"What is at issue in the fight to save wildlife is the nature of human commitment, the directions toward which consensus about right and wrong can be mounted. There is an ecology of conscience at work in the human spirit—an instinct, at times blind and groping, to leave as gentle and light a footprint as possible on this earth." — from Nature's Keepers 
In this eloquent and moving work, acclaimed nature writer Michael Tobias examines the endangered status of many wild plants and animals, exposes illegal killing by "trophy hunters" in national parks, and shines a spotlight on a worldwide epidemic of poaching and illegal trade in animals and animal parts that threatens many species with extinction. Nature's Keepers highlights some of the thorniest problems involved in the fight to preserve and protect what's left of the wild animals in the United States and, by implication, throughout the world. Although the battle has already been lost for untold numbers of animals, Tobias focuses on those whose futures might still be preserved. Most Americans, be they urban or rural, are dangerously cut off from an awareness of wild animals and plants and of their threat of extinction. Nature's Keepers offers hope that through education and awareness, legal and judicial diligence, and compassion, some species can be saved and the most dangerous trends reversed. With its Special Operations unit, agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are among the foot soldiers in the battle to save endangered wildlife—the Green Berets of anti-poaching. Tobias takes us inside their command structure and into the only wildlife crime lab in the world: the Clark Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, in Ashland, Oregon, where unique pathology studies and significant DNA blood and tissue matching of wildlife is carried on in an effort to identify illegal kills and their perpetrators. Pulling in more key evidence than is gathered for most murder trials, agents are nonetheless frustrated by laws in many states where parking tickets are more expensive than fines for illegally slaughtering animals. Although the trade in illegal wildlife is second only to the drug trade in the United States, the wildlife authorities are seriously understaffed, with 7,000 officers in the entire country (across all branches of wildlife law enforcement) versus tens of millions of hunters, dealers, and recreational users—a nearly uncontrollable population of potential abusers spread out over 7.5 million square miles of wildlife habitat. Despite these daunting odds of engagement, Tobias shows how the dedicated members of the USFW Sp. Ops unit mounted such dramatic and successful sting operations as "Whiteout" and "Renegade" in recent years. What is the future for endangered plants and animals, squeezed not only by a vanishing habitat, but also by an expanding global black market estimated at between $10 and $30 billion a year? Tobias demonstrates how energetic citizens may use democratic processes and free enterprise to stem, if not halt, the destruction of wild animals and awaken the "ecology of conscience" in all people, everywhere. "The list of endangered species in America provides some inkling of the loss of experience with the wild that this history of extinction will have on the next generation of children. They will grow up in a country bereft of Florida panthers (30 to 50 left at this time), Schaus swallowtail butterflies (less than 100 holding on), the Eastern indigo snake (the largest benign snake in North America, number unknown), the red wolf (population 300), the Wyoming toad (less than 50 surviving), the elegiac whooping crane (their numbers down to 175 in the wild), and many, many others. "Recognizing the legal, conceptual, and emotional rights of other life-forms as the next great extension of the human community suggests both a spiritual and political transformation. . . . It means a revolution in animal rights, welfare, and protection. . . . It portends a necessary change from mere consumers who expect entitlements, into environmental citizens, whