ON OF E A RTH
NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection NATURE / Essays Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 248 Author Residence: Helena, Montana Blacksburg, Virginia Vermont
Edited by George Wuerthner and Eileen Crist
Comparative Titles: • Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, Andrew Kimbrell. ISBN: 978-1-55963-941-5, Paperback, May 2002, $45.00, Foundation for Deep Ecology. Bookscan: 3207, Warehouse: 7861. • Fatal Harvest Reader, Andrew Kimbrell, ISBN: 978-1-55963-944-6, Paperback, May 2002, $37.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 5643, Warehouse: 11365. Previous Titles: • Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West, George Wuerthner. ISBN: 978-1-55963-943-9, Paperback, Aug. 2002, $45.00, Foundation for Deep Ecology. Bookscan: 562, Warehouse: 2449. • Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy, George Wuerthner. ISBN: 978-1-59726-070-1, Paperback, June 2006, $45.00, Foundation for Deep Ecology. Bookscan: 339, Warehouse: 1039. • Wildfire Reader, George Wuerthner. ISBN: 978-1-59726-087-9, Paperback, Aug. 2006, $45.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 352, Warehouse: 2747. Sales Handle A cast of conservation luminaries vigorously rebuts the so-called “new environmentalism” with its focus on domesticated “working” landscapes, economic growth, and corporate partnerships. Description Is it time to embrace the so-called “Anthropocene”—the age of human dominion—and to abandon tried-and-true conservation tools such as parks and wilderness areas? Is the future of Earth to be fully domesticated, an engineered global garden managed by technocrats to serve humanity? The schism between advocates of rewilding and those who accept and even celebrate a “post-wild” world is arguably the hottest intellectual battle in contemporary conservation. In Keeping the Wild, a group of prominent scientists, writers, and conservation activists responds to the Anthropoceneboosters who claim that wild nature is no more (or in any case not much worth caring about), that human-caused extinction is acceptable, and that “novel ecosystems” are an adequate replacement for natural landscapes. With rhetorical fists swinging, the book’s contributors argue that these “new environmentalists” embody the hubris of the managerial mindset and offer a conservation strategy that will fail to protect life in all its buzzing, blossoming diversity. With essays from Eileen Crist, David Ehrenfeld, Dave Foreman, Lisi Krall, Harvey Locke, Curt Meine, Kathleen Dean Moore, Michael Soulé, Terry Tempest Williams and other leading thinkers, Keeping the Wild provides an introduction to this important debate, a critique of the Anthropocene boosters’ attack on traditional conservation, and unapologetic advocacy for wild nature. Selling Points • A timely and much-needed contribution to the ongoing and passionate debate about the importance of wild places • Includes chapters by luminaries in the fields of ecology and conservation • Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology, a mission-driven organization that works across platforms to advocate for wild nature
Author Bio George Wuerthner is the ecological projects director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology, where he does research and writes about environmental issues. For many years he was a full-time freelance photographer and writer and has published thirty-five books on natural history, conservation history, ecology, and environmental issues. Eileen Crist teaches at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science and Technology in Society, where she is advisor for the undergraduate program Humanities, Science, and Environment. She is author of Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind and coeditor of Gaia in Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis. Tom Butler, a Vermont-based conservation activist and writer, is the board president of the Northeast Wilderness Trust and the former longtime editor of Wild Earth journal. His books include Wildlands Philanthropy, Plundering Appalachia, and ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth. Table of Contents Foreword Introduction by Tom Butler PART I. Clashing Worldviews Chapter 1. Paul Kingsnorth, “Rise of the Neo-Greens” Chapter 2. David Kidner, “The Conceptual Assassination of Wilderness” Chapter 3. Eileen Crist, “Ptolemaic Environmentalism” Chapter 4. David Johns, “With Friends Like These Wilderness and Biodiversity Do Not Need Enemies” Chapter 5. Curt Meine, “What’s So New About the ‘New Environmentalism’?” Chapter 6. Claudio Campagna and Daniel Guevara, “Conservation in No Man’s Land” Chapter 7. Michael Soulé, “The New Conservation” PART II. Against Domestication Chapter 8. David Ehrenfeld, “A Fully Domesticated Earth is Impossible” Chapter 9. Tim Caro, “Conservation in the Anthropocene” Chapter 10. Dave Foreman, “The Myth of the Humanized, Pre-European Landscape” Chapter 11. Brendan Mackey, “The Future of Conservation: an Australian Perspective” Chapter 12. Phil Cafaro, “Expanding Parks, Reducing Human Numbers and Preserving All The Wild Nature We Can: A Superior Alternative to Embracing the Anthropocene Era” Chapter 13. Harvey Locke, “Biodiversity Wildlands” Chapter 14. Ned Hettinger, “Valuing Naturalness in the Anthropocene: Now More than Ever” Part III. Values of the Wild Chapter 15. Roderick Nash, “Wild World” Chapter 16. Sandra Lubarsky, “Living Beauty” Chapter 17. George Wuerthner, “Why the Working Landscape Isn’t Working” Chapter 18. Howie Wolke, “Wilderness: What and Why” Chapter 19. Lisi Krall, “Resistance” Chapter 20. Terry Tempest Williams, “An Open Letter to Major Wesley Powell” Epilogue: Kathleen Dean Moore, “The Road to Cape Perpetua”
Sales Information Sheet Tibet Wild A Naturalist's Journeys on the Roof of the World
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 2/15/2014
George B. Schaller Paperback: Hardcover: E-Book:
978-1-61091-506-9 978-1-61091-172-6 978-1-61091-232-7
$19.99 $29.95 $19.99
NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 384 Author Residence: Roxbury, Connecticut Comparative Titles: • Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed, Alan Rabinowitz. ISBN: 978-1-59726129-6, Hardcover, Nov. 2007, $37.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 2342, Warehouse: 4798. • Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators, William Stolzenburg. ISBN: 978-1-59691-624-1, Paperback, June 2009, $16.00, Bloomsbury. Bookscan: 3803. • The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet’s Chang Tang, Rick Ridgeway. ISBN: 978-0792265603, Hardcover, May 2004, $26.00, National Geographic. Bookscan: 1907. Previous Works: • Tibet Wild: A Naturalist’s Journeys on the Roof of the World, George B. Schaller. ISBN: 978-1-61091-172-6, Hardcover, Oct. 2012, $29.95, Island Press. Bookscan: 1733, Warehouse: 3493. • A Naturalist and Other Beasts: Tales from a Life in the Field, George B. Schaller. ISBN: 978-1-57805-129-8, Hardcover, Apr. 2007, $24.95, Sierra Club Books. Bookscan: 1150. Sales Handle An engaging portrait of wildlife and culture in the Tibetan wilderness from the world’s preeminent field biologist Description George Schaller has spent much of his life traversing wild and isolated places in his quest to understand and conserve threatened species—from mountain gorillas in the Virunga to snow leopards in the Himalaya. Throughout his career, Schaller has spent more time in Tibet than anywhere else, devoting over thirty years to the region's unique wildlife, culture, and landscapes.Tibet Wild is Schaller’s account of three decades of exploration in the remote stretches of Tibet. As human development accelerated, Schaller watched the clash between wildlife and people become more common—and more destructive. What began as a scientific endeavor became a mission: to work with local communities, regional leaders, and national governments to protect the ecological richness and culture of the Tibetan Plateau. Whether tracking brown bears, penning fables about the tiny pika, or promoting a groundbreaking conservation preserve, Schaller has pursued his goal with persistence and good humor. Tibet Wild is an intimate journey through the wilderness of Tibet, guided by the careful gaze and unwavering passion of a life-long naturalist. Selling Points • An important new book from preeminent field biologist and National Book Award-winning author George Schaller • The first book to detail Schaller's work in Tibet and Western China, over 30 years of his career • Provides an inside look at the life and work of a field biologist in one of the most remote, wild, and magnificent regions of the world
Author Bio George Schaller is vice president of Panthera and a senior conservationist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, both organizations based in New York, as well as adjunct professor with the Center of Nature and Society at Peking University in China. He has explored many remote corners of the planet, conducted wildlife research and conservation work in over twenty countries, and is a prolific author. His field work began in 1952 in Alaska and he was part of a 1956 expedition to northeastern Alaska which led to the establishment of America's largest protected area, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Spending most of his time in the field in Asia, Africa, and South America, Schaller has done seminal studies and helped protect some of the planet's most iconic animals. These range from mountain gorillas in the present Democratic Republic of the Congo, tigers in India, lions in Tanzania, and jaguars in Brazil, to giant pandas and wildlife on the Tibetan Plateau in China, and snow leopards and various wild sheep and goats in the Himalaya of Nepal and Pakistan. This work has been the basis for his scientific and popular writings, including 16 books, among them The Year of the Gorilla, The Deer and the Tiger, The Serengeti Lion (a National Book Award winner), The Last Panda, A Naturalist and other Beasts, and Tibet Wild. He has also helped to establish about a dozen protected areas in various countries. Over the years, he has received a number of international conservation awards, including the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the Indianapolis Prize in the USA, China's Baogang Environmental Prize, Japan's Cosmos Prize, India's Salim Ali Conservation Award, and the gold medal of the World Wildlife Fund. With his wife, Kay, a close colleague in the field, they raised their two sons while on projects in various countries. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1: A Covenant with Chiru Chapter 2: Riddle of the Calving Ground Chapter 3: The Longest Walk Chapter 4: A Deadly Fashion Chapter 5: A Gift to the Spirit Chapter 6: The Good Pika Chapter 7: Chang Tang Traverse Chapter 8: Feral Naturalist Chapter 9: Two Mountains and a River Chapter 10: Into the Hidden Land Chapter 11: Tibetan Wild Sheep Scandal Chapter 12: Wild Icon of the Pamirs Chapter 13: A Bear in the House Chapter 14: The Snow Leopard Selected References
Introduction
F
or nearly four decades my wife, Kay, and I have lived on North America’s East Coast beside a forest of maple and pine. Our house is a converted barn once used to stall cattle and dry tobacco. One half of the house consists of a huge, high room with the original barn beams still in place. It is our living room and the loft in it is lined with bookshelves crammed with travelogues, memoirs, histories, and expedition accounts about countries in which I have worked. But mainly it is a room of artifacts, of casual items acquired for their beauty, interest, or merely because they resonate in our hearts, each a memento of exploration and desire. Wooden masks from the Congo and Nepal hang on a wall, as does a Masai shield of buffalo hide from Tanzania. A Dayak headhunting knife from Sarawak is suspended from a beam beside an intricately woven basket from Laos used for collecting edible plants, land crabs, and other items for a meal. A shelf holds a stone adze from Brazil, a chunk of dinosaur bone from Mongolia, and a walrus tusk from Alaska with scrimshaw of seals and a polar bear. Against a wall stands a carved wooden chest from Pakistan’s Swat Valley. A brass bucket from Afghanistan holds firewood, and there is a lamp with a bronze base from India, and a photograph of Marco Polo sheep that reminds me of my studies in Tajikistan. Of all the countries in which I’ve worked, I spent far more years on projects in China than anywhere else. In 1980, I was invited to join a team of Chinese scientists in a four-year study of giant pandas, 1
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Tibet Wild
a venture arranged by World Wildlife Fund. After the conclusion of that project, I began field research on the high Tibetan Plateau of western China, and I continue with it still, drawn to the luminous landscape, the wildlife, and the Tibetan culture. Tibetan rugs cover the floor of our room. A large thangka, a scroll painting of Tara, the deity of loving kindness and compassion, covers part of one wall. Seven lacquered tsampa bowls, lovely in shape and design, used for storing barley flour, cover one table. On a shelf rests a prayer wheel, a tiny temple bell with crystalline sound, a cup for butter tea, and an incense box with two carved snow lions, their turquoise manes flowing, reminding us of Tibet’s snowy mountains. A large blackand-white photograph, taken over a hundred years ago, shows the Potala, the Dalai Lama’s former home, on its hill overlooking fields and mountains beyond Lhasa. The Tibetan Plateau has infected me, particularly the Chang Tang, the great northern plain. Chang Tang. The name enchants. It conjures a vision of totemic loneliness, of space, silence, and desolation, a place nowhere intimate—yet that is part of its beauty. Even years before my first visit, I had long wanted to explore its secrets and, intrigued by the accounts of early Western travelers, I traced and retraced their journeys with a finger on a map. The Chang Tang was forbidden to foreigners, devoid of roads, and almost uninhabited; its inaccessibility enhanced its allure. In 1984 I finally had the opportunity to penetrate its vastness, an area which covers not just the northern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, but also western Qinghai Province, and the southern rim of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. By 2011, I had made twenty-six journeys to the Chang Tang for a total of about forty-one months, not counting wildlife surveys I’ve also made in eastern Tibet and the Pamir Mountains of southwest China. Though drawn to remote and little-known places by inclination, I also knew that the Chang Tang in northern Tibet and other parts of the Tibetan Plateau harbored a variety of large mammals, none of them studied, their lives still a mystery.Years of political turmoil had decimated China’s wildlife, as I had noted during the panda study, and I wondered about the current status of various other species. Mainly I wondered how certain species of the Tibetan Plateau had fared.
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Introduction
3
I wanted to delve into the lives of the Tibetan antelope (or chiru), the Tibetan wild ass (or kiang), the wild yak, and other members of the unique mammal community on these uplands. Initially the State Forestry Administration (called the Ministry of Forestry at the time) in Beijing suggested that I survey the distribution of snow leopard. This I did, but soon my attention shifted to chiru. The species intrigued me with its wanderings, here today and gone tomorrow. To know about the movements of an animal is a first step in protecting it. Little did I realize how many years it would require, at what cost in comfort and funds, and how many miles of uninhabited terrain we would have to traverse to obtain even a general idea of the chiru’s migratory patterns. I approached the project as a scientist, more specifically as a biologist focused on conservation.This involved collecting facts, many of them, because they are the only reliable tool of science, and it is upon facts that conservation must ultimately be based. I do not mistake numbers and measurements and statistical detail for meaning, but I hoped to collect enough scattered facts to discover from them certain patterns and principles which underlie the Chang Tang ecosystem. But nothing remains static, neither a wildlife population nor a culture, and I knew my efforts would represent just a moment in time, a record of something that no one has seen before and never would again. My information offers the landscape an historical baseline, drawn over a three-decade period from which others working in the future can reclaim the past and compare it to their present. Because the Tibetan Plateau is being rapidly affected by climate change, the accumulation of such basic knowledge has now become especially timely and urgent. To learn as much as possible about chiru became a personal quest, almost an indulgence, and it gave direction and coherence to much of my work on the Tibetan Plateau. To save one of the last great migrations of a hoofed animal in Asia, surpassed in number only by the million Mongolian gazelles on the eastern steppes of Mongolia, is important for itself, as well as to China and the world. And no one else at the time had devoted themselves to the task. By happy coincidence the chiru offered me an opportunity to explore terrain which few had ever seen and at the same time to study a
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The Tibetan Plateau in China and the adjacent countries where our wildlife conservation work was done.
Introduction
5
little-known species. I am less a modern field biologist devoted to technology and statistics than a nineteenth-century naturalist who with pencil and paper describes nature in detail, though with little desire to collect specimens, as was then in vogue; instead I strive to observe species and protect them. To become familiar with an area that is still healthy, productive, and diverse, one still unspoiled by humankind, has a special appeal. It is not a matter of surveying the last orangutans in Sarawak or searching for saola in Laos, as I have done, but of conserving vigorous populations of all animal and plant species in an ecosystem. Conservation has in recent decades focused on rain forests with their great diversity of species, whereas attention to rangelands, which cover 40 percent of the earth’s land surface, has languished.Yet rangelands too display biological treasures in beauty, variety, and uniqueness. The Serengeti savanna or Mongolian steppe offers an unsurpassed sense of place; it invites a feeling of empathy for the landscape, including the pastoral cultures of the people who dwell there. Here in the Chang Tang was a neglected area of over 300,000 square miles, a third of them uninhabited, an area twice the size of California, or the size of France and Italy combined. Here one could address the conflicting demands of conservation, development, and the livelihood of its pastoral people, and here conservation would not need to be confined to a protected area of modest size but could involve a vast landscape, one larger than many countries. Good management options persisted and solutions to problems could be applied based on solid science, sound policy, and local support, drawing on the knowledge, interests, and participation of the area’s communities. Changes in the Chang Tang, already under way in the 1980s when I first visited, have been accelerating with more roads, more households, more livestock, and more fences, which, together with new land-use policies, have had a major impact on the land and its wildlife. As economic conditions have improved, most families have settled into permanent houses instead of nomadic tents, and have exchanged horses for motorcycles. Livestock is often kept in fenced private plots instead of herded on communal pastures, leading to overgrazing and hindering the movement of wildlife. The conservation goal now, as before, is to manage the rangelands, livestock,
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6
Tibet Wild
and wildlife in dynamic stability, to maintain ecological wholeness. Changes over recent decades have made this more difficult. My perceptions and actions have had to change as well. As the human population grows there as elsewhere, one has to confront the necessity of limits, of regulating the use of the landscape. Some parts should be wholly protected, closed to human intrusion, where plants and animals can seek their destiny. Much of the northern Chang Tang is such a place, one still mostly devoid of people, and it requires such full protection. Other parts need to be managed in cooperation with the local communities, limiting livestock to sustainable numbers, managing wildlife to reduce conflict, strictly regulating development, and the like. When I now return to the Chang Tang, I can still see the past in the present because relatively little land has so far been degraded by human action. My mission, indeed my passion, is to help the Chang Tang endure for decades and centuries to come in all its variety and beauty through careful, intelligent management. My dream is that communities will learn to treasure and manage their environment for no reason other than to keep it healthy and beautiful. How can I graft my knowledge and feelings onto the beliefs, emotions, and traditions of others? As His Holiness the Dalai Lama said: “Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart.� The Buddhist religion stresses love and compassion toward all living beings, and this predisposes its followers to be receptive to an environmental message, more there than elsewhere. Humans seem to have a kind of mental glaucoma as they obsessively destroy nature, tearing it apart, even while seeing the ever-increasing damage that threatens their future. Conservation remains an ideological and psychological minefield through which everyone who hopes to preserve something must blunder. Nevertheless I see progress on the Tibetan Plateau and keep a positive spirit. Conservation is a long journey, not a destination, something to which my years in and around the Chang Tang can attest. Chinese expeditions had done important initial work by making lists of species and plotting their distribution, but my Han Chinese and Tibetan coworkers and I came with a different agenda. We came not just to learn but also to inform and inspire, to reveal the richness
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Introduction
7
of the Chang Tang and other places in this region of the world. We became witnesses who tried to alert those around us to what was being lost. We promoted the establishment of nature reserves, more accurately termed conservation areas because pastoralists with their livestock live in most of them. Much of the Chang Tang area is now officially protected in such nature reserves, a glowing achievement for China. We alerted the government to the mass slaughter of chiru for their fine wool in 1990, and this has led to much better protection of the species. Above all, the environment of the Tibetan Plateau has become a major concern of the government at all levels, of nongovernmental organizations, and of many communities. I had only a small part in this, but I have been an admiring observer, and have remained active in further conservation efforts there. “But what has been has been, and I have had my hour,” wrote the seventeenth-century poet John Dryden. Indeed I have. But I hate to acknowledge this. I cannot resist returning to the solitude of these vast uplands. With each expedition, I slough off my past like a snake skin and live in a new moment. Marooned in mind and spirit, I have no idea when my work there will end; I continue to plan new projects. But like all good ventures it will end someday without heroics. In recent years, I have neglected to publish much on our work. There have been occasional scientific papers and popular articles, mostly in Chinese publications such as Acta Zoologica Sinica and China’s Tibet. My two most recent books are the popular Tibet’s Hidden Wilderness (1997) and the scientific Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe (1998), both also available in Chinese translation. But so much has been learned since then. I have made annual trips to China, to the Chang Tang, to southeast Tibet, and to the Pamir mountains of western China and adjoining countries. This book, built on these explorations, is part observation and part evocation. Eight of the fourteen chapters deal with the Chang Tang, a number of them devoted primarily to chiru. By the mid1990s, when I wrote my previous books, I had failed to find any calving grounds of the migratory chiru populations, a principal goal and a critical one in their conservation. Ultimately we reached two of them, and the travails of travel and the exultation of finding the
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8
Tibet Wild
newborns deserve accounts. In these chapters, I have tried to bring out not just the discoveries and excitements of fieldwork, but also what happens in the day-to-day course of our work. I thus emphasize some of the difficulties, of vehicles bogging down in July mud time after time and digging them out at 16,000 feet, of snowstorms in summer, of winter temperatures in a frost-encrusted tent at –30°F, and the daily tedium of moving camp for weeks on end. I could only view my Tibetan, Han, and Uygur companions on the various journeys with respect for their fortitude and dedication under such conditions. A struggle for conservation all too often confronts greed, and so it was with the chiru, whose fine wool, when woven into shahtoosh shawls, had by the late 1980s become a fashion statement of the world’s wealthy. The slaughter of this species and its consequent decline, the developing effort to protect it, and its subsequent slow recovery, is a tale of desecration and redemption. My chapter on this shows how a species’ circumstances can almost overnight change from seeming security to being threatened with extinction. It is a lesson that nothing is ever safe, that if a country treasures something it must monitor and guard it continually. Of the 150 or so mammal species on the Tibetan Plateau, I studied the chiru in greatest detail. I had also wanted to make more observations on the rare wild yak, the ancestor of the abundant domestic yak; to me the presence of wild yaks sanctifies the Chang Tang as wilderness. But chiru drove me on, either to places where yaks have been exterminated or to habitat unfavorable to them. I have, however, written here about three other species of the Chang Tang.The small and endearing pika, whose presence is so vital to the ecosystem yet is being widely poisoned, is the subject of one chapter. Another is on the powerful and uncommon Tibetan brown bear, which has come into increasing conflict with humans. And a third chapter is on the snow leopard, ever present but seldom revealing itself, whose enigmatic presence has haunted me over the decades. We have also conducted wildlife surveys in the southeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau. With its maze of forested mountains and the world’s deepest canyon, eastern Tibet is wholly different from the Chang Tang, and it fascinated me by its contrasts. There I
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Introduction
9
experienced the close attentions of leeches in the humid warmth and learned about the hidden land of Pemako, sacred in Buddhist geography. We trekked through the region on two lengthy trips to check on the status of wildlife and evaluate it as a possible reserve. An uncommon animal on the Tibetan Plateau is the Tibetan argali sheep. I saw it seldom and learned little about its life but much about its death. Trophy hunters have an inane desire to kill rams with the longest possible horns, and I tell a story, in which I played but a minor part, of what happened when four American hunters returned home with their trophies: it turns into a cautionary tale, a sordid saga of sloppy science, deception, and political intrigue that damages the credibility of various persons and institutions. The Tibetan Plateau is often considered the Roof of the World, and the Pamirs to the west are, in effect, its veranda. The precipitous terrain of the Karakoram and Kunlun Mountains between the Tibetan Plateau and the Pamirs has affected the distribution of wildlife. The snow leopard ranges throughout these mountains and Tibetan people once did, too. Kiang, chiru, and Tibetan gazelle failed to reach the Pamirs.Tibetan argali inhabit the Tibetan Plateau, whereas a unique argali subspecies, the Marco Polo sheep, lives in the Pamirs. This magnificent animal, the grandest of all wild sheep, roams across several international borders. To protect and manage it requires cooperation between Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and China, something best achieved by the creation of a four-country International Peace Park or Trans-Frontier Conservation Area. My efforts to promote this goal after working in each of the four countries, some of them politically volatile, provide me still with some useful lessons, about patience and persistence above all.
For a naturalist there is conflict between a life of comfort, companionship, and security at home, and one of hardship among mountains and plains. Observing undisturbed Marco Polo sheep fills me with delight, and waves of pleasure surge through me. Hearing that a government has protected an area that I had recommended
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Tibet Wild
is a balm to the soul, giving meaning to my life. But I renounce so much by seeking wilderness—a settled life, friends, and contact with those I love. There is usually no one other than my wife, Kay, in the field in whom I can truly confide during days of adversity. For years my family was with me in the field: first only Kay in the Congo, then also our two children in India, Tanzania, and Pakistan, and, when these had grown up, only Kay again in China and Mongolia. She was not just my coworker and one who greatly enjoyed camp life, but she also edited my manuscripts (including this one), raised our two sons, of whom I am immensely proud, and contributed in innumerable other ways. But Kay did not join me on most of the journeys described in this book, except in my heart, because her health did not permit it. I missed having her with me, always helping, encouraging, renewing my excitement in the work, and sharing memories. Love is the only bridge connecting us during lengthy separations. There is the knowledge that my return is awaited, a gift of happiness from someone who is part of myself. We each carry a different burden of hardship when separated. Nevertheless our lives keep going, round and round, together and apart, a mandala of love and compassion. The various projects described in the chapters that follow have depended on many persons and institutions for support since the mid-1990s, and with deepest gratitude I acknowledge their generous assistance. Most are in China, the focus of this book, and I owe that nation an immense debt for hosting me so generously over the years. I particularly would like to mention the splendid cooperation of director Abu and Drolma Yangzom in the Forestry Department, Tibet Autonomous Region; of director Li Sandan and Zhang Li1 in the Forestry Department, Qinghai Province; and of director Zhu Fude and Shi Jun of the Forestry Department, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. I also refer to my work in a number of other countries, particularly those bordering China, among them Afghanistan, Tajikistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Mongolia,Vietnam, and Laos. I thank all countries collectively, and extend my special Throughout this book, Han Chinese names are given in their traditional manner with the family name first and then the given name. 1
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Introduction
11
appreciation to the many individuals, from herder to farmer and from government official to scientist, who so graciously extended their hospitality to us. Most of the individuals who took direct part in our journeys since the mid-1990s are mentioned in the text. The support of three institutions has been critical. For over half a century I have been affiliated with the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York; WCS also has an office in Beijing directed by Xie Yan. William Conway and John Robinson, among others at WCS, gave me the freedom to fulfill my dreams in the world’s wilderness, doing work on behalf of conservation that enriched my life. In 2008 I also joined Panthera, a nongovernmental organization devoted to the conservation of the world’s wild cats that is directed by Alan Rabinowitz, an old field colleague of mine. I have in addition an adjunct position with the Center of Nature and Society at Peking University in Beijing, which is directed by Lu Zhi. All research in China was done with the full cooperation of the State Forestry Administration in Beijing. The Tibet Plateau Institute of Biology and the Tibetan Academy of Agricultural and Animal Sciences in Lhasa also provided fruitful collaboration. The project has in recent years depended for any success on various foundations and individual donors, and I am deeply indebted to all for their faith in our efforts. Among these are the Liz ClaiborneArt Ortenberg Foundation, the Armand Erpf Fund, the Judith McBean Foundation, the Patagonia Company, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Hoch Charitable Lead Trust, and the National Geographic Society. The European Union-China Biodiversity Programme, through the Wildlife Conservation Society, funded a project in Tibet in which I took part. Edith McBean, Anne Pattee, and Darlene Anderson, among others, also helped us generously. Three individuals have accompanied me on several journeys, and they deserve special mention for their valuable contribution to the projects, as well as for their companionship, dedication, adaptability, and tenacity, often under most difficult conditions. Kang Aili, a coworker on six of my trips during the past decade, is affiliated with the Wildlife Conservation Society–China office and coordinates its field program in western China with great ability and persistence.
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Lu Zhi, director of both Peking University’s Center for Nature and Society and the Shan Shui Conservation Center, a nongovernmental organization, has with initiative and deep insight established several community conservation projects on the Tibetan Plateau. We worked together on two trips in the Chang Tang and two in southeast Tibet, and she also supervises the Tibetan brown bear program. Beth Wald, a photographer, added outstanding value to two expeditions in Afghanistan and two in Tajikistan by documenting the mountains, wildlife, and local people in glorious detail, something that greatly helped to promote our work and raise awareness of these areas. With exceptional editorial skill, insight, and interest, Jonathan Cobb meticulously edited the manuscript on behalf of Island Press, and I owe him a great debt of gratitude for improving it so much. I also extend my deep appreciation to Kathy Zeller for preparing the maps, and to Michael Fleming for superbly copyediting the manuscript. Most persons who contributed to my conservation efforts are mentioned in the text, but, in addition, I thank Luke Hunter, David Wattles, Rebecca Martin, Margarita Trujillo, Lisanne Petracca, Sun Shan, and Donna Xiao. This is a personal book of science, conservation, and exploration based on my observations, experiences, and feelings. Sometimes I sound churlish and at other times exhilarated. My companions would no doubt write somewhat different accounts. But I want to stress that we worked as congenial teams. No matter what tribulations confronted us, we surmounted them and returned in good health, with solid information, and with many bonds of friendship intact. George Schaller Roxbury, Connecticut December 22, 2011
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Sales Information Sheet The Kingdom of Rarities
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 4/16/2014
Eric Dinerstein Paperback: Hardcover: E-Book:
978-1-61091-196-2 978-1-61091-195-5 978-1-61091-207-5
$24.99 $29.95 $18.99
SCIENCE / Environmental Science Trim Size: 6 X 9 Pages: 336 7 maps; 12 b/w sketches Author Residence: Washington, DC Comparative Titles: • The Rarest of the Rare, Diane Ackerman. ISBN: 978-0679776239, Paperback, Jan. 1997, $15.00, Vintage. Bookscan: 1929. Previous Works: • The Kingdom of Rarities, Eric Dinerstein. ISBN: 978-1-61091-195-5, Hardcover, Jan. 2013, $29.95, Island Press. Bookscan: 778, Warehouse: 3869. • Tigerland and Other Unintended Destinations, Eric Dinerstein. ISBN: 978-1-55963-578-3, Hardcover, Sept. 2005, $40.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 1110, Warehouse: 4524. • Return of the Unicorns, Eric Dinerstein. ISBN: 978-0231084505, Hardcover, Mar. 2003, $75.00, Columbia University Press. Bookscan: 51. Sales Handle An original and important investigation of rarity and its relationship to conservation Description The Kingdom of Rarities presents a new context for understanding rarity and its implications both for our understanding of how the natural world works, and for what it can teach us about protecting biodiversity during a time of large-scale environmental change. Using cutting-edge science from remote outposts around the world, award-winning author Eric Dinerstein animates the key questions that scientists are asking themselves about why some species are so abundant and others not. What are the rarest species and why are they most likely to be found in certain types of environments? Which species have always been rare, and which have only recently been made rare? Which should we seek to protect most? Throughout, Dinerstein explores rarity as a central principle within conservation biology, advancing both our understanding of the natural world and inspiring the creation of new tools and technologies that can help us add to our knowledge and design more effective conservation strategies. He focuses on real-time threats to biodiversity, from climate change to habitat fragmentation, and draws on his long and distinguished scientific career to illuminate the concept of rarity for readers across the spectrum of scientific knowledge. Selling Points • A highly readable and enlightening account of what makes a species rare, how do rare species survive and even prosper, told through the author’s field work in some of the most remote and exotic locales in the world. • Dinerstein, Chief Scientist of the WWF, is a respected scientist within the conservation biology field, with a large network of supporters and interested readers. He will be promoting the book through a variety of speaking engagements. • The concept of rarity is central to conservation biology, but the topic is not widely discussed in the literature; other books available on the subject are highly technical. This book is unique in bringing the concept to life with accounts of adventures and rare animals around the world.
Author Bio Eric Dinerstein is lead scientist and vice president of conservation science at the World Wildlife Fund. Over the past forty years he has studied bears, rhinos, tigers, bats, and plants and many other creatures around the globe, and he remains active in the conservation of rare species. He has published over one hundred scientific papers and several books, including The Return of the Unicorns: The Natural History and Conservation of the Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros and Tigerland and Other Unintended Destinations. In 2007, Tigerland won the American Association for the Advancement of Science's award for science writing, the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books. Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1: The Uncommon Menagerie Chapter 2: The Gift of Isolation Chapter 3: A Jaguar on the Beach Chapter 4: The Firebird Suite Chapter 5: There, in the Elephant Grass Chapter 6: Scent of an Anteater Chapter 7: Invasion and Resistance Chapter 8: Ghosts of Indochina Chapter 9: Rarity Made Common Annotated Bibliography About the Author Index
Chapter 1
The Uncommon Menagerie
R
iding on an elephant’s back offers a privileged, if distorted, perspective on the natural world. Wildlife species that seem large and scary at eye level, such as rhinos and tigers, appear as miniaturized versions from this elevated vantage. My well-trained mount, Kirti Kali, plowed boldly through the dense twenty-foottall grasslands of Chitwan National Park in lowland Nepal, scattering spotted deer and wild boars in our path. On elephant-back one feels invincible. As we emerged from the tall grass into an open area, my driver, Gyan Bahadur, calmly steered Kirti alongside a rare greater one-horned rhinoceros—a dangerous species that, locally, tramples and kills several villagers a year. The two-ton female and her young calf continued grazing peacefully on the floodplain. The rhinos seemed oblivious to our presence because we had spent months habituating these aggressive creatures to close contact. As long as we remained on the elephant, rather than approaching on 1
2
The Kingdom of Rarities
foot, the mother rhino would remain unfazed and we would stay in one piece. My jungle wanderings also warped my perspective on how uncommon these animals had become. By 1988, at the end of my initial five years of research, I had recorded thousands of observations of Chitwan’s 370 one-horned rhinos and had photographed, identified, and named nearly every one. Yet seeing them every day made me forget their global rarity. At the time, only about 1,500 survived in the wild worldwide; all but those in Chitwan roamed in Kaziranga National Park in northeastern India. Although the onehorned rhino’s numbers have slowly increased since then—in 2012 there were over 2,900, distributed among twelve populations—this species remains among the most endangered large mammals on Earth. Its status during my initial study raised several questions: Had the ancestors of this rhino, a diverse ancient lineage, always been rare during their evolutionary history? Or is the rarity of the one-horned rhino a relatively recent phenomenon, triggered by habitat loss and poaching for the mythical qualities of the rhino’s horn? My ecological study took an unexpected turn when I asked Gyan to maneuver Kirti Kali into an ideal spot for a photograph. I raised my camera to capture an exquisite panorama: the rhino cow and calf in the foreground, perfectly framed by the Annapurna range and Mount Dhaulagiri to the north. Then I noticed some clumps of low trees that spoiled the picture’s composition. Copses of a species called bhellur (Trewia nudiflora) stood out like archipelagoes in the midst of the grassland. I asked Gyan why the trees had assumed this pattern. He took a break from smoking a cigarette rolled in a jungle-leaf wrapper to answer my silly question. “Oh, it’s the work of gaida,” he said matter-of-factly, using the Nepali word for “rhino” and gesturing toward the tree islands. “Those are old rhino latrines.” Rhinoceroses return to the same places time after time to deposit their dung—not out of tidiness but because these communal la-
The Uncommon Menagerie
3
trines allow solitary animals living in dense vegetation to exchange vital data, via scents within the dung, about their whereabouts and sexual activity. The sheer size of the dung piles, sometimes dozens of meters long, and the dense stands of Trewia trees that sprang from them were a revelation to me. All the more so because when I first arrived in Chitwan, I had wondered how this giant herbivore could have even a minor influence in cropping the lush vegetation—the wall of green grass surrounding me—which was recharged each year by the summer monsoon. The answer lay buried in the dung. By voraciously consuming Trewia fruit and defecating intact seeds in latrines scattered throughout the floodplain, the rhinos could rapidly convert the world’s tallest grasslands into Trewia forests. Countervailing the rhino-dispersal effect were the annual floods, which wash away and bury Trewia seedlings, and the annual natural fires, which incinerate much of the previous year’s crop. But some of these seedlings obviously survived to become tree islands. What remained as an indelible imprint for me was the staggering potential of rhinos to reshape their surroundings, implying, in this case, that ecological impact does not always reflect numerical abundance. It would be a stretch to say that sifting through rhino dung or musing while on elephant-back triggered my fascination with rarity. But my observations of these rhinos, and observations that I and others had recorded of another globally rare denizen of their neighborhood, the tiger, made me wonder: What if more biologists fanned out to study in depth not the common mongoose or the ubiquitous spotted deer but members of Chitwan’s uncommon menagerie—great hornbills, Gangetic dolphins, gharial crocodiles, sloth bears, and Indian bison? How might one’s perspective on the natural world change? What novelties, complexities, and even counterintuitive elements might emerge, and what adventures lay in store for the pursuer of these rarities? As a scientist, I knew that the interplay of rarity and abundance is central to understanding patterns of nature as well as understand-
4
The Kingdom of Rarities
ing the idea of dynamic ecological balance. What do we mean by “rare,” though? By what measure is a rhino or tiger considered rare? Most biologists would apply the term to a species that occupies a narrow geographic range, has a low abundance, or exhibits both traits. Often this label stems from a comparison of an uncommon creature with others that share its habitat or taxonomic group, but it can also be viewed in absolute terms. For example, sticking with rhinos, the greater one-horned rhinoceros is rare from a global perspective, with fewer than 3,000 individuals, but it’s relatively common in comparison with the highly endangered Javan rhinoceros, of which fewer than 50 remain, and those restricted to one locale. In this book, I draw mainly on examples of rarity among mammals, birds, and plants—the creatures I know best. But the condition of rarity transcends appearance and taxonomy. Whether an organism has a backbone, a beak, pincers, or petals or is covered by scales, fur, feathers, or fins, the same rules apply—occupying a limited space geographically and exhibiting low population densities guarantees a place in what I call the Kingdom of Rarities. The simple truth is that many, many species on Earth are rare, but few people other than biologists are even aware of this fact. A leading ecologist on the subject, Kevin Gaston, suggested an astonishing asymmetry of life on Earth: as few as 25 percent of the world’s species, such as robins, rats, and roaches, may account for 90 to 95 percent of all individuals on Earth. But if Gaston’s estimates are correct, as much as 75 percent of all species on Earth may be drawn from the ranks of the rare. It’s a stunning idea to contemplate. If relatively so few individual organisms on Earth make up the rare, why should biologists study rarity, the rhinos rather than the roaches? The obvious academic response is “Because we know so little about them.” Rephrasing the question, though, brings into focus a profound and central riddle of nature: Why, wherever you land, do you always find a few superabundant species and a multitude of rare ones?
The Uncommon Menagerie
5
One of the first lessons in community ecology—the science of how species interact in nature—is the prevalence of rarity at any locale in the tropics. Sweep a forest plot with a butterfly net, identify all the trees in that tract, scan those trees for singing birds, and you’ll find the same result: many individuals of a few species and a lengthy list of singletons. This pattern holds from the forests of Madre de Dios, Peru, to Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. Even though rare species occur everywhere, we still know too little about how they fit into the big picture of our wild menagerie. But some intriguing answers have emerged regarding, for example, the roles various rare species play in shaping the form and functioning of ecosystems and how ecosystems are affected as particular rare species are lost. Attention to rarity can raise vital questions: Are all rare species, for example, by definition on the verge of extinction? Have all species that are currently rare been historically rare? Which species common now are likely to become rare? Greater clarity on these fundamental issues will help shape our response to saving wild nature. Will species that are common now become rare as a result of changing climate? For example, how will egg-laying sea turtles find nesting sites when sea levels rise, and how will moisture-dependent frogs lay eggs when rain forests face prolonged droughts, in some cases by the middle of this century? When the microclimate at the summit of Mount Udzungwa in southern Tanzania changes in a profound way, will the African violet—ancestor of the familiar houseplant—and the Udzungwa partridge disappear, or will they be able to adapt to the new conditions? During the 1980s, leading biologists began to suggest that we were in the midst of the sixth great extinction event in the history of Earth. And in 1995, Stuart Pimm, one of the fathers of modern conservation biology, calculated that the current rate of species extinctions was as much as 1,000 times the normal background extinction rate. If so, newly rare species may face different, and more serious, problems from those encountered by species that have
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historically been rare—another major reason for exploring rarity in the natural world. Beyond the extinction crisis, some scientists refer to our current epoch, the Holocene, as the Anthropocene or the Homogenocene, terms that describe two aspects of a new ecological state that is still poorly understood. The first refers to our period, wherein the human footprint extends everywhere in nature. The second refers to another kind of affront in which certain species have spread or been introduced by humans far beyond these species’ original range and, as a result, natural habitats around the world, full of invasive species, begin to resemble one another. Being rare in this brave new homogenized world, as we’ll see in the case of Hawaii, could mean something much different from when these same species first appeared in relative isolation. Rarity is not just a condition of nature; it is a condition that can be—and has been—imposed on species by human activity, all too often sending them on the road toward endangerment and extinction. In short, viewing the natural world through the lens of rarity can bring certain facts and species traits to our attention that we might otherwise overlook. Understanding these facts and traits may in turn provide insights that can help us save species from the current state of environmental deterioration. Many conservation biologists target “saving rare species” as the ultimate aim of their work. Yet rarity, as a phenomenon in nature, can take many forms, not only among species, although that is central, but also in the building blocks of the natural world: genes, populations of species, habitats, assemblages, and ecological and evolutionary phenomena. Species, with few exceptions, are made up of populations distributed across the landscape. Saving only one population of each rare species simply as a token gesture would be of little ecological value, especially where those species play a role in maintaining a given ecosystem’s integrity. So an essential goal is to conserve multiple populations of species and the genetic, ecological, and behavioral features that these building blocks contain. Conserving dispersed populations and their genetic variability
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gives species a better chance of adapting to and persisting amid changing conditions, such as a rapidly changing climate or invasion of their homeland by introduced species. Buried within the species extinction crisis is another, less publicized calamity: the increasing rarity of species populations. These losses of populations, as well as in some cases entire species, have led biologists to sound warning after warning. The eminent biologist E. O. Wilson, for example, pronounced in a speech in early 2000 that “biodiversity cannot afford another century like the last one. We are about to lose thousands of species a year, especially in rainforests.” Wilson could have extended the depth of the problem, if risking the simplicity of his message, by adding a phrase whose meaning has gone unnoticed by the general public: we have been losing populations of species faster than we have been losing species themselves. These two concerns—rarity of species and paucity of particular populations—merge when it comes to those species whose entire earthly existence is represented by a single population, as a result of either natural forces or human encroachment. Who are these singleton species, and how many of them are now close to the abyss of extinction? In 2003, several colleagues and I put together a paper for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to address this question, name those species, and suggest how their imminent extinction might be prevented. Our work on the paper, which was published in 2005, sparked the scientific basis for this book, an interpretation of the evolutionary and contemporary aspects of rarity. We focused our effort on a subgroup of relatively well known but threatened vertebrates, our fellow creatures with backbones—birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians (fishes are yet to be analyzed). We postulated that certain of these species were already so uncommon that they would be extinction’s next dodo birds unless action were taken to prevent their disappearance. To begin, we turned to the gold standard for evaluating rarity of wild species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature
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The Kingdom of Rarities
and Natural Resources (IUCN) and its famed Red List of Threatened Species, which ranks species on the basis of sizes of remaining populations. The IUCN assigns the category “endangered” or “critically endangered” to species whose numbers have plummeted toward extinction. We then went a step further. “Let’s name the rarest of the rare, those species whose entire global range is limited to one population at a single site,” my colleague John Lamoreux suggested. He was proposing that we limit our survey to such species as the Bloody Bay poison frog, which hails from the last patches of rain forest on the island of Trinidad, the only place on Earth where it can be found. Once a species such as the Bloody Bay poison frog is restricted to a single dot on the map, if one or another of several catastrophes strikes—if the spot is plowed, burned, flooded, drained, paved, polluted, or overrun with pigs, rats, or other invasive species—the threatened species that lived in that dot is gone: vanished forever. Rarity then becomes the precursor to extinction or, at least, its preexisting condition. Alternatively, if you save the place, you save the rare species—conservation in black-and-white. Our results provided some new insights and a number of surprises. First, despite there being 20,000 species on the IUCN Red List, only 800 species found at 600 sites (some species shared the same site) met our criteria. Second, half of the species limited to a single site turned out to be amphibians. Third, many single-population species were restricted to isolated mountaintops. A botanist on our team, George Schatz, cautioned the vertebrate specialists against any euphoric notion that saving the world’s rarities might be as easy as saving some isolated mountaintops where few people live. “Remember,” he warned, “the 250,000 or so vascular plant species have yet to be evaluated for levels of threat. At least 10 percent of these are known only from the single site where they were first collected.” There is a joke among field biologists that rarity is partly a natural phenomenon and partly the result of some less energetic biologists failing to wander far enough from the road or the field
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station in surveying their specialty. There may be an ounce of truth to that, but the idea that the populations of many plant species, and the insect species they host, could be so few only reaffirms the important role of rarity, especially in the tropics. The next question for our group of biologists was which rare species or place we should try to save first. This exercise drew us to a global map and triggered much debate. “Here.” Mike Parr leaned over northern South America to point out the location of a mother lode of rarities. His pen tip lingered on a massif that stood by itself in northern Colombia, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The solitary giant sat about 42 kilometers from the Caribbean coast and about 115 kilometers from where the sawtooth eruptions of the northern Andean chain began. Santa Marta in Colombia, like Mounts Kilimanjaro and Udzungwa in Tanzania, Mount Cameroon on the border of Nigeria and Cameroon, and Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia, are but a few of the dozens of solitary mountains in the tropical belt that are hotbeds of natural rarities. Why this might be so was one of the questions I wanted to investigate. “Here is where I want to go next,” I said, pointing to the Zapata Swamp on the island of Cuba. Considered the Cuban version of the Everglades, this freshwater swamp is home to the Cuban crocodile, the Zapata wren, the Zapata rail, and two species of hutia (a guinea pig–like rodent) found nowhere else in Cuba, the Caribbean, or anywhere else. In the same swamp are the only robust populations of several Cuban birds—the Cuban sparrow, Fernandina’s flicker, Gundlach’s hawk, and the blue-headed quail-dove—proving that rarity is not confined to tropical mountains or even rain forests. As we populated the map in front of us and delved into the causes of rarity for the 800 species that met our conditions, we saw another insight into rarity confirmed. Some of these species had likely always been rare, such as the 13 frog species sharing the same genus and the same mountaintop in Haiti, the Massif de la Hotte; others on the list had been made rare by human activities. Some species had been much more common during an era when
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the climate was different from what it was during our mapping project—colder, hotter, drier, wetter. They were now climate refugees. Some species had been doing fine at a single site until rats arrived on their island. We realized that we had to consider all the different causes of rarity to better understand which species would be likely to persist without much conservation effort. We needed to know which species had always been rare but were now facing even lower numbers, a more limited range, or a new invader. Some of the more promising places to look for the causes of rarity and of patterns of rarity and abundance are where there are no people. A remote mountainous region of New Guinea with no history of human visitation, the locale of chapter 2, offers a good venue to investigate the extent of rarity under natural conditions. By comparing what we discover there with what is found in other ranges where local tribes have access, we can begin to answer several fundamental questions about how rarity is created and what pattern exists where humans have had no perceivable influence. New Guinea also offers a rewarding glimpse of how extreme isolation and active geology can lead to rarity and a narrow range of resident species. In contrast, another area with low human activity, the Peruvian region of Madre de Dios, the locale of chapter 3, illustrates a condition that exists for many tropical rarities, from jaguars to canopy trees—a wide range of species living at extremely low densities. The string of insults to nature brought about by human activities covers a staggering range including habitat loss, poaching and the consumption of body parts of rare creatures, introduction of diseases and invasive predators, expansion of agriculture to feed a growing human population, and the horrors of war. In this book I examine these human-induced causes of rarity, along with many natural influences, in a journey that spans most continents. In the natural world, the causes of rarity are often difficult to pin down or isolate to a single source. To untangle these strands, in each chapter that follows I sample different manifestations of rarity and con-
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sider probable causes and consequences for species and the ecosystems they inhabit. Much can be done in the short term to preserve species populations. Ultimately, though, the future of many species depends on our ability to live in greater harmony with the rare creatures among us. In Bhutan, the setting of chapter 9, where Tibetan Buddhism is the dominant religion and cultural conservation is part of the fabric of society, we see how rare species can persist and recover when humans coexist peacefully with wildlife and treat rare species with respect and compassion. What is in store for rare species? Looking backward and examining evolution’s fingerprints may provide some clues. The renowned ecologist Gordon Orians has noted that natural selection, as an evolutionary process, lacks foresight. It can’t look ahead to help a species best adapt to a threat to its future survival, be it next year or several centuries or millennia hence. Thus, all the current traits and behavioral responses we see in such species as the maned wolf, the giant anteater, the rhinoceroses, and the Kirtland’s warbler—all protagonists in this story—were shaped in their predecessors’ environments. Yet some of those traits, even if selected for other reasons, may enhance persistence when a species becomes rare or, if it has always been rare, faces even more dramatic threats to its survival. Phrased another way, at least some species that have always been rare may possess traits that will allow them to hang on in the face of changing circumstances. In each chapter I examine such traits to assess whether such a repertoire, however unintended, enhances adaptation to life in the Anthropocene. If the search for rarity and an understanding of its origins holds evolutionary interest and conservation importance, it also has a strong allure of its own. The truth is as simple as it is universal: we are seduced by rarity and novelty. Scientists live with this affliction, shared with art collectors, car buffs, and wine connoisseurs, many of whom are willing to pay exorbitant prices to add the rarest of items to their collections. The allure of the rare is what motivates many of us to raise a pair of binoculars—from the birder who scans
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the backyard feeder in hope of seeing an off-course migrant to the ornithologist who finds the now rare green peafowl in a Vietnamese jungle. Perhaps our search for rarity among wild things is a holdover from distant ancestors who sought to expand their monotonous diets, find new healing herbs, or discover a more potent aphrodisiac. A rare object might even have served as a status symbol and increased mating success. Whether stimulated by curiosity or by our most intense cravings, we humans, it seems, long to seek out what is scarce and, therefore, precious. In the nearly forty years I have been studying rarity, a recurring fringe benefit has been the chance to visit exotic places and meet fascinating people in the search for spectacular species. I first heard the term “quest species” from Bruce Beehler, a scientist featured in chapter 2 who explored the most remote mountain range of New Guinea in search of rare birds of paradise. “A quest species,” he imparted, “is a rare species, for sure. But it is also a nearmystical creature, one that shadows your existence, one that you must see before you die.” Although avian specialists are famous for their single-minded pursuit of one bird or more for their life lists, they are far from unique. Primatologists scan the thickets for their quest mouse lemur. Herpetologists work the bushes for their prized chameleon. Botanists slog through swamps to find an orchid previously unknown to science. Even parasitologists seek their quest tick, embedded perhaps in the nether folds of a wombat or Tasmanian devil. The study of rarity is of vital importance today, but it also allows us to glory in the extraordinary activity and variety of the natural world. Staring at a habituated rhinoceros in Nepal or contributing to a desk study on rarity, for example, can never replace the thrill of a first sighting: a rare species you have waited your entire life to see on its own terms, in its own place. A quest species, if you will. I was on my way to the Amazon lowlands of southeastern Peru when I had the chance to see a rarity up close that I had always dreamt about. Before dawn, flashlights in hand, my guides led me to a bird blind at the edge of Manú National Park, where we waited
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Three male Andean cocks-of-the-rock ( Rupicola peruvianus) singing, with a female in the background
for the show to begin. Few rare species seek more attention than the flamboyant Andean cock-of-the-rock we had come to see. The male’s molten-orange plumage virtually glows in the dark. His vocalizations—a series of hoots, growls, and chimp-like whimpers— accompany a ritualized shake of an unusual cowlick and rump. The bird’s name, dare one ask, is a reference to its habit of nesting in rock walls rather than some biological double entendre. The male’s extravagant appearance flares when several of them gather in the dank, kaleidoscopic undergrowth. As the dawn light filters through the tropical highland forest of Peru, colorful bachelors scramble to their singing perches on nearby tree branches. Biologists describe the location of the courtship that ensues as a lek, a place where males congregate to advertise their individual greatness. One bird triggers an explosion of song and dance that
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lasts for minutes. Just as suddenly, they all go mute. Perhaps the shadow of an eagle has passed overhead? Then the cacophony resumes in earnest. Soon a drab maroon bird slips into the center of the gathering, sparking a more intense bout of singing and feather shaking. The female has arrived. By 6:45 a.m., the males had quieted down and dropped into the dense foliage. I left the bird blind with my guides and strolled down the dirt highway to the nearby lodge. It’s hard to avoid descending into cliché after witnessing a lek display of any bird or mammal. For me, it was a lifelong yearning now sated, replaced by a sense of awe in how evolution and the essential mission to procreate can go to such lengths. My group enjoyed a celebratory breakfast in the café of the Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge. Accessible cock-of-the-rock leks in nature, such as the one we visited, are rare and usually reached only after a long hike. Over a second cup of coffee, the conversation spun in a widening gyre of questions: What if the glorious Andean cock-of-the-rock, one of the most colorful birds on the planet, were as ubiquitous as the house sparrow? Would anyone bother to look at it? Or would its fate be like that of the blue jay, a stunner for visitors to the United States but a backyard fixture evoking yawns from the locals? Back on the trail, we heard the males start up another chorus. Left to their own devices, most rare species, like this charismatic Andean bird, would persist for several million years. A logical conclusion, one that will be explored and challenged in this book, is that rare species have adapted to cope with life at low densities, in small areas, or in restricted habitats. Unfortunately, wild nature is no longer being left to its own devices, and many species face a tenuous future. Our own species, now shooting past 7 billion and far from rare, faces a different challenge: how to live sustainably without destroying the last strongholds of rarity. For rare species, the struggle is to hang on for dear life until, one day, humans gain the wisdom and humility to share nature’s kingdom.
Sales Information Sheet Urban Bikeway Design Guide, Second Edition
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 2/25/2014
National Association of City Transportation Officials Hardcover:
978-1-61091-565-6
$50.00
ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning POLITICAL SCIENCE / Government/Local POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy/City Planning & Urban Development TRANSPORTATION / Public Transportation Trim Size: 8.5 X 11 Pages: 349 75 photographs, 100 figures, 2 tables Author Residence: Washington, D.C. Comparative Titles: • Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities, AASHTO. ISBN: 978-1-56051-527-2, Paperback, 2012, $144.00, AASHTO. • Cities for People, Jan Gehl. ISBN: 978-1-59726-573-7, Hardcover, Sept. 2010, $49.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 1921, Warehouse: 12279. Previous Works: • Urban Bikeway Design Guide, Binder Edition, NACTO. ISBN: 978-1-61091-436-9, Hardcover, Sept. 2012, $49.95, Island Press. Bookscan: 201, Warehouse: 1311. • Urban Stree Design Guide, NACTO. ISBN: 978-1-61091-494-9, Hardcover, Oct. 2013, $50.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 177, Warehouse: 1171. Sales Handle A clear and accessible guide to the design and engineering of bike lanes and facilities in urban areas. Description NACTO’s Urban Bikeway Design Guide quickly emerged as the preeminent resource for designing safe, protected bikeways in cities across the United States. It has been completely re-designed with an even more accessible layout. The Guide offers updated graphic profiles for all of its bicycle facilities, a subsection on bicycle boulevard planning and design, and a survey of materials used for green color in bikeways. The Guide continues to build upon the fast-changing state of the practice at the local level. It responds to and accelerates innovative street design and practice around the nation. Selling Points • Updated layout and new design • Models and visuals of successfully implemented projects • Clear and accessible language to reach beyond the engineering audience to decision-makers • Updated to include bike boulevards, which increase safety and are becoming increasingly popular across the country Author Bio The National Association of City Transportation Officials, NACTO, is a membership network that provides support and resources for city transportation officials in cities of all sizes. Member cities are Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC. The current NACTO president is Edward Reiskin, Director of Transportation of the San Francisco MTA.
Sales Information Sheet Seven Modern Plagues
Spring 2014 Discount: Trade Pub Date: 2/19/2014
and How We Are Causing Them Mark Jerome Walters Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-465-9 978-1-61091-466-6
$19.99 $19.99
SCIENCE / Environmental Science MEDICAL / Infectious Diseases SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues Trim Size: 5.5 X 8.25 Pages: 250 References Author Residence: St. Petersburg, Florida Comparative Titles: • The Coming Plague : Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, Laurie Garrett. ISBN: 978-0-14-025091-6, Paperback, Oct. 1995, $20.00, Penguin Books. Bookscan: 39024. • Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, Bill Asik and Monica Murphy. ISBN: 978-0-670-02373-8, Hardcover, July 2012, $25.95, Viking Adult. Bookscan: 6784. Previous Works: • Six Modern Plagues and How we are Causing Them, Mark Jerome Walters. ISBN: 978-1-55963-992-7, Hardcover, Sept. 2003, $55.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 2038, Warehouse: 8146. • Seeking the Sacred Raven, Mark Jerome Walters. ISBN: 978-1-55963-090-0, Hardcover, June 2006, $35.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 543, Warehouse: 1438. Sales Handle An arresting account of emerging disease Description Epidemiologists are braced for the big one: the strain of flu that rivals the pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed at least 20 million people worldwide. In recent years, we have experienced scares with a host of new influenza viruses: bird flu, swine flu, Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, H5N1, and most recently, H5N7. While these diseases appear to emerge from thin air, in fact, human activity is driving them. And the problem is not just flu, but a series of rapidly evolving and dangerous modern plagues. According to veterinarian and journalist Mark Walters, we are contributing to—if not overtly causing—some of the scariest epidemics of our time. Through human stories and cutting-edge science, Walters explores the origins of seven diseases: Mad Cow Disease, HIV/AIDS, Salmonella DT104, Lyme Disease, Hantavirus, West Nile, and new strains of flu. He shows that they originate from manipulation of the environment, from emitting carbon and clear-cutting forests to feeding naturally herbivorous cows “recycled animal protein.” Since Walters first drew attention to these “ecodemics” in 2003 with the publication of Six Modern Plagues, much has learned about how they developed. In this new, fully updated edition, the author presents research that precisely pinpoints the origins of HIV, confirms the link between forest fragmentation and increased risk of Lyme Disease, and expands knowledge of the ecology of West Nile Virus. He also explores developments in emerging diseases, including a new chapter on flu, examining the first influenza pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968; a new tick-borne infection in the Mid-West; a second novel bird flu in China; and yet a new SARS-like virus in the Middle East. Readers will not only learn how these diseases emerged but the conditions that make future pandemics more likely. This knowledge is critical in order to prevent the next modern plague.
Selling Points • Timeliness of topic as new strains of flu develop and incidents of Lyme disease and West Nile Virus increase • Successful track record with the first edition of the book, Six Modern Plagues • Combination of good storytelling with cutting-edge science Author Bio Mark Jerome Walters is a veterinarian, a journalist, and a professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. He is the author of five books, including A Shadow and a Song and Seeking the Sacred Raven. Table of Contents Preface Introduction Chapter 1. The Dark Side of Progress: Mad Cow Disease Chapter 2. A Chimp Called Amandine: HIV/AIDS Chapter 3. The Travels of Antibiotic Resistance: Salmonella DR104 Chapter 4. Of Old Growth and Arthritis: Lyme Disease Chapter 5: A Spring to Die For: Hantavirus Chapter 6: A Virus from the Nile Chapter 7: Birds, Pigs, and People: The Rise of Pandemic Flus Epilogue: MERS-CoV and Beyond Notes Acknowledgments Index
Introduction I first learned of the strange new disease in the city nearly fifteen years ago while reading the New York Times. Just across the East River from my Manhattan office, several elderly victims had been admitted to Flushing Hospital Medical Center in Queens. They had been having trouble walking, were confused, and in some cases were comatose. Several soon died. Nearly a month passed before the affliction was identified as brain inflammation caused by an exotic virus. Before long we learned it was West Nile encephalitis, a disease originally seen in Uganda that was now being found for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. Cases of the illness soon emerged near where I lived, in northern New Jersey, an hour’s train commute from Manhattan. The idea that a potentially fatal disease almost unheard of there a few months before had suddenly popped up near my home was terrifying. Was this how the Black xiii
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Death, which wiped out as much as one-third of Europe’s population in the 1300s, or the 1918–1919 Spanish influenza epidemic, which killed at least 20 million people in my parents’ lifetime, began? As a veterinarian, I am familiar with diseases, including some frightening ones. But no amount of medical training had prepared me for new, life-threatening diseases heretofore unknown in my neighborhood. At the time, I wanted to dismiss West Nile virus as anomalous. Problem was, it wasn’t the first new disease to appear during my lifetime or even in my town—nor would it be the last. Some outbreaks seemed like faraway curiosities, whereas others had become personal, everyday concerns. Lyme disease, which hadn’t even been described until the mid-1970s, was now endemic in Morris County, where I lived. And then there was HIV/AIDS, a disease whose deadly global spread was known to almost everyone, not least of all those of us in the New York City region. Even mad cow disease and other afflictions I knew of only through the scientific literature sometimes seemed only a supermarket or an ill airplane passenger away. In late 2002, the point was brought home when word came from China that a previously unknown coronavirus had been causing a form of severe acute respiratory syndrome—later known as SARS. This deadly and highly contagious pneumonia was rapidly spread by international air travelers. Within a month almost twenty countries, including the United States and Canada, reported cases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Preven-
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tion, the outbreak began in Guangdong Province in southern China when dozens of people there began to experience headaches, muscle soreness, and dry coughs that quickly deteriorated into life-threatening pneumonia. Within months, the illness had spread throughout Guangdong, where government authorities, fearing social unrest and the loss of tourism, tried to keep the outbreak secret. No medical statistics were released, and journalists were prohibited from reporting on the deadly epidemic. In February 2003, Liu Jianlun, a sixty-four-year-old kidney specialist from Zhongshan Hospital in Guangdong, traveled to Hong Kong, where he stayed in room 911 at the Metropole Hotel. He had a fever and had not felt well for five days, but when he began to have trouble breathing, he went to Kwong Wah Hospital in Hong Kong. Suspecting he had contracted the highly infectious illness, he asked to be put in an isolation unit. He died several days later. China’s secret was no more. By March 2003, Chinese authorities had begun to reveal the extent of the outbreak in Guangdong. But then the disease was already sweeping through Hong Kong, infecting hundreds and killing dozens. It had begun to invade Beijing and other cities. It had also arrived in the United States. The disease spread readily from person to person through coughing, sneezing, and other means. It was also quickly disseminated around the globe by jet aircraft. One traveler flew from Hong Kong to Frankfurt and Munich, then on to London, back to Munich and Frankfurt, and then again to
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Hong Kong, apparently before even suspecting he had contracted a new disease. In mid-March, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new virus “a worldwide health threat.� Strict isolation of suspected cases and extreme precautions by health care workers eventually began to slow the spread in many countries, but the virus remained out of control for weeks in China, where dozens of new cases were reported every day. At the time, epidemiologists suspected that about 7 percent of patients died. Researchers soon learned that the fatality rate, at least in Hong Kong, was closer to 15 percent for those under sixty years of age and more than three times that for those older than sixty. Finally, in May 2004, WHO announced that through quarantine of infected patients and other control measures, the SARS outbreak had been contained. Genetic analysis suggested that the SARS virus had come from a nonhuman animal. Scientists suspected that the coronavirus was spread by the masked palm civet cat, a weasel-faced tree-dweller native to Asia and consumed as a medicinal in China in the belief that it helps people withstand cold weather. (But bats may have been the original source.) Officials ordered the killing of every civet cat in captivity in southeastern China’s Guangdong Province. The killing of the estimated 10,000 cats would be followed by efforts to trap and eliminate the animals in the wild. For someone trained as a veterinarian, it is no surprise that diseases frequently jump from other species to humans.
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Nearly 75 percent of new human diseases discovered over the past few decades are carried by wild or domestic animals. We acquired many ancient diseases from other animals, including smallpox from cattle and, apparently, the common cold from horses. An enormous reservoir of potentially disease-causing viruses resides in wild animals, with many of these microbes remaining undetected until they suddenly appear on the human horizon. What’s more, when a particular virus exists in both humans and other animals, as opposed to being present only in humans, there is almost no way to eradicate it. The best we can do is identify the animal reservoir and try to protect ourselves by showing a healthy respect for the natural boundaries between that species and us. All this was not even to mention the super-exotic diseases such as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which had undergone periodic irruptions among people and some wildlife in Sudan and Zaire during the previous two decades—deadly outbreaks that continue to this day. Infection with the usually fatal Ebola virus causes massive internal hemorrhaging. Barely a decade before West Nile virus broke out in New York, several monkeys infected with Ebola virus were imported into Virginia in what could have led to the first human outbreak of the disease in the United States. Fortunately, quarantine of the animals and rapid identification of the virus prevented its spread to the monkeys’ human caretakers. Still, the evidence was clear: numerous new, sometimes fatal, infectious illnesses were pounding at the door. Some had already made it through.
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But hadn’t the surgeon general of the United States proclaimed, way back in the late 1960s, that the time had come when Americans could “close the book on infectious diseases”? Hadn’t the miracle of modern medicine all but ended the war against pestilence? In fact, now, nearly four decades later, infectious disease still kills more than one in three people worldwide. The World Health Organization reported in 1999 that “diseases that seemed to be subdued . . . are fighting back with renewed ferocity. Some . . . are striking in regions once thought safe from them. Other infections are now so resistant to drugs that they are virtually untreatable.” Even the Central Intelligence Agency has expressed concern about the resurgence of infectious disease. In 2000 the CIA predicted that emerging infections will “complicate U.S. and global security over the next 20 years . . . endanger U.S. citizens at home and abroad, threaten U.S. armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions.” This prediction was partially realized when, in April 2003, an estimated 10,000 residents of Chagugang, a two-hour drive from Beijing, rioted and gutted a building where SARS patients were supposedly to be housed. SARS riots elsewhere in China soon followed. Scientists tell us that this global rise in infections comprises two general trends. Old diseases once believed to be controlled have resurged and in some cases have sprung up in new regions of the world. In recent years, malaria, an
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ancient disease, has dramatically increased in many areas, such as East Africa. This mosquito-borne illness kills nearly 2 million people annually. Half of the victims are children under five years of age. Some forms of the disease have become resistant to chloroquine, a mainstay of malaria treatment. The disease is also appearing in places where it was supposedly eliminated. In 2002, a fifteen-year-old boy and a nineteen-year-old woman in Loudoun County, Virginia, contracted malaria from mosquitoes near their home—the first time in at least twenty years that malaria had been found in both humans and mosquitoes in an American community. In some areas of the globe, the increase in malaria has been linked to a warming global climate and degradation of forests, which have given mosquitoes more places to breed. In 2002 the tropical paradise of Maui, Hawai’i, reported its first case of dengue fever in more than fifty years. Transmitted by a mosquito bite, this virus causes a sudden high fever, severe headaches, joint and muscle pain, vomiting, and rash. It is sometimes fatal. Perhaps like many people, I was tempted to dismiss these increases as artifacts of better detection methods. Weren’t investigators simply picking up on diseases that had eluded our older, cruder methods of surveillance? Unfortunately, the facts do not support this optimism. A second, equally ominous trend is the emergence of new diseases, of which WHO had identified more than thirty between 1980 and 1997—and many more by 2013. That
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list doesn’t even include many earlier ones, such as rotavirus infection, the already mentioned Lyme disease (now the most common disease in the United States transmitted by a tick or other “vector”), Legionnaire’s disease, Ebola virus and hantavirus infections, and toxic shock syndrome—to mention a few. In 1995 this plethora led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create an entirely new journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, which has since published 10,000 articles. In 2009 swine flu swept the globe, the first pandemic since the Hong Kong flu in 1968–1969. Continuing to lurk in the background is the highly deadly (but not contagious, yet) bird flu, H5N1. In 2013 yet another variety of bird flu, caused by the similarly lethal H5N7 virus, emerged in China. In 2011, two men on farms in northwestern Missouri came down with a severe illness that caused them to be hospitalized for a week with high fever, diarrhea, nausea, muscle pain, erratic blood counts, and liver problems. After intensive investigation by CDC and other scientists, a new disease carried by a tick was identified. The scientists who identified it called it Heartland virus. The following year, in 2012, the SARS-like MERS-CoV virus burst onto the scene in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. And in 2013, the CDC released a report detailing the rise of new antibiotic-resistant bacteria in medical settings, which Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the CDC, called “nightmare bacteria.” While antibiotics, better sanitation, and other measures
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have lowered the percentage of deaths from infection worldwide since 1900, such improvements have hardly closed the book on infectious disease. If anything, we are in the process of writing entirely new volumes. This emergent-disease phenomenon is actually more widespread than is at first apparent. Populations of frogs and other amphibians around the globe have declined dramatically since the 1980s, partly because of novel infectious diseases. Plagues are striking a wide range of other species, including crayfish, seals, honeybees, wolves, gorillas, prairie dogs, ferrets, penguins, snails, snakes, wild dogs, salamanders, pelicans, and kangaroos, to name a few. Infections threaten to drive some species to extinction. Ebola hemorrhagic fever is rapidly wiping out many of the world’s remaining wild gorillas. A cancer epidemic, apparently caused by a virus, threatens many species of sea turtle worldwide. Chronic wasting disease, a brain-destroying affliction similar to mad cow disease, is spreading among wild deer and elk in the western United States and could eventually spread throughout white-tailed deer in the East. We’ve all heard some of these accounts, but our understanding tends to be based on piecemeal news, with little sense of an encompassing story. In some ways we are getting the least important part of the picture. Media reports usually describe isolated battles against new diseases and rarely tell us the larger ecological story of which many new afflictions are a part. The larger story is not simply that humans and other animals are falling victim to new dis-
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eases; it is that we are causing or exacerbating many of these ecodemics. Intensive modern agriculture, clear-cutting of forests, global climate change, decimation of many predators that once kept disease-carrying smaller animals in check, and other environmental changes have all contributed to the increase. This is not even to mention increased global travel and commerce, which can rapidly spread many diseases. This view is not an alarmist’s leap of the imagination; it is quickly gaining ground as evolutionary and epidemiological fact. Noted scientist Peter Daszak, executive director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine in Palisades, New York, put it this way: “Show me almost any new infectious disease, and I’ll show you an environmental change brought about by humans that either caused or exacerbated it.” Environmental change and human behavior have long played a role in fostering epidemics. In fact, historians such as William H. McNeill believe that major, extended waves of epidemics have swept across the human species on several occasions, beginning some 10,000 years ago, when the first agricultural settlements and close human contact with cattle and other livestock gave microbes a new bridge for jumping to humans, aiding the rise of smallpox, measles, leprosy, and other diseases. Then, some 2,500 years ago, increasing contact among established centers of civilization opened new avenues for emergence or spread of disease, giving rise to a second extended wave of epidemics. Increased global exploration then
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ushered in a third phase of epidemics as indigenous peoples in Africa, the Americas, the Pacific region, and elsewhere fell victim to introduced diseases. Mercifully, throughout the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, many societies enjoyed a dramatic decline in infectious disease. This was largely because a state of relative equilibrium had been reached: societies had developed immunity to many of these old diseases and had adjusted their ways of life to control them. Unfortunately, this period of relative microbiological peace has been shortlived; humans now appear to be entering a fourth phase of epidemics, spawned by an unprecedented scale of ecological and social change. One example of a human-assisted, if not human-made, disease is Nipah virus, named after the place of its discovery in Malaysia in 1999. For humans, the infection is often mild, though it may elicit influenza-like symptoms, including high fever and muscle pain. In some instances, the disease progresses to encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, leading to convulsions, coma, and, in half of symptomatic patients, death. The natural reservoir of Nipah virus is the giant fruit bat of Southeast Asia, to which the virus apparently causes no harm. These enormous “flying foxes� normally feed in wild fruit trees in sparsely settled areas. But since the 1980s, logging and the spread of agriculture in Southeast Asia have decimated the bats’ forested homes. In 1997 and 1998, human-set forest fires in Borneo and Sumatra, spurred by an
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El Niùo–linked drought, blanketed much of Southeast Asia with a thick haze. This confluence of fires, unusual drought, and forest degradation caused the natural fruit crop to fail and forced the flying foxes to migrate farther north in search of food. They ended up in new locales, such as cultivated fruit orchards near pig farms in Peninsular Malaysia, where their hitchhiking virus attacked new species whose immune systems were unprepared for this microscopic invader. More than a hundred people died, and the Malaysian pig industry was devastated. Although reappearances of the virus in the region have been sporadic, the high fatality rate makes it a serious public health threat. People in the United States, Europe, Japan, and other developed countries can no longer safely relegate new, exotic, or deadly diseases to faraway places. HIV/AIDS has invaded every part of the globe. The human form of mad cow disease infected people through meat served on ordinary dinner tables throughout England. In some regions, Lyme disease and West Nile encephalitis pose a risk to people in the city, in suburbia, or on a casual walk in the woods in spring or summer. In the pages that follow, I tell of the human role in fostering modern epidemics through the stories of seven modern diseases. (The number of diseases in this book alone has grown, up one from the six covered in the first edition.) Mad cow disease, first isolated in cattle in England in 1986, causes an ultimately fatal degeneration of the victim’s brain. HIV/AIDS is moving toward the top of the list of human-
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kind’s most deadly modern scourges—with no end in sight. A form of food poisoning caused by a new strain of the salmonella bacterium known as DT104, which people usually contract by eating contaminated meat, is resistant to almost all the antibiotics commonly used to treat more traditional forms of salmonella food poisoning. The rate of Lyme disease is increased by ecological disruption of forests. A fatal illness caused by a newly discovered hantavirus, a virus spread by mice, makes regular appearances in the American Southwest and other areas, depending, in part, on global meteorological cycles. Unknown to almost all Americans just a few years ago, West Nile encephalitis is becoming a dismal fact of life as the virus spreads throughout most of the United States. In addition to the original six, this edition explores the story of a seventh plague for the ages—pandemic influenza—including both swine and bird flus. Seven diseases, seven parables of the unintended consequences of disturbing the natural systems on which our own health depends. The ecological whole of these seven diseases is far greater than the sum of their individual parts, and their significance is far greater than the relatively low incidence of some of these diseases. Together, these epidemics offer insights into the way we live, how we think, and the assumptions we embrace as children of the age of medical miracles. For all that modern medicine has prolonged life and relieved suffering, it has also fed the profoundly dangerous illusion that we are above or apart from the natural world, with its weather, forests, and cycles of life and death. The seven diseases de-
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scribed in this book remind us that no amount of medical technology can rescue us from the heart-stilling fact that human beings, as William H. McNeill put it, “will never escape the ecosystem and the limits of the ecosystem. Whether we like it or not, we are caught in the food chain, eating and being eaten. It is one of the conditions of life.� This realization is not all bad. In preserving the ecosystems on which health fundamentally rests, we stand to protect the health of many people for generations to come. In carelessly exploiting water, forests, fossil fuels, other species, and other natural resources, we will continue to sacrifice the long-term physical health of many for the financial gain of a few. Preservation of natural ecosystems, along with greater social equity, research, good surveillance, and benefits of modern medicine, can improve the health not only of people but also of many other species. Human health does not belong to us alone. Nor, unfortunately, do the plagues we are all now experiencing.
Sales Information Sheet The World's Water Volume 8 The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 1/16/2014
Peter H. Gleick Hardcover: Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-481-9 978-1-61091-482-6 978-1-61091-483-3
$70.00 $37.50 $34.99
SCIENCE / Environmental Science POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy/Environmental Policy NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection SCIENCE / Earth Sciences/Hydrology Trim Size: 8.5 X 11 Pages: 420 Figures, tables, references Author Residence: Oakland, California Comparative Titles: • Water Resources, Shimon Anisfeld. ISBN: 978-1-59726-495-2, Paperback, Aug. 2010, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 355, Warehouse: 1582. • Water Security, The World Economic Forum Water Initiative. ISBN: 978-1-59726-736-6, Paperback, Jan. 2011, $30.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 214, Warehouse: 6748. Previous Works: • The World’s Water Volume 7: The Biennial Report on Freshwater, Peter H. Gleick. ISBN: 978-1-59726-999-5, Paperback, Oct. 2011, $37.50, Island Press. Bookscan: 560, Warehouse: 1764. • The World’s Water 2008-2009, Peter H. Gleick. ISBN: 978-1-59726-505-8, Paperback, Dec. 2008, $45.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 1075, Warehouse: 3329. • Bottle and Sold, Peter H. Gleick. ISBN: 978-1-59726-528-7, Hardcover, Apr. 2010, $29.95, Island Press. Bookscan: 2071, Warehouse: 6394. Sales Handle An unmatched reference on water issues Description Produced biennially, The World’s Water provides readers with the most comprehensive, up-to-date information available about freshwater. It also offers incisive analysis of the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with this critical resource. Since the first volume was published in 1998, the series has been consistently recognized as an essential reference for anyone concerned with water and its use. In addition to the key data readers have come to expect, including the Water Conflict Chronology, Volume 8 includes chapters on such timely subjects as hydraulic fracturing (fracking), water footprints, sustainable water jobs, and desalination financing. Concise updates, or “water briefs,” provide the latest news on the Dead Sea and the role of water in the Syrian conflict. Statistics form the backbone of the series, but it is the Pacific Institute’s insights and recommendations that set The World’s Water apart. Volume 8 continues this tradition, illuminating the most newsworthy topics in water. Selling Points • Prestige and authority of Peter Gleick and the Pacific Institute • Established reputation of The World’s Water series • Growing public attention to water shortages • Growing political debate over fracking
Author Bio Peter H. Gleick is President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California, and is a recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship for his work on water issues. Table of Contents Foreword by Ismail Serageldin Introduction Chapter 1. Global Water Governance in the Twenty-First Century \ Heather Cooley, Newsha Ajami, Mai-Lan Ha, Veena Srinivasan, Jason Morrison, Kristina Donnelly, and Juliet Christian-Smith -Global Water Challenges -The Emergence of Global Water Governance -Conclusions Chapter 2. Two Shared Risks and Interests: The Case for Private Sector Engagement in Water Policy and Management \ Peter Schulte, Stuart Orr, and Jason Morrison -The Business Case for Investing in Sustainable Water Management -Utilizing Corporate Resources While Ensuring Public Interest Outcomes and Preventing Policy Capture -Moving Forward: Unlocking Mutually Beneficial Corporate Action on Water Chapter 3. Sustainable Water Jobs \ Eli Moore, Heather Cooley, Juliet Christian-Smith, and Kristina Donnelly -Water Challenges in Today’s Economy -Job Quality and Growth in Sustainable Water Occupations -Conclusions -Recommendations Chapter 4. Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Resources: What Do We Know and Need to Know? \ Heather Cooley and Kristina Donnelly -Overview of Hydraulic Fracturing -Concerns Associated with Hydraulic Fracturing Operations -Water Challenges -Conclusions Chapter 5. Water Footprint \ Julian Fulton, Heather Cooley, and Peter H. Gleick -The Water Footprint Concept -Water, Carbon, and Ecological Footprints and Nexus Thinking -Water Footprint Findings -Conclusion Chapter 6. Key Issues for Seawater Desalination in California: Cost and Financing \ Heather Cooley and Newsha Ajami -How Much Does Seawater Desalination Cost? -Desalination Projects and Risk -Case Studies -Conclusions Chapter 7. Zombie Water Projects \ Peter H. Gleick, Matthew Heberger, and Kristina Donnelly -The North American Water and Power Alliance—NAWAPA -The Reber Plan -Alaskan Water Shipments -Las Vegas Valley Pipeline Project -Diverting the Missouri River to the West -Conclusions IN BRIEF
One. The Syrian Conflict and the Role of Water \ Peter H. Gleick Two. The Red Sea–Dead Sea Project Update \ Kristina Donnelly Three. Water and Conflict: Events, Trends, and Analysis (2011–2012) \ Peter H. Gleick and Matthew Heberger Four. Water Conflict Chronology \ Peter H. Gleick and Matthew Heberger DATA SECTION Data Table 1: Total Renewable Freshwater Supply by Country (2013 Update) Data Table 2: Freshwater Withdrawal by Country and Sector (2013 Update) Data Table 3A: Access to Improved Drinking Water by Country, 1970–2008 Data Table 3B: Access to Improved Drinking Water by Country, 2011 Update Data Table 4A: Access to Improved Sanitation by Country, 1970–2008 Data Table 4B: Access to Improved Sanitation by Country, 2011 Update Data Table 5: MDG Progress on Access to Safe Drinking Water by Region Data Table 6: MDG Progress on Access to Sanitation by Region Data Table 7: Monthly Natural Runoff for the World’s Major River Basins, by Flow Volume Data Table 8: Monthly Natural Runoff for the World’s Major River Basins, by Basin Name Data Table 9: Area Equipped for Irrigation Actually Irrigated Data Table 10: Overseas Development Assistance for Water Supply and Sanitation, by Donating Country, 2004–2011 Data Table 11: Overseas Development Assistance for Water Supply and Sanitation, by Subsector, 2007–2011 Data Table 12: Per Capita Water Footprint of National Consumption, by Country, 1996–2005 Data Table 13: Per Capita Water Footprint of National Consumption, by Sector and Country, 1996–2005 Data Table 14: Total Water Footprint of National Consumption, by Country, 1996–2005 Data Table 15: Total Water Footprint of National Consumption, by Sector and Country, 1996–2005 Data Table 16A: Global Cholera Cases Reported to the World Health Organization, by Country, 1949–1979 Data Table 16B: Global Cholera Cases Reported to the World Health Organization, by Country, 1980–2011 Data Table 17A: Global Cholera Deaths Reported to the World Health Organization, by Country, 1949–1979 Data Table 17B: Global Cholera Deaths Reported to the World Health Organization, by Country, 1980–2011 Data Table 18A: Perceived Satisfaction with Water Quality in SubSaharan Africa Data Table 18B: Regional Assessment of Satisfaction with Water (and Air) Quality Data Table 18C: Countries Most and Least Satisfied with Water Quality WATER UNITS, DATA CONVERSIONS, AND CONSTANTS COMPREHENSIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS COMPREHENSIVE INDEX
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Global Water Governance in the Twenty-First Century Heather Cooley, Newsha Ajami, Mai-Lan Ha, Veena Srinivasan, Jason Morrison, Kristina Donnelly, and Juliet Christian-Smith
Growing pressure on the world’s water resources is having major impacts on our social and economic well-being. Even as the planet’s endowment of water is expected to remain constant, human appropriation of water, already at 50 percent by some measures, is expected to increase further (Postel et al. 1996). Pressures on water resources are likely to worsen in response to population growth, shifts toward more meat-based diets, climate change, and other challenges. Moreover, the world’s water is increasingly becoming degraded in quality, raising the cost of treatment and threatening human and ecosystem health (Palaniappan et al. 2010). Furthermore, the physical availability of freshwater resources does not guarantee that a safe, affordable water supply is available to all. At least 780 million people do not have access to clean drinking water, some 2.5 billion people lack access to safe sanitation systems, and 2–5 million people—mainly children—die as a result of preventable water-related diseases every year (Gleick 2002; UN 2009; WHO and UNICEF 2012). There is growing recognition that the scope and complexity of water-related challenges extend beyond national and regional boundaries and therefore cannot be adequately addressed solely by national or regional policies. In a recent report, the United Nations notes that “water has long ceased to be solely a local issue” (UN 2012a, 40). In particular, widespread water scarcity and lack of access to water supply and sanitation threaten socioeconomic development and national security for countries around the world. Additionally, people around the world share and exchange water directly and indirectly through natural hydrologic units and systems and through global trade (i.e., “virtual water,” discussed below). Furthermore, climate change and the growing presence of multinational companies within the water sector play a role in globalizing water issues (Hoekstra 2006). Over the past sixty years, a number of efforts have sought to address the many challenges facing the water sector. Early efforts to address these challenges were almost entirely based on developing large-scale physical infrastructure, such as dams and reservoirs, to produce new water supplies. Amid a growing recognition that technology and infrastructure alone were not sufficient to address persistent water management concerns, discourse about water governance began to emerge in the early 1990s. In its first World Water Development Report, the United Nations strongly stated that the “water 1
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crisis is essentially a crisis of governance and societies are facing a number of social, economic and political challenges on how to govern water more effectively” (UN 2003b, 370). In this chapter, we describe some of the major global water challenges and identify key deficiencies in global water governance in addressing these challenges. We conclude with several recommendations for improving global water governance in order to better address major water concerns in the twenty-first century.
Global Water Challenges As described below, the scope and complexity of water-related challenges extend beyond traditional national and regional boundaries. Such challenges require broader thinking and more comprehensive solutions.
Water Scarcity Water scarcity is a major challenge, affecting every continent around the world. Water scarcity occurs when water demand nears (or exceeds) the available water supply. Several groups, including the World Resources Institute and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), have developed tools to promote a better understanding of where and how water risks are emerging around the world. The IWMI, for example, estimates that 1.2 billion people—nearly 20 percent of the world’s population—live in areas of physical water scarcity, where water withdrawals for agriculture, industry, and domestic purposes exceed 75 percent of river flows. An additional 500 million people live in areas approaching physical scarcity. Another 1.6 billion people live in areas of economic water scarcity, where water is available but human capacity or financial resources limit access. In these areas, adequate infrastructure may not be available or, if water is available, its distribution may be inequitable (IWMI 2007). But water scarcity isn’t solely a natural phenomenon; it’s also a human one. Numerous human activities—such as untimely water use, pollution, insufficient or poorly maintained infrastructure, and inadequate management systems—can result in or exacerbate water scarcity. As noted by the United Nations, there are adequate water resources to meet our needs, but water “is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed” (UN 2012b). Widespread declines in groundwater levels are one symptom of water scarcity. Groundwater is an important source of freshwater in many parts of the world. Some areas, however, have become overly dependent on groundwater supplies. In the past two decades, advances in well-drilling techniques have significantly reduced the cost of extracting groundwater. Driven, in part, by these technological advancements, groundwater withdrawals have tripled over the past fifty years (UN 2012a). In some areas, the rate of groundwater extraction now consistently exceeds natural recharge rates, causing widespread depletion and declining groundwater levels. A recent analysis of groundwater extraction by hydrologist Yoshihide Wada and colleagues (2010) finds that depletion rates doubled between 1960 and 2000 and are especially high in parts of China, India, and the United States. Much of the groundwater extracted supports agriculture (67 percent), although it is also used for domestic (22 percent) and industrial (11 percent) purposes.
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Water Quality While most water assessments emphasize water quantity, water quality is also critical for satisfying basic human and environmental needs. The quality of the world’s water is under increasing threat as a result of population growth, expanding industrial and agricultural activities, and climate change. Poor water quality threatens human and ecosystem health, increases water treatment costs, and reduces the availability of safe water for drinking and other uses (Palaniappan et al. 2010). It also limits economic productivity and development opportunities. Indeed, the United Nations finds that “water quality is a global concern as risks of degradation translate directly into social and economic impacts” (UN 2012a, 403). Water quality concerns are widespread, although the true extent of the problem remains unknown. In developing countries, an estimated 90 percent of sewage and 70 percent of industrial waste is discharged into waterways without any treatment at all (UN 2003a). Asian rivers are the most polluted in the world, and bacteria levels from human waste in these rivers are three times higher than the global average. Moreover, lead levels in these rivers are twenty times more than in rivers in industrialized countries (UNESCO 2005).
Drinking Water and Sanitation Access The failure to provide safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services to all people is perhaps the greatest development failure of the twentieth century. In an attempt to remedy this failure, the United Nations established the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight targets designed to tackle extreme poverty. At the direction of United Nations member countries, UN organizations and multilateral and bilateral development agencies have been working to achieve these goals by the year 2015. While many of the MDGs are widely acknowledged to be associated with water, including those related to improving gender equality and reducing child mortality, Target 7.C specifically aims to reduce by half the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. Although not without their critics, the MDGs have served to highlight the importance of water, sanitation, and hygiene in improving health and economic opportunities (UN 2012a). By UN measures (which are acknowledged to have important limitations), significant progress has been made in improving access to drinking water. In 1990, 76 percent of the global population had access to an “improved drinking water source”—defined as one that, by nature of its construction or through active intervention, is likely to be protected from outside contamination, in particular from contamination with fecal matter—whereas by 2010, this number had grown to 89 percent (WHO and UNICEF 2012). The global population as a whole is on track to meet the MDG drinking water target; however, global aggregates hide large regional disparities. For example, while India and China have made significant progress, sub-Saharan Africa, where only 61 percent of the population has access to an improved water source, is unlikely to achieve the MDG drinking water target. Additionally, coverage in the least developed countries is worse than in other developing countries. Finally, even within countries, there are disparities between urban and rural communities and between the rich and the poor (WHO and UNICEF 2012). Despite this progress, access to an improved drinking water source remains out of reach for many people. An estimated 780 million people do not have access to basic
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water service (WHO and UNICEF 2012). Additionally, the MDG drinking water target is based on access to an improved supply of water with little or no consideration of whether the water is affordable, whether the water is safe for consumption, or whether that access is being maintained over time. For example, naturally occurring arsenic pollution in groundwater affects nearly 140 million people in seventy countries on all continents (UN 2009). In Bangladesh alone, nearly 70 million people are exposed to groundwater contaminated with arsenic beyond the recommended limits of the World Health Organization (UN 2009). Far less progress has been made in achieving the MDG sanitation targets. In 1990, nearly half of the global population had access to improved sanitation. By 2010, the percentage of people with access to improved sanitation had increased to 63 percent. An estimated 2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation (WHO and UNICEF 2012). The global population is not on track to meet the sanitation target, and coverage is especially low in sub-Saharan Africa and in southern Asia.
Water and Ecosystems Freshwater ecosystems are among the most extensively altered systems on Earth. Rivers, streams, and lakes have been subjected to chemical, physical, and biological alteration as a result of large-scale water diversions, introduction of invasive species, overharvesting, pollution, and climate change (Carpenter et al. 2011). An estimated 20–35 percent of freshwater fish are vulnerable or endangered, mostly because of habitat alteration, although pollution, invasive species, and overharvesting are also to blame (Cosgrove and Rijsberman 2000). About half of the world’s wetlands have been lost since 1900, and much of the remaining wetland area is degraded (Zedler and Kercher 2005). Freshwater ecosystem conditions are likely to continue to decline unless action is taken to address acute threats and better manage freshwater resources.
Globalization and virtual Water Flows Globalization is characterized by the production and movement of goods and services around the world, and water is a key ingredient, either directly or indirectly, in almost every good produced. Consequently, the movement of goods effectively results in the movement of water around the world. Existing patterns of trade, however, are not necessarily water efficient. Many factors are at play when global trade decisions are made, and water is rarely one of them. The concept of “virtual water”—the water embedded in the production of food and other products—has been introduced as a way to evaluate the role of trade in distributing water resources. Some have argued that by allowing those living in water-scarce regions to meet some of their water needs through the import of water-intensive goods, international trade can provide a mechanism to improve global water-use efficiency (Allan 1993). Others, however, have posited that it simply externalizes the environmental burden of producing a particular product. In any case, the facts suggest that countries’ relative water endowments are not dictating global trade patterns. Indeed, three of the world’s top ten food exporters are considered water scarce, and three of the top ten food importers are water rich (World Economic Forum Water Initiative 2011). Furthermore, globalization increases dependence on others for essential goods and increases vulnerability to external water scarcity (Hoekstra and Mekonnen 2012).
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Climate Change Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activities are causing large-scale changes to Earth’s climate. These climatic changes will have major implications for global water resources. As temperatures rise, the flows of water in the hydrologic cycle will accelerate. In short, climate change will intensify the water cycle, altering water availability, timing, quality, and demand. Indeed, all of the major international and national assessments of climate change have concluded that freshwater systems are among the most vulnerable, presenting risk for all sectors of society (Compagnucci et al. 2001; SEG 2007; Kundzewicz et al. 2007; Bates et al. 2008; USGCRP 2013). A technical report on freshwater resources released in 2008 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that “water and its availability and quality will be the main pressures on, and issues for, societies and the environment under climate change” (Bates et al. 2008). A community’s vulnerability to climate change will depend upon the magnitude of the impact and the community’s sensitivity and adaptive capacity. As noted by Kenneth D. Frederick of Resources for the Future and Peter H. Gleick of the Pacific Institute (1999), “the socioeconomic impacts of floods, droughts, and climate and nonclimate factors affecting the supply and demand for water will depend in large part on how society adapts.” The poor and those living in developing countries are the most vulnerable because they have fewer social, technological, and financial resources to enable them to adapt (UNFCCC 2007).
Water-Energy-Food Nexus Throughout the twentieth century, the close connections between water, energy, and food were largely unknown or were ignored in policy decision making. Water, energy, and food systems, and the governance institutions set up to manage them, were often separated by well-defined silos, and managers rarely communicated with one another. Water systems were often designed and constructed with the assumption that energy would be cheap and abundant, and energy systems were designed and constructed with the assumption that water would be cheap and abundant. Likewise, food systems have been operated as though neither the cost nor the availability of water and energy would constrain production. We now understand that this is no longer true: these critical resources are closely interconnected, and a growing interest in the water-energy-food nexus highlights the need to better understand and manage these interdependencies:
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• Agriculture is a major user of water, accounting for 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals. Agriculture is also a major user of energy, and food prices are sensitive to energy prices and policies on fertilizers, pesticides, and transportation to distribute products. Meeting the food and fiber demands of a growing population that is simultaneously shifting toward a more water-intensive diet will require a rethinking of how water is used.
• Energy is a major user of water. In the United States, for example, thermoelectric power plants account for nearly 50 percent of all freshwater withdrawals (Kenny et al. 2009). Newly proposed energy sources, such as biofuels, are placing additional strains on local water resources and global food systems.
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• Large amounts of energy are required to capture, treat, distribute, and use water. Population growth and climate change are prompting some to consider importing water over longer distances, accessing groundwater from greater depths, or developing more marginal, lower-quality supplies that require extensive treatment.
Failure to consider these linkages in policy and decision making can lead to unintended consequences. Biofuels, for example, have emerged as an alternative to traditional, fossil-fuel-based energy sources, and many governments have instituted mandates and incentives to promote biofuel development. The European Union has committed to converting 10 percent of its transportation fuel to biofuels by 2020 (UN 2012a). In 2009–2010, nearly 40 percent of domestic corn use in the United States was for fuel (USDA 2010). However, first-generation biofuels, which represent the vast majority of biofuels produced today, are water and chemical intensive, and their development increases pollution of and competition for limited water resources. Additionally, biofuels compete with food crops for land and water resources, contributing to increased food prices and threats to food security. The impacts of increasing biofuel production make it clear that national decision making is linked to global agricultural output, food prices, and water availability.
The Emergence of Global Water Governance The importance of governance as a key factor in addressing water-related challenges began to emerge in the late twentieth century amid a growing recognition that technology and infrastructure alone were not sufficient to address persistent water management concerns. Indeed, in its first World Water Development Report, the United Nations issued a strongly worded statement that the “water crisis is essentially a crisis of governance and societies are facing a number of social, economic and political challenges on how to govern water more effectively” (UN 2003b). Early water governance efforts emphasized the local and regional scales, in part because water challenges were largely perceived as local issues. But the scope and complexity of water challenges, as described above, highlight the need for a more comprehensive and coordinated global effort. Despite the need, discussions about global water governance have been limited. One of the few definitions of global water governance comes from a 2008 study that defines it as “the development and implementation of norms, principles, rules, incentives, informative tools, and infrastructure to promote a change in the behavior of actors at the global level in the area of water governance” (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2008, 422). Thus, global water governance focuses on the processes of international cooperation and multilateralism. It comprises formal and informal instruments—including global governmental and nongovernmental organizations, regimes, actors, frameworks, and agreements— created to balance interests and meet global water challenges that span national and regional boundaries. It informs the way challenges are tackled (or not) at the regional and international levels by various players (from governmental bodies to civil society organizations) and suggests opportunities for, and barriers to, meeting global objectives. Global water governance also facilitates interaction and dialogue among key players to inform the development of solutions to problems at local, national, and regional levels to ease global pressures.
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Evaluating the Effectiveness of Global Water Governance Today Current global water governance systems were established during a time when approaches to water resource development and management differed from those encountered today (Jury and Vaux 2007). Persistent and emerging water challenges suggest that an assessment is needed to determine how global water governance efforts can be improved to more effectively address twenty-first-century water challenges and to leverage opportunities afforded by new thinking and innovative technologies. We describe below some key deficiencies and recommend ways in which governance can be improved to better address major freshwater concerns.
Intergovernmental Organizations Lack Clear Leadership and Coordination A large number of organizations exist to address water challenges at various scales—particularly the United Nations system, multilateral lending institutions, and regional basin organizations—all working on different aspects of water management and service delivery. While global summits and forums have helped to identify major challenges and issue areas, implementation of coherent action is hampered by differing agendas among organizations and agencies that overlap in some areas but not in others. At the international level, leadership and coordinated action within the water sector could emerge from the United Nations’ system of agencies and programs. UN-Water was created in 2003 to serve as the interagency coordinating mechanism to promote coherence and coordination of UN system actions and other nontraditional partners and stakeholders (e.g., public and private sectors and civil society) related to the implementation of the international agenda defined by the Millennium Declaration and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. UN-Water, however, has several deficiencies. In particular, it “does not have a strong mandate,” nor does it make centralized policies (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2008, 427). UN-Water also has its own areas of focus (water and climate change, water quality, water supply and sanitation, and transboundary water), which fail to address the full range of water-related challenges. Additionally, inadequate personnel and funding hamper UN-Water’s goal of promoting collaboration among the various agencies and programs that focus on different water-related issues and challenges, among them the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The lack of clear leadership manifests itself in several ways. In particular, bilateral funding agencies are more likely to focus their efforts on their own priorities. For example, the German development agency GIZ has spent considerable resources on addressing the food-water-energy nexus, climate change, and access to water and sanitation. The US Agency for International Development (USAID), on the other hand, is focused on biodiversity, food security, climate change, and water access and sanitation. While all of these efforts are aligned with global priorities, lack of coordination can hinder their effectiveness.
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Recommendation: Secure a Sustainable Funding Source and a Stronger Mandate for Coordinating Intergovernmental Organizations The global nature of water-related challenges requires clear leadership and coordination. Intergovernmental agreements produced at world summits and forums require effective intergovernmental organizations to play the leading role in coordinating action. The United Nations system, as the sole global governance organization with the legitimacy and authority of member governments, must lead. UN-Water offers a potential starting point, given its existing mandate to coordinate action. To fulfill its mission, however, it (or any other intergovernmental mechanism established to coordinate action) must be given the resources and an empowered mandate to do so. This requires governments to fulfill pledges made at previous UN summits (such as the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, or Johannesburg Summit) to ensure that financial resources are made available. It also requires political will from the United Nations to provide a stronger mandate for the organization and the ability to overcome traditional interagency rivalry that hampers cooperation.
Recommendation: Promote Greater Collaboration to Build Understanding and Coordinate Action To effectively address the interlinked nature of the problems, it is imperative that waterrelated action be led not from within a silo but rather with a deep understanding of the cross-sector issues—for example, taking into consideration development, energy, biodiversity, climate change, food security, and more. Building this understanding requires close, continuous collaboration among the different organizations and individuals involved. UN-Water’s 2013 theme of international cooperation is a positive step in that direction. Government-led efforts to encourage participation by actors through multistakeholder processes (such as the parallel meetings at Rio+20, the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) are key to promoting this collaboration. Likewise, the United Nations’ current approach to developing the new Sustainable Development Goals is an encouraging development. By instituting a process that brings together development agencies, civil society groups, and the private sector to define water-related goals and potential actions, the UN approach promotes better understanding, which can lead to more coordinated action and better outcomes.
The Role of Nongovernmental Actors Is Expanding Today, a study of global governance cannot be limited to merely governmental or intergovernmental processes. The rise and influence of a broad range of new actors, with their own sources of authority and power, are indicative of a more complicated global governance structure. These actors, who come from the private, nongovernmental, academic, and media sectors, act independently or, increasingly, in networks to bring about new thinking and solutions. These new global actors have fostered innovation and performed important functions, such as serving as watchdogs of governmental and private sector activities within the water sector. However, concerns have been raised about some who are engaged in public policy, particularly regarding their legitimacy, accountability, and relationship with existing public governance structures. For example, some of these new initiatives may be undermining government-led efforts, operating outside of local priorities, or, in the case of some privately led initiatives, engaging in policy capture (see, e.g., the discussion of corporate actions regarding water in chapter 2 of this volume). Their
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centers of authority or the constituencies for whom they speak has also been a subject of debate. Although it is clear that these actors will continue to play an important role in global water governance, efforts should be made to understand what their role should be and their relationship with government-led efforts.
Recommendation: Explore and Develop Guidelines and Principles to Help Govern Nongovernmental Processes As more parties become involved, effort is needed to better understand and define the roles and responsibilities of each in order to leverage unique capabilities. For entities that are actively engaging in areas that are in the traditional realm of governments, clear guidance as to how these new processes should interact with existing processes is needed. Realizing that these processes can potentially undermine one another, some organizations, such as the United Nations’ CEO Water Mandate, have developed guidelines and principles to govern how the private sector engages in water policy (see, e.g., Morrison et al. 2010). More efforts like these are needed to ensure that civil society and private sector efforts and initiatives complement existing government-led processes where possible. Some potential overarching principles developed for sustainability standards systems (many of which are global action networks, or GANs) that could serve as starting points for further exploration include the following (Ward and Ha 2012): Respect the unique roles of governments and states. Engage public sector actors. Support sharing of information and resources with public sector actors. Build on existing public sector and international norms. Assess and review the range of public sector implications and relationships.
Water Sector Funding Is Inadequate and Too Narrowly Focused The international community, including the major economies and international organizations, has played a significant role in funding water sector improvements, especially in developing countries. Yet funding remains limited and too narrowly focused. Funding commitments made by major economies at the 2002 Johannesburg Summit and among the Group of Eight countries have thus far not materialized. Additionally, a recent survey conducted by the World Health Organization (2012) finds that overall funding for the water sector is low—and is skewed toward capital expenditures for drinking water systems in urban areas. Expenditures for sanitation, operation and maintenance costs, and rural systems are much lower.
Recommendation: Develop Financing Mechanisms to Support Ongoing Operation and Maintenance Costs Funding is needed to support ongoing operation and maintenance costs of water infrastructure. Available funding is insufficient to operate and maintain the existing infrastructure or to support the people and institutions needed to manage it effectively. As a result, systems are poorly managed or fall into disrepair, increasing the long-term costs. Additional funding is needed to support the ongoing operation and maintenance of new and existing water-related infrastructure.
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New Funders Often Fail to Abide by Environmental and Social Lending Standards For much of the twentieth century, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, intergovernmental agencies, and bilateral donors were the main funders of large-scale infrastructure in the developing world. In recent years, new economic realities and players have emerged. Commercial banks and energy and construction companies in the global South are playing an increasingly important role and are fundamentally changing water resource management. For instance, Pacific Environment’s China program director, Kristen McDonald, and her colleagues reported in 2009 that Chinese financial institutions, state-owned enterprises, and private firms were involved in at least ninety-three major dam projects overseas. These and other new players—predominantly energy and construction companies from Thailand, Vietnam, China, Russia, and Malaysia—had not adopted internationally accepted environmental and social lending standards and norms. Furthermore, these new funders forced the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to reconfigure their own lending practices to further dilute their environmental and social safeguards (Molle et al. 2009).
Recommendation: Establish New Lending Standards and Compliance Strategies Commercial banks and energy and construction companies play an increasingly important role in financing water resource development projects. In the case of dam construction, for example, these new players do not meet even the World Bank’s standards—which are already weaker than the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams. The failure to abide by social and environmental lending standards poses a threat to local environmental and social systems. New environmental and social lending standards are needed to ensure that lending promotes sustainable development objectives. The new players, along with civil society organizations, should be included in crafting and designing these new standards in order to ensure compliance.
Knowledge and Technology Transfer Efforts Remain Largely Top-Down Over the past several decades, water-related knowledge and technological innovation have grown tremendously, with new techniques and ideas emerging from governmental bodies, independent research institutions, and academic bodies around the world. The challenge lies in getting this knowledge and technology to places that can implement them. Intergovernmental processes to foster technology and knowledge transfers— mainly through forums such as the annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC) and the like—have predominantly been in a topdown manner. There is growing recognition, however, that even innovative technologies that are thought to be highly effective may not be appropriate everywhere. Each technology is developed and crafted according to local circumstances, which can differ dramatically from one region to another. As a result, an off-the-shelf approach to technology and knowledge transfers may not lead to the desired outcome or may lead to unintended consequences. Implementation of Green Revolution concepts to industrialize agriculture in the Punjab region of India provides an example of a top-down, single-focus transfer of knowledge and technology that has led to several unintended consequences, including groundwater overdraft in some areas. Today, the state of Punjab is trying to manage these problems by revisiting and reforming state agricultural policy and regulations using a more bottom-up technology and knowledge transfer approach (Tiwana et al. 2007).
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Recommendation: Promote Open-Access Knowledge Transfer Over the past few decades, there has been tremendous growth in the technologies available for transferring knowledge and information. Geospatial technologies, the Internet, and mobile devices are just a few of the technologies available to improve communication. Although reliance on such technologies must be carefully considered, given the global variations in their application and use, they can provide tremendous opportunity for new ways of getting information to water users and of connecting water stakeholders and researchers with one another and with decision makers. Global institutions can play an important role in facilitating the use and distribution of these new technologies. Extending access to new and emerging scientific findings can enable and empower the local research community to better understand and identify local problems and design or demand specific solutions to improve local water governance (Jury and Vaux 2005; Hutchings et al. 2012). There is also a need for better communication of complicated scientific knowledge to policy makers and decision makers in order to influence development of comprehensive management strategies and inform the policy-making process.
Recommendation: Facilitate Effective Technology Transfer by Engaging Local Communities in the Decision-Making Process Empowering local communities to identify their water issues and solutions allows them to select an approach that more closely aligns with their social and cultural realities. Onsite education and capacity building play a major role in facilitating successful and effective bottom-up or horizontal technology and knowledge transfer. Especially in regions with very limited access to and understanding of state-of-the-art technological solutions, or with limited institutional capacity to provide local technological training, international institutions such as the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education can foster capacity building and educational efforts to facilitate implementation and operational learning of imported technologies. Also, continuous monitoring and performance assessment of a transferred technology can provide an opportunity to adjust and calibrate implementation and operational processes to prevent undesirable outcomes. Global institutions can also facilitate focused research and development investment, especially by those in the developed world with financial resources, to advance technologies and make them more accessible to the developing world.
Recommendation: Improve Understanding and Communication of Risk and Uncertainty Some uncertainty inherent in hydrologic and water resource management systems is unavoidable. Yet the development of management practices and strategies relies heavily on future supply and demand predictions, which are fraught with uncertainty. Water resource managers around the world use various supply and demand predictions in their decision-making processes. A better understanding of the uncertainties and risks associated with them can lead to the development of more effective planning and management strategies that reflect these limitations. New decision support tools should include an uncertainty assessment component, which would offer an array of decisions and the uncertainties and risks associated with them in order to provide an opportunity for adaptive and flexible management approaches. Effective communication of these uncertainties and risks to policy makers and the general public is also an important element of adaptive and flexible water resource management practice (UN 2012a).
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Data Collection Efforts Are Inadequate Good data and ongoing monitoring activities are the cornerstones of effective water management and governance. We live in an information era, and vast amounts of water data are collected in different ways and at a variety of temporal and spatial scales, from local stream gauges to global satellites. Current attempts at information sharing, such as UN-Water’s Activity Information System, Documentation Center, and Key Water Indicator Portal, provide key data necessary to tackle the water challenges identified earlier. Despite these improvements, there are still regions lacking basic water data and information. Even when the data are collected, they are often not widely available or their quality is poor. Efforts are needed to improve the collection, compilation, and reporting of comprehensive water-related data.
Recommendation: Develop a Centralized Global Water Data Portal The rational management of water is predicated on the availability of comprehensive data. Capacity needs to be developed in all countries to collect, manage, and analyze water information. Some of the key data needed include precipitation, runoff, virtual water flows, groundwater levels, and overall water demand and supply. Where resources are inadequate to collect and compile these data, they should be provided through international aid or other mechanisms. Also, as developing countries undergo economic transitions, monitoring and reporting need to be integrated into new laws. These efforts would benefit from a centralized global water portal in which to assemble the reported data, especially where local governments lack the financial or technological capacity to provide such services. Finally, international data protocols, standard data formats, and sharing arrangements are needed in order to increase comparability of data worldwide.
Recommendation: Leverage New Data Collection Technologies New local data collection and monitoring efforts are emerging that engage stakeholders through crowdsourcing, or reporting of information through electronic devices. Mobile connectivity is outpacing fixed landline phones and access to computers, especially in many developing countries that lack telephone network infrastructures. New monitoring efforts that use cell phones and other RSS technologies, such as the WASH SMS Project, capitalize on the widespread and rapidly growing use of mobile devices throughout the world to facilitate the flow of information between communities, governmental entities, and service providers (Hutchings et al. 2012). These data can provide timely information on local water systems, including the availability and quality of water. Small-scale, local data collection and reporting efforts such as these should be encouraged.
Lack of Transparency and Accountability Limits the Effectiveness of Water Sector Investments and Fosters Corruption The water sector lacks transparency and adequate participation from key stakeholders, especially in marginalized communities, and this in turn leads to an accountability deficit and can result in ineffective or inefficient management strategies and investments. A 2008 report by Transparency International and the Water Integrity Network finds that a lack of transparency and participation contributes to rampant corruption across the water sector, including in water management, drinking water and sanitation service provision, irrigation, and hydropower development. The water sector is especially prone to corruption because of the complex system of agencies responsible for its management
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and delivery; the growing presence of private actors and informal providers that operate in legal gray zones (where the actors are the de facto water service providers allowed to operate by governments but who may not have official license); and the large sums of money required for infrastructure investments. Addressing the issue is especially challenging because of the general focus within the sector on technological solutions rather than governance. The report further finds that the poor and most vulnerable are the most likely victims because they are more exposed to the informal sector (where corruption is more prevalent) and have limited resources and avenues to voice their concerns. This, in turn, exacerbates corruption because those most affected by it are unable to call for greater accountability (Transparency International and Water Integrity Network 2008).
Recommendation: Adopt New Standards, Codes, and Best Practices for Water Resource Development and Management to Promote Greater Transparency and Participation Water resource development and management are guided by a series of standards, codes, and best practices. These standards, codes, and practices, which include both mandatory and voluntary initiatives, must provide a regulatory framework that brings about greater transparency, promotes participation and oversight to tackle corrupt practices, and develops best-practice guidance where regulatory frameworks are weak or poorly implemented. Both governments and GANs can play a key role in their formulation. For example, Kenya has adopted a human rights–based approach to the water sector that places an emphasis on transparency and participation. Likewise, the United Nations’ CEO Water Mandate released its Corporate Water Disclosure Guidelines: Public Exposure Draft in an effort to promote greater transparency in the private sector’s water use and allow stakeholders to better evaluate this use. These efforts are encouraging; however, more can and should be done.
Recommendation: Promote Capacity Building and Increase Participation in Water Management To bring about greater participation in water management and better implementation of frameworks that promote transparency, serious effort is needed to build the capacity of governmental officials and civil society groups, especially community-based organizations. Governments and GANs can provide technical know-how and financial resources to ensure that local governmental officials and community-based organizations, two groups with an intimate knowledge of local problems, can be key advocates for change. For example, the Freshwater Action Network focuses much of its effort on providing capacity building to its civil society members in order for them to engage in decision-making processes, call for greater transparency, and hold governmental and private sector actors accountable.
Recommendation: Empower Communities through Long-Term and Short-Term Education and Outreach Efforts Education and outreach promote greater understanding about a particular issue and can help facilitate change by redefining acceptable behaviors and social norms. Knowledge is power; hence, it can empower communities, especially the poor and most vulnerable, to demand change and accountability. While education and outreach efforts often occur at the local level, global efforts can provide educational tools, platforms, and strategies
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for planning effective educational programs. For example, the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, established in the Netherlands in 2003, was developed to educate and train professionals and build the capacity of sector organizations, knowledge centers, and other institutions in developing countries and countries in transition. These efforts are needed at every scale. Household- and community-scale efforts can promote behavioral changes, facilitate grassroots support and demand for better regulations and enforcement, and bring about transparency and accountability. Education and capacity building at larger scales can promote effective interventions at the watershed, national, and international levels to develop better standards, regulation, and enforcement.
There Has Been a Failure to Adopt Broad-Based Agreements on Transboundary Watercourses Many rivers, lakes, and groundwater aquifers are shared by two or more nations, and most of the planet’s available freshwater crosses political borders, ensuring that politics inevitably intrude on water policy. Indeed, international river basins cover about half of Earth’s land surface, and about 40 percent of the world’s population relies on these shared water sources. Since transboundary watersheds traverse political and jurisdictional lines, heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting national laws and regulatory frameworks make management a major challenge, particularly when no single national government has authority over another. As such, transboundary water management often requires the creation of international guidelines or specific agreements between riparian states. While the value of transboundary watershed treaties has regularly been demonstrated, there are political and financial constraints that make their adoption difficult in many parts of the world. In 1997, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. This UN convention sets forth principles for equitable and reasonable utilization of international watercourses and for equitable participation. More than a decade after its adoption by the vast majority of the General Assembly, however, the convention has not yet obtained enough signatures to enable it to enter into force and effect. As of February 22, 2013, thirty countries had ratified or acceded to the convention; thirty-five signatures are needed for the convention to enter into force.1
Recommendation: Bring into Force the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses As much as we hope that treaties will be developed in all transboundary watersheds to foster cooperation and collaboration among all riparian states, political and financial constraints make this difficult in many areas of the world. Therefore, adopting an effective international legal framework is a critical step in addressing future challenges. The 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses represents an important contribution to the strengthening of the rule of law regarding the protection and preservation of international watercourses, and it should be brought into force.
1. See International Water Law Project, Status of the Watercourse Convention as of 22 February 2013, http:// www.internationalwaterlaw.org/documents/intldocs/watercourse_status.html.
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Existing Interbasin Agreements Lack Flexibility Global climate change will pose a wide range of challenges to freshwater resources, altering water quantity, water quality, and system operations and imposing new governance complications. For countries whose watersheds and river basins lie wholly within their own political boundaries, adapting to increasingly severe climatic variability and changes will be difficult enough. When those water resources cross borders and implicate multiple political entities and actors, sustainable management of shared water resources in a changing climate will be especially difficult and will require active coordination, engagement, and participation of all the actors sharing the basin. In particular, most transboundary water agreements are based on the assumption that future water supply and quality will not change. Moreover, most treaties and international agreements fail to include adequate mechanisms for addressing changing social, economic, or climate conditions (for an early analysis of this problem, see Goldenman 1990 and Gleick 2000).
Recommendation: Improve Flexibility of Existing Interbasin Agreements No two water treaties are the same. Each is developed under unique circumstances, addresses different concerns, and has a particular set of constraints. Additionally, climate change will affect each basin differently. As a result, each treaty must be evaluated to determine what flexibility mechanisms currently exist and where significant vulnerabilities remain. This process should be started before a problem arises so as to improve the atmosphere for cooperation and negotiation. Additionally, transboundary watershed countries should consider incorporating provisions into existing treaties to allow for greater flexibility in the face of change, including (1) creation of flexible allocation strategies and water quality criteria; (2) agreement on response strategies for extreme events, such as floods and drought; (3) development of clear amendment and review procedures to allow for changing hydrologic, social, and climatic conditions or in response to new scientific knowledge; and (4) establishment of joint management institutions that can, for example, facilitate a climate vulnerability and adaptation assessment (Cooley and Gleick 2011).
Conclusions Throughout the twentieth century, water governance efforts emphasized the local and regional scales, in part because water challenges were largely perceived as local issues. However, there is growing recognition that the scope and complexity of water-related challenges extend beyond national and regional boundaries and therefore cannot be adequately addressed solely by national or regional policies. Discussions about global water governance, however, have been limited. Water governance studies that have taken a broader perspective have largely focused on transboundary water resources. Global water governance has also been discussed within the context of other, more prominent global governance challenges (notably climate change and energy) and within discussions of global development objectives. However, there has been little to no discussion about global water governance that looks more holistically at global water challenges and the structures and approaches needed to meet these challenges.
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In this chapter, we have defined global water governance, identified key deficiencies in global water governance, and offered recommendations for how it can be improved to better address major water concerns in the twenty-first century. We noted that the global dimensions of water governance are difficult and complex issues. Such governance and the institutional structures that accompany it are complicated by local, regional, and national factors. Indeed, there is no single practice or policy that will “solve” the water challenges facing the world today. This chapter, however, provides several paths forward to more efficient and effective water governance in an effort to promote a more robust and sustainable approach to solving water problems in the twenty-first century.
references Allan, J. A. 1993. Fortunately there are substitutes for water: Otherwise our hydro-political futures would be impossible. In Priorities for Water Resources Allocation and Management, 13–26. London: Overseas Development Administration. Bates, B. C., Z. W. Kundzewicz, S. Wu, and J. P. Palutikof, eds. 2008. Climate Change and Water. IPCC Technical Paper VI of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC Secretariat. Carpenter, S. R., E. H. Stanley, and M. J. Vander Zanden. 2011. State of the world’s freshwater ecosystems: Physical, chemical, and biological changes. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 36:75–99. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-021810-094524. Compagnucci, R., L. da Cunha, K. Hanaki, C. Howe, G. Mailu, I. Shiklomanov, E. Stakhiv, and P. Döll. 2001. Hydrology and water resources. In Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, edited by J. J. McCarthy, O. F. Canziani, N. A. Leary, D. J. Dokken, and K. S. White, 191–233. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/. Cooley, H., and P. H. Gleick. 2011. Climate-proofing transboundary water agreements. Hydrological Sciences Journal 56 (4): 711–718. Cosgrove, W. J., and F. R. Rijsberman. 2000. World Water Vision: Making Water Everybody’s Business. World Water Council. London: Earthscan. Frederick, K. D., and P. H. Gleick. 1999. Water and Global Climate Change: Potential Impacts on U.S. Water Resources. Washington, DC: Pew Center on Global Climate Change. http://www .c2es.org/docUploads/clim_change.pdf. Gleick, P. H. 2000. How much water is there and whose is it? The world’s stocks and flows of water and international river basins. In The World’s Water 2000–2001: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources, 19–38. Washington, DC: Island Press. ———. 2002. Dirty Water: Estimated Deaths from Water-Related Diseases 2000–2020. Pacific Institute Research Report. Oakland, CA: Pacific Institute. Goldenman, G. 1990. Adapting to climate change: A study of international rivers and their legal arrangements. Ecology Law Quarterly 17 (4): 741–802. Hoekstra, A. Y. 2006. The Global Dimension of Water Governance: Nine Reasons for Global Arrangements in Order to Cope with Local Water Problems. Value of Water Research Report Series No. 20. Delft, Netherlands: UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education. Hoekstra, A. Y., and M. M. Mekonnen. 2012. The water footprint of humanity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (9): 3232–3237. doi:10.1073/pnas.1109936109. Hutchings, M. T., A. Dev, M. Palaniappan, V. Srinivasan, N. Ramanathan, and J. Taylor. 2012. mWASH: Mobile Phone Applications for the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sector. Oakland, CA: Pacific Institute and Nexleaf Analytics. http://www.pacinst.org/wp-content /uploads/2013/02/full_report36.pdf. International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 2007. Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. London: Earthscan; Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute. Jury, W. A., and H. Vaux. 2005. The role of science in solving the world’s emerging water problems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (44): 15715–15720.
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RELIGION / Ethics NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection Trim Size: 5.5 X 8.75 Pages: 304 Figures, references, appendixes Author Residence: New Haven, Connecticut Comparative Titles: • Evolution and Christian Faith, Joan Roughgarden. ISBN: 978-1-59726-098-5, Hardcover, Aug. 2006, $20.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 4541, Warehouse: 6952. • The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, Roger Gottlieb. ISBN: 978-0-19-974762-7, Paperback, Nov. 2013, $55.00, Oxford University Press. Bookscan: 93. • Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology, Willis J. Jenkins. ISBN: 978-0-19-532851-6, Hardcover, Feb. 2008, $35.00, Oxford University Press. Bookscan: 581. • Water Ethics, Peter G. Brown and Jeremy J. Schmidt. ISBN: 978-1-59726-565-2, Paperback, Jan. 2010, $35.00, Island Press. Bookscan: 144, Warehouse: 800. Previous Works: • Journey of the Unverse, Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker. ISBN: 978-0-300171907, Hardcover, June 2011, $27.00, Yale University Press. Bookscan: 6012. • The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Berry and Mary Evelyn Tucker. ISBN: 978-0-231-14952-5, Hardcover, Sept. 2009, $23.95, Columbia University Press. Bookscan: 3103. Sales Handle In this important primer, the changing relationship between ecology and religion is explored by preeminent thinkers in the field. Description From the Psalms in the Bible to the sacred rivers in Hinduism, the natural world has been integral to the world’s religions. John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker contend that today’s growing environmental challenges make the relationship ever more vital. This primer explores the history of religious traditions and the environment, illustrating how religious teachings and practices both promoted and at times subverted sustainability. Subsequent chapters examine the emergence of religious ecology, as views of nature changed in religious traditions and the ecological sciences. Yet the authors argue that religion and ecology are not the province of institutions or disciplines alone. They describe four fundamental aspects of religious life: orienting, grounding, nurturing, and transforming. Readers then see how these phenomena are experienced in a Native American religion, Orthodox Christianity, Confucianism, and Hinduism. Ultimately, Grim and Tucker argue that the engagement of religious communities is necessary if humanity is to sustain itself and the planet. Students of environmental ethics, theology and ecology, world religions, and environmental studies will receive a solid grounding in the burgeoning field of religious ecology. Selling Points • Stature of authors in their field • Part of a successful series from Yale University, “Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies”
Author Bio John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker are Senior Lecturers and Research Scholars at Yale University. They are founders of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale and series editors of Religions of the World and Ecology from the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions. They won an Emmy for their film Journey of the Universe with Brian Swimme. Table of Contents Introduction: Our Journey into Religion and Ecology Chapter 1. Problems and Promise of Religions: Limiting and Liberating Chapter 2. The Nature of Religion: Orienting, Grounding, Nurturing, Transforming Chapter 3. Religious Ecology and Views of Nature in the West Chapter 4. Ecology, Conservation, and Ethics Chapter 5. Emergence of the Field of Religion and Ecology Chapter 6. Christianity as Orienting to the Cosmos Chapter 7. Confucianism as Grounding in Community Chapter 8. Indigenous Traditions and the Nurturing Powers of Nature Chapter 9. Hinduism and the Transforming Effect of Devotion Chapter 10. Building on Interreligious Dialogue: Toward a Global Ethics Epilogue: The Challenge Ahead: Creating Ecological Cultures Questions for Discussion Appendix A: Common Declaration on Environmental Ethics of Pope John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople Appendix B: Influence of Traditional Chinese Wisdom of Eco Care on Westerners by ViceMinister Pan Yue, 2011 Appendix C: Selections from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007 Appendix D: Yamuna River Declaration, 2011 Appendix E: Earth Charter, 2000 Appendix F: Save the Fraser Declaration Appendix G: Online Resources for Religious Ecology Notes Bibliography Index
introduction: our Journey into religion and ecology
a shared sensibility regarding our planetary future is spreading around the globe—from native peoples seeing their homelands altered by climate change to megacity dwellers in asia suffering from the pollution of air, water, and soil. We are facing a critical moment in earth’s history as our overextended human presence is affecting every region of land and water. our explosion from two billion to seven billion people in the last hundred years is exacting a toll on ecosystems and species.1 rapid industrialization, heightened consumerism, and unrestrained technologies are causing environmental degradation on an enormous scale. indeed, not only are we altering the climate and radically undermining life, but we are also triggering a mass extinction of species.2 What will future generations say of this diminished legacy of life? What can world religions contribute? This book arises from our long journeys of experiencing and studying world religions, first in the Western abrahamic traditions, then in asian and indigenous contexts. These journeys over many decades have involved an appreciation of the remarkable diversity of religions around the planet and their engagements with the rhythms and seasons of the natural world. even when the forces of modernity have diminished human connections with nature, they persist in local festivals, in rites of passage, in parables and stories, and in subsistence knowledge related to food and healing practices. amid the challenges of modernity and the growing environmental crises, the ecological dimensions of religions are becoming clearer. Scientists and policymakers, along with religious practitioners and 1
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scholars, recognize that religions have shaped views of nature for millennia. Simultaneously, religions themselves have been formed by their interactions with landscapes and the life therein. This is what we will explore as religious ecologies. Within religious traditions, narratives of the origin and unfolding of the universe are transmitted as religious cosmologies. now both religious ecologies and religious cosmologies are being reexamined and reformulated alongside scientific understandings of nature and the universe. our personal stories as historians of religion illustrate the continual effort to understand cultural perspectives regarding nature in the world religions, with their liberating and limiting dimensions.We are clearly indebted to the immense contributions of environmentalists and scientists, many of whom are also motivated by the complexity and beauty of nature to study and protect it. indeed, some have described environmentalism itself as a religious or spiritual movement.3 Similarly, our understandings of nature have been broadened through the arts, music, literature, and anthropology. often these voices, overtly atheistic or humanistic, manifest striking ethical and aesthetic connections to both nature and the larger cosmos. now, religions are responding to the call of science and the inspiration of the arts to engage environmental issues. also, scientists are involving the perspectives of religion in environmental studies programs and in discussions at professional meetings.4 our stories have led us to explore the interactions of ecology and religion.
The Influence of Asian Religions in the early 1970s Mary evelyn went to live in Japan and teach at a university in okayama.This afforded her the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the Japanese archipelago, from Hokkaido to okinawa, and to spend time in the ancient capital city, Kyoto. This was the beginning of her encounter with the east asian religions Shinto, Buddhism, confucianism, and daoism.This expanded her understanding of the very nature of religion as manifest in place-based rituals in both countryside and cities. She was intrigued by the worldviews, symbol systems, ethical codes, and ritual practices of these traditions—so different from anything she had known in the United States or in europe. But it was not just the worldviews and their shaping of human behavior that fascinated her. it was also the carefully terraced landscapes of Japan and the role of ricebased agriculture in religious rituals. The cities, too, drew her in with their rich display of art and culture, temples and pilgrimage sites. The
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introduction 3
festival life was robust in both city and country, and she witnessed remarkable seasonal celebrations throughout Japan. This was the beginning of her understanding of religion as having ecological and cosmological dimensions. Her study of religion focused first on Zen Buddhism, and then in graduate school on Japanese neo-confucianism.5 Both of these traditions have rich legacies of cultivating the human within the processes of nature. over the next four decades, Mary evelyn traveled extensively through east and Southeast asia. it was worlds apart from where it is today. The cities of Taipei and Bangkok, Seoul and delhi were not yet polluted by an overabundance of cars and industrial processes. This was before rapid modernization overwhelmed these regions, engulfing everything in its path. in many cities, such as Beijing and Bangalore, this tsunami of modernization has wiped away whole sections. Building construction and the influx of cars have caused severe air pollution. The drive toward modern economic progress and the need for energy have resulted in the damming of rivers such as the yangtze river in southern china and the narmada river in western india. These are some of the largest engineering projects the world has ever seen, submerging ancient archaeological sites and uprooting millions of people. The environmental impact was so great that in both cases the World Bank withdrew funding.The thrust toward economic growth and energy creation is ongoing in asia and much needed to overcome poverty and improve standards of living. However, the external cost of environmental damage and human health problems are rarely factored into such growth. Such “progress� has had a price for people and the planet. clearly, there are no easy solutions. along with staggering economic growth, the rapid deterioration of the environment in asia in the last four decades is almost inconceivable. The force of industrialization in india and china is changing the face of our planet and putting enormous pressure on ecosystems all over the world as more than two billion people struggle to gain the fruits of modernity and the promise of economic progress. indeed, Western industrialization was driven by a dream of improving human wellbeing and yet has resulted in unintended environmental consequences. legitimate questions arise. Should people in asia not have electricity and cars, clean water and computers? How can one balance economic development and environmental protection under these circumstances? How are modernization processes affecting indigenous peoples? These are some of the most pressing issues of our global environmental crisis, involving
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4 ecology and re lig ion
the contested terrain of genuine sustainable development, environmental protection, equity, and eco-justice.6 These questions gave rise to the intersecting field of religion and ecology.
The Impact of Indigenous Traditions John locates his orientation to religion and ecology initially in his youth in north dakota, where the high plains afforded him many connections to the natural world. He grew up in a hunting family where wild game was killed and eaten with respect. in his undergraduate years at St. John’s, a Benedictine university in Minnesota, he studied the religious traditions of the West. in 1968 John entered the History of religions program at Fordham University to study with Thomas Berry (1914–2009). it was there that he met Mary evelyn after she returned from Japan in 1975. While studying the world religions with Berry and working at a local hospital, he became intrigued with healing practices and chose to research shamanism among central asian and north american peoples.7 it was during these studies that he connected religion and ecology. From 1981 to 1982 John and Mary evelyn lived in Japan while she was doing her thesis research. during that period in asia, John traveled to study with shamanic practitioners in urban settings in Korea (mudang) and Taiwan (dang-ki). He also learned from indigenous healers (“Black” and “White faced” shamans) in the forest uplands of northern Thailand and with T’boli healers (tau mulung) in South cotobato, Mindanao, in the Philippines.These healers’ interactions with land, plants, and animals drew on spiritual practices that were both ancient and innovative. it became clear that these shamanic rituals were not just the actions of individuals but were embedded in their families, communities, and local bioregions. His studies of place-based knowledge increasingly focused on traditional environmental knowledge for healing sickness, loss, and alienation.8 in 1983 he began to visit and learn from crow/apsaalooka peoples in Montana, especially in relation to the Sundance ritual.9 He also began visiting the colville reservation in Washington State to participate in and to research the Winter dance among columbia river Salish peoples. John realized that the colonialist drives that had decimated many native societies were again imposing demands on indigenous peoples and their homelands in various parts of the world. industrial mining, logging, and biopiracy were encroaching on tribal peoples, ecosystems, and biodiversity. increasingly, in both the developed and developing worlds, extractive claims by multinational corporations were being justified by
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introduction 5
nation-states as supporting security needs, agricultural production, energy independence, and job creation. loss of cultural practices often led to environmental degradation as outside economic forces exploited indigenous lands, whereas preservation of language and cultural identity often led to resistance and survival. Seeing those close relationships being imperiled, he began to reflect on the significance and complexity of lifeways, the integrated character of religion and the environment in these small-scale societies.10 John was able to experience these lifeways as living cosmologies in daily life and in ceremonials such as the crow Sundance and the Salish Winter dance (see figure 0.1).
The Legacy of Our Teachers These various experiences in asia and with indigenous peoples led to years of research. We were fortunate to study with learned and engaged scholars who were deeply concerned with understanding the world religions: Thomas Berry at Fordham University, William Theodore de Bary at columbia University, and Tu Weiming at Harvard University. Their interests were not simply in examining the world religions as relics of a historical past but rather as living traditions that could contribute to the reconfiguration of modernity for the flourishing of the earth community.
Figure 0.1 adam Birdinground (crow/apsaalooka: Piegan clan) and Violet Medicine Horse (crow/apsaalooka: Big lodge clan); Photo credit: John grim
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6 ecology and re lig ion
Thomas Berry (see figure 0.2), a cultural historian, created a comprehensive History of religions program at Fordham that attracted a lively group of students. He also directed the riverdale center for religious research, where for several decades we gathered for seminars and discussions along the Hudson river.Thomas passed on to us an abiding interest in the cosmologies embedded in the world religions, that is, the ways in which these orienting narratives bind peoples, biodiversity, and place together. in addition, he had a prescient understanding of the significant challenges of the growing environmental crisis. Thomas began his studies of asian religions when he traveled to china in 1949. on the boat to china he met Ted de Bary. Both were intent on studying the history, culture, and religions of east asia. The two became lifelong friends. de Bary, a specialist in neo-confucianism, developed a robust asian studies program at columbia and explored the contribution of confucianism to humanistic education and to human rights.11 Mary evelyn did her Phd in Japanese neo-confucianism at columbia with Ted de Bary after finishing her master’s degree with Thomas Berry. Tu Weiming, also a scholar of neo-confucianism, collaborated with de Bary on human rights issues and with Berry on ecological concerns.12 Weiming’s essay “Beyond the enlightenment Mentality” was a seminal inspiration for the religion and ecology conference series.13 Here he suggests that the eighteenth-century european enlightenment mentality needs to be reconfigured, drawing on its important contributions to modern democratic understandings of liberty and equality but also integrating the spiritual perspectives and ethical insights of the world religions. His balanced approach affirmed the liberating aspects of the enlightenment while also challenging the limitations of its rational and secular legacy, especially with regard to unlimited economic progress. each of these teachers inspired us to begin a research project at Harvard that continues into the present at yale.
The Harvard Conference Series on World Religions and Ecology: Collaborative Beginnings From our concern for the growing environmental crisis, we organized a ten-part conference series on World religions and ecology. This was held at the Harvard center for the Study of World religions from 1996 to 1998. Because we realized that religions were necessary but not sufficient to solve environmental problems, the conferences included dialogue partners in the fields of science, economics, and policy. They were collaborative efforts over three years of some eight hundred scholars and
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introduction 7
Figure 0.2 Thomas Berry (1914–2009); Photo credit: lou niznik
environmentalists who were seeking to integrate religious and ethical perspectives into environmental discussions.14 To this end, they explored views of nature in the scriptures, rituals, and ethics of the world religions. The conferences and the subsequent books included the abrahamic religions (Judaism, christianity, and islam), the asian religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, confucianism, daoism, and Shinto), and indigenous religions.15 in october 1998 two culminating conferences were held in
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8 ecology and re lig ion
new york at the United nations and the american Museum of natural History. it was at the United nations that the Forum on religion and ecology was announced to continue the work of research, education, and outreach. The forum has grown to a network of some twelve thousand people and organizations around the world.16 all these Harvard conferences on religion and ecology were based on an acknowledgment of both the problems and the promise of religion.17 in addition, the participants recognized the disjunction of religious traditions and modern environmental issues, noting the historical and cultural divide between texts written in earlier periods for different ends. They worked within a process of retrieval of texts and traditions, critical reevaluation, and reconstruction for present circumstances.18 For example, how can the idea of “dominion” over nature in genesis 1:26 be reinterpreted as “stewardship” of creation? They underscored the gap between theory and practice, noting that textual passages celebrating nature do not automatically lead to protection of nature. in fact, many societies with texts praising nature often deforested their landscapes.19 Thus an important dialogue is still needed between environmental historians and historians of religions to explore the interaction of intellectual ideas and practices in relation to actual environmental conditions, both historically and at present. The Harvard project identified seven common values that the world religions hold in relation to the natural world: reverence, respect, reciprocity, restraint, redistribution, responsibility, and restoration. There are clearly variations of interpretation within and between religions regarding these values, which have become latent in the modern period. as religions move toward a broader understanding of their cosmological orientations and ethical obligations, these values are being retrieved and expanded in response to environmental concerns. as this shift occurs— and there are signs it is already happening—religions are calling for reverence for the earth and its profound ecological processes, respect for earth’s myriad species and an extension of ethics to include all life forms, reciprocity in relation to both humans and nature, restraint in the use of natural resources combined with support for effective alternative technologies, a more equitable redistribution of economic opportunities, the acknowledgment of human responsibility for the continuity of life, and restoration of both humans and ecosystems for the flourishing of life.
The Forum on Religion and Ecology: Field and Force one of the outcomes of the conference series at Harvard and the ongoing Forum on religion and ecology is the alliance of religion and
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introduction 9
ecology both in academia and beyond. a new field of study has emerged in colleges and secondary schools. Moreover, a new moral force of engagement has arisen within the religions from leaders and laity alike. Both the academic field and the moral force are contributing to a broadened perspective for a future that will be not only sustainable but also flourishing. Thus, ideas and actions cross-fertilize in the Forum on religion and ecology, sparking new forms of engaged scholarship and reflective action for long-term change. To assist this synergy, the Forum has developed a comprehensive website and an electronic newsletter promoting research, education, and outreach.20 Since 1997 the Forum has supported the first journal in the field, Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology.21 The field has grown rapidly, with numerous monographs, articles, an Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, and another journal.22 in 1993 scholars of religions established a robust religion and ecology group within the american academy of religion (aar).23 a master’s degree program in religion and ecology was developed at yale University between the School of Forestry and environmental Studies and yale divinity School.24 in addition to teaching in this program at yale, we have organized numerous conferences25 and helped create the Journey of the Universe project.26 For a decade we collaborated with evolutionary philosopher Brian Swimme to create a book, an emmy award–winning film on PBS, and an educational series titled Journey of the Universe that narrates the epic story of the unfolding universe and earth over 13.7 billion years. Within this evolutionary story humans emerged some two hundred thousand years ago and in the last two centuries have radically altered the ecosystems of the planet. This project draws on the perspectives of scientists, religious thinkers, and environmentalists to deepen our understanding of the evolutionary process and to outline new directions for the flourishing of life. Journey of the Universe was inspired by Thomas Berry’s understanding of the need for a new comprehensive story integrating the sciences and the humanities in relation to the ecological and social challenges we are facing.27
Why This Book Within academia, environmental studies programs are expanding beyond science and policy to include the humanities such as literature, history, philosophy, and religion. in the last 15 years, literary scholars have created the field of eco-criticism.28 For some 40 years historians have developed a robust field of inquiry regarding the environment.29 Similarly, since 1970
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10 ecology and re lig ion
philosophers have shaped environmental ethics by formulating arguments regarding the intrinsic versus the utilitarian value of nature.30 in the last two decades, scholars in religious studies, history of religions, philosophy, and theology are creating a field of religion and ecology with implications for policy and practice. religion and ecology, as an academic field and as an engaged force, is growing rapidly, and there is a continuing need for new introductory texts.31 The potential of the field and force of world religions and ecology is varied and significant. These studies broaden our understanding of religion, ground cosmological awareness in relation to ecology, offer fresh insight into holism and particularity in nature, and engage environmental issues with an ethical ecological awareness. This book focuses on the question, “What is religious ecology?�This may be important as we begin to intersect religion with environmental problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss. although we do not address these environmental issues directly, we are attempting to open up a multireligious context in which the contributions of the religions can be appreciated and made more efficacious. as we will observe in chapter 1, we recognize that religions have both problems and promise. religious adherents have contributed to both the cause of wars and their resolution through peacemaking. religions can be conservative and unchanging as well as inspirations for change. This was true of the Quakers in the abolitionists’ efforts to end slavery in the nineteenth century and of Jewish and christian leaders in the civil rights movements to halt discrimination in the twentieth century.The potential of religions to infuse an ethical and spiritual dimension into the environmental movement is now emerging around the world. in chapter 2 we observe that the theory and practice of religion embraces more than Western perspectives regarding monotheism, redemption, and salvation. This chapter explores religious ecology through the processes of orienting, grounding, nurturing, and transforming humans and their communities. chapter 3 broadly outlines the historically complex views of nature that have unfolded in Western philosophy and religion, giving rise to new forms of ecological consciousness in the modern period. The field of ecology, as discussed in chapter 4, is defined by various approaches to the study of nature, ranging from holism to biometrics, from aesthetic appreciation of nature to economic valuing of ecosystem services. By engaging in dialogue with the ecological sciences we can also gain understanding of how ecologists have both studied and valued
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Environmental Ethics across the World Religions 1. The natural world has value in itself and does not exist solely to serve human needs. 2. There is significant ontological continuity between human and non— human living beings, even though humans do have a distinctive role. This continuity can be felt and experienced. 3. Non—human living beings are morally significant, in the eyes of God and/or in the cosmic order. They have their own unique relations to God and their own places in the cosmic order. 4. The dependence of human life on the natural world can and should be acknowledged in ritual and other expressions of appreciation and gratitude. 5. Moral norms such as justice, compassion, and reciprocity apply (in appropriate ways) both to human beings and to non—human beings. The well—being of humans and the well—being of non—human beings are inseparably connected. 6. There are legitimate and illegitimate uses of nature. 7. Greed and destructiveness are condemned. Restraint and protection are commended. 8. Human beings are obliged to be aware and responsible in living in harmony with the natural world, and should follow the specific practices for this prescribed by their traditions. Source: Kusumita Pedersen, “Environmental Ethics in Interreligious Perspective,” in Explorations in Global Ethics: Comparative Religious Ethics and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Sumner Twiss and Bruce Grelle (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998), 281.
nature. The relationship of these values in scientific ecology to religious ecology needs further examination. chapter 5 describes the emerging field of religion and ecology. it recognizes the complexity involved in retrieving, reevaluating, and reconstructing human–nature relations in our modern period without some understanding of what has traditionally shaped cultural attitudes and values. it suggests that religious ecologies may contribute to efforts to form ecological cultures for a sustainable planetary future. in the four chapters that follow we explore examples of contributions being made to ecological thought and action from particular religious
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12 ecology and re lig ion
ecologies and their various environmental ethics. chapter 6 focuses on the orienting quality of greek orthodoxy, chapter 7 concentrates on the grounding aspects of confucianism, chapter 8 is concerned with the nurturing elements of the Winter dance of the Salish people, and chapter 9 highlights the transforming dimensions of Hinduism. chapter 10 illustrates how interreligious dialogue has emerged and is contributing toward a global ethics, as in the earth charter.The epilogue points to the need for creating ecological cultures based on an integration of ecological awareness and ethical sensitivity toward the environment. This book, then, is based on an exploration of religions as vehicles encouraging change of attitudes and values regarding the environment. We are not claiming that religions hold the answers to complex environmental problems, but they can be active participants in finding solutions along with scientists, economists, and policymakers. religions are thus necessary but not sufficient in themselves for achieving a sustainable future. For several decades scientists have been calling for dialogue with ethicists and theologians, religious leaders and lay people.32 Scientists are asking them to join in the ecological work of conservation, mitigation, adaptation, and restoration—work that is more urgently needed than ever before. This book suggests that by engaging in dialogue with the ecological sciences, religious practitioners can gain insight into how ecologists value nature for conservation, for aesthetics, and for ecosystem management. at the same time, scientists may appreciate how religions have woven humans into nature with rituals, symbols, and ethical practices.The relationship of science and religion may thus be enhanced in a shared concern for our planetary future.
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Sales Information Sheet Climate Change and Energy Supply and Use Technical Report for the U.S. Department of Energy in Support of the National Climate Assessment
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 1/21/2014
Thomas J. Wilbanks and Dan Bilello Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-552-6 978-1-61091-553-3
$29.99 $29.99
SCIENCE / Earth Sciences/Meteorology & Climatology SCIENCE / Environmental Science NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning Trim Size: 8 X 10 Pages: 86 Author Residence: Oak Ridge, Tennessee Sales Handle A definitive assessment that examines the known effects and relationships of climate change variables on energy production and supply. Description Developed to inform the 3rd National Climate Assessment, and a landmark study in terms of its breadth and depth of coverage and conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, Climate Change and Energy Supply and Use examines the known effects and relationships of climate change variables on energy production and supply, including oil, gas, thermal electricity, and renewable energy. Knowledge of today’s available energy forms is constantly surfacing and changing in the face of climate change, making it increasingly important to enhance communication about various energy supplies. This report on energy supply and use summarizes current knowledge, especially emerging findings, about implications of climate change for energy production and supply (oil and gas, thermal electricity, renewable energy, integrated perspectives, and indirect impacts on energy systems). A comprehensive resource for community planners and researchers, it discusses future risk-management strategies surrounding water treatment, heating or cooling, and mitigation that the country can utilize in its energy consumption. The authors analyze findings from their own research and practice to arrive at conclusions about vulnerabilities, risks, and impact concerns for different aspects of U.S. energy supply and use. Global and national policy contexts are informed by these efforts to create energy options and choices. Rich in science and case studies, Climate Change and Energy Supply and Use offers decision makers and stakeholders a substantial basis from which to make informed choices that will affect energy risk-management in the decades to come. Selling Points • Essential guidance for decision-makers seeking to better understand how climate variability and change impact energy production and supply. • Rich in science and case studies, this report allows decision- and policymakers to prepare for climate change. • The definitive input report on climate change and energy for the 2013 National Climate Assessment • Critical state of the art information from a broad range of climate change experts in academia, private industry, state and local governments, NGOs, professional societies, and impacted communities.
Author Bio Thomas J. Wilbanks is a Corporate Research Fellow at ORNL and leads Global Change and Developing Country Programs at the Laboratory. The programs that he coordinates have undertaken more than 60 projects in 40 developing countries in the past two decades. Most of these projects are directly concerned with science and technology for sustainability, including enhancing local capacities for S&T innovation and application. In recent years, he has been involved in such activities as the USAID climate change initiative, the NASA-supported Association of American Geographers (AAG) project on Global Change in Local Places, the U.S. National Assessment of Possible Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, and IPCC Working Group II. He is a past President of the AAG and has served on numerous committees of NAS/NRC, including current membership in its committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change. Current activities include the development of tools to facilitate an integrated analysis of climate change impact response alternatives, assessments of climate change vulnerability and responses in developing countries, and potentials for accelerating clean energy technology use in developing countries. Dan Bilello manages partnership development for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Strategic Energy Analysis Center. He works primarily on issues related to global climate change and renewable energy, including low emission development strategies, market-based approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and climate vulnerabilities in the energy sector. Prior to joining NREL, Dan worked in the private sector as well as the U.S. Government at the Department of State, the National Economic Council, and the Environmental Protection Agency during which he served on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations. Dan holds a Master’s Degree in U.S. Foreign Policy and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Sales Information Sheet Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities
Spring 2014 Discount: Short Pub Date: 1/21/2014
Technical Report for the U.S. Department of Energy in Support of the National Climate Assessment Thomas J. Wilbanks and Steven Fernandez Paperback: E-Book:
978-1-61091-554-0 978-1-61091-556-4
$29.99 $29.99
SCIENCE / Earth Sciences/Meteorology & Climatology SCIENCE / Environmental Science NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning Trim Size: 8 X 10 Pages: 108 Author Residence: Oak Ridge, Tennessee Sales Handle A definitive assessment that examines the known effects and relationships of climate change variables on urban buildings and communities. Description Hurricane Irene ruptured a Baltimore sewer main, resulting in 100 million gallons of raw sewage flooding the local watershed. Levee failures during Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive flooding which did not recede for months. With temperatures becoming more extreme, and storms increasing in magnitude, American infrastructure and risk-management policies require close examination in order to decrease the damage wrought by natural disasters. Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities addresses these needs by examining how climate change affects urban buildings and communities, and determining which regions are the most vulnerable to environmental disaster. It looks at key elements of urban systems, including transportation, communication, drainage, and energy, in order to better understand the damages caused by climate change and extreme weather. How can urban systems become more resilient? How can citizens protect their cities from damage, and more easily rebound from destructive storms? This report not only breaks new ground as a component of climate change vulnerability and impact assessments but also highlights critical research gaps in the material. Implications of climate change are examined by assessing historical experience as well as simulating future conditions. Developed to inform the 3rd National Climate Assessment, and a landmark study in terms of its breadth and depth of coverage and conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities examines the known effects and relationships of climate change variables on American infrastructure and risk-management policies. Its rich science and case studies will enable policymakers, urban planners, and stakeholders to develop a long-term, self-sustained assessment capacity and more effective risk-management strategies. Selling Points • Essential guidance for decision-makers seeking to better understand how climate variability and change impact urban infrastructure • Rich in science and case studies, this report allows decision-and policymakers to prepare for climate change • The definitive input report on climate change and infrastructure for the 2013 National Climate Assessment • Critical state of the art information from a broad range of climate change experts in academia, private industry, state and local governments, NGOs, professional societies, and impacted communities
Author Bio Dr. Thomas J. Wilbanks is a Corporate Research Fellow at ORNL and leads Global Change and Developing Country Programs at the Laboratory. The programs that he coordinates have undertaken more than 60 projects in 40 developing countries in the past two decades. Most of these projects are directly concerned with science and technology for sustainability, including enhancing local capacities for S&T innovation and application. In recent years, he has been involved in such activities as the USAID climate change initiative, the NASA-supported Association of American Geographers (AAG) project on Global Change in Local Places, the U.S. National Assessment of Possible Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, and IPCC Working Group II. He is a past President of the AAG and has served on numerous committees of NAS/NRC, including current membership in its committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change. Current activities include the development of tools to facilitate an integrated analysis of climate change impact response alternatives, assessments of climate change vulnerability and responses in developing countries, and potentials for accelerating clean energy technology use in developing countries. Dr. Steven J. Fernandez is a senior research and development staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His interests at the laboratory include the modeling of the interdependent electric grid disruptions, obtaining real-time grid status as data ingestion points and how these results can help utility and community response plans. His experience includes directing the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center efforts in the electric grid, economic analysis at Los Alamos National Laboratory and leading critical infrastructure protection efforts for national security research organizations at the Idaho National Laboratory. In Idaho, Dr. Fernandez established the national SCADA test bed, currently a critical component of the Department of Energy Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability strategy. He received a Bachelor of Science in chemical physics from Centre College, a Master of Science in engineering from Washington State University and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Idaho.
Sales Information Sheet
Spring 2014
National Climate Assessment Regional Technical Inputs Series Now Available
Forthcoming
ISBN Price Pub Date Sales Climate Change and Pacific Islands: Indicators and Impacts
ISBN Price Climate Change in the Northwest
Pub Date
Paperback Ebook
Paperback Ebook
Dec. 19, 2013 Dec. 19, 2013
9781610914277 9781610914598
$39.99 $39.99
Feb. 15, 2013 Feb. 15, 2013
102 11
Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities Paperback Ebook
9781610914338 9781610914604
$39.99 $39.99
Feb. 15, 2013 Feb. 15, 2013
9781610914284 9781610915120
$39.99 $39.99
Climate Change in the Northeast 274 4
Paperback Ebook
9781610915137 9781610915144
$39.99 $39.99
Jan. 21, 2014 Jan. 21, 2014
Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwest United States
Great Plains Regional Technical Input Report
Paperback Ebook
Paperback Ebook
9781610914468 9781610914840
$49.99 $49.99
May 9, 2013 May 9, 2013
481 9
Oceans and Marine Resources in a Changing Climate Paperback Ebook
9781610914345 9781610914802
$39.99 $39.99
9781610914352 9781610915106
$39.99 $39.99
Jan. 21, 2014 Jan. 21, 2014
Climate Change in the Midwest
Sept. 19, 2013 Sept. 19, 2013
164 2
Nov. 12, 2013 Nov. 12, 2013
47
Paperback Ebook
9781610914291 9781610915113
$39.99 $39.99
June 17, 2014 June 17, 2014
Climate of the Southeast United States Paperback Ebook
9781610914390 9781610915090
$39.99 $39.99
SCIENCE / Earth Sciences/Meteorology & Climatology SCIENCE / Environmental Science NATURE / Environmental Conservation and Protection Discount: Short Trim Size: 8x10 Competing Title • Sudden and Disruptive Climate Change; Its Likelihood, Character and Significance, Frances Moore, John C. Topping, Michael C. MacCracken. ISBN: 978-1844074785, Paperback, Jan. 2008, $49.95, Earthscan.
Description Developed to inform the 2013 National Climate Assessment, this series comprises nine regional reports that highlight past climate trends, projected climate change and vulnerabilities, and impacts to specific sectors. The state of the art information in each report comes from a broad range of experts in academia, private industry, state and local governments, NGOs, professional societies, and impacted communities. These reports also include case studies on topics such as adaptive capacity; climate change effects on freshwater availability and quality; regional and community economies; urbanization, transportation, and infrastructure vulnerabilities; ecosystem services; and agriculture sustainability. Selling Points • Essential guidance for decision-makers seeking to better understand how climate variability and change impact each region and its communities • Rich in science and case studies, these reports set the stage for making the necessary preparations for climate change • Definitive regional input reports to the 2013 National Climate Assessment • Critical, state-of-the-art information from a broad range of climate change experts in academia, private industry, state and local governments, NGOs, professional societies, and impacted communities
Sales Information Sheet
Spring 2014
Island Press E-ssentials Series Big, Wild, and Connected, by John Davis. Part 1: From the Florida Peninsula to the Coastal Plain, 978-1-61091-441-3,June 2013, $3.99. Part 2: From the Central Appalachians to the Catskill Mountains, 978-1-61091-507-6, July 2013, $3.99 NEW: Part 3: From the Adirondack Mountains to the Gaspé Peninsula, 978-1-61091-508-3, Nov. 2013, $3.99 This three-part series covers John Davis's epic journey from Florida to Maine with support from the Wildlands Network. Davis traveled 7,600 miles in 10 months from Florida to Maine by foot, bicycle, skis, and canoe/kayak seeking to understand whether a continent-long wildlife corridor could be established.
Urbanism Without Effort, by Charles R. Wolfe. 978-1-61091-442-0, May 2013, $3.99. In this beautifully illustrated E-ssential, Charles Wolfe explores the idea that to create vibrant, sustainable urban areas, we must first understand what happens naturally when people congregate in cities. Wolfe provides compelling vignettes to illustrate these spontaneous and thriving urban communities.
Discovering Big Cat Country: On the Trail of Tigers and Snow Leopards, by Eric Dinerstein. 978-1-61091479-6, Feb. 2013, $2.99. Eric Dinerstein tells the story of two formative journeys from his early days as a biologist: two and a half years as a young Peace Corps Volunteer in the jungles of Nepal and later, as a newly-minted Ph.D., an arduous trek to search for snow leopards in the Kashmir region of India.
Simple Pleasures: Thoughts on Food, Friendship, and Life, by Stephanie Mills. 978-1-61091-451-2, Nov. 2012, $2.99. In Simple Pleasures we highlight two chapters from Mills’ reflection on the pleasures, virtues, and difficulties of a simpler than average American life. Mill’s writing is beautifully crafted, inspiring, and enlightening, and these chapters encourage you to take a moment to reflect on your own life.
Thinking Like a Mountain: An Ecological Perspective on Earth, by R. Edward Grumbine. 978-1-61091420-8, Sept. 2012, $2.99. In Thinking Like a Mountain, we have excerpted a clear and inviting introduction to the science of conservation biology from Ghost Bears. Grumbine offers a succinct and evocative description of why we should all care about biodiversity, protected lands, connectivity, and extinction rates.
Trash Backwards: Innovating Our Way to Zero Waste, by David Naylor. 978-1-61091-372-0, Aug. 2012, $4.99. Trash Backwards: Innovating Our Way to Zero Waste examines the various kinds of trash Americans produce in staggering quantities, and profiles a range of innovative people who are thinking creatively about how to not just reduce pressure on landfills, but redefine what’s possible in the realm of recycling.
Bedside Essays for Lovers (of Cities), by Daniel Solomon. 978-1-59726-333-7, June 2012, $3.99. In this provocative collection of essays, renowned architect Daniel Solomon delves into the complexities of what makes a city vibrant. However fond you are of your city, or however much you feel it needs improvement, this short collection of essays offers an enticing vision of the future.
Making Transit Fun!: How to Entice Motorists from Their Cars (And Onto Their Feet, a Bike, or Bus), by Darrin Nordahl. 978-1-61091-044-6, Apr. 2012, $3.99. Why do people in Stockholm prefer to take the stairs instead of the escalator? How do carmakers convince us to buy environmentally damaging, wallet-draining machines? It's called the fun theory. This delightful book shows that transit can be just as inviting, exciting, and seductive as the automobile.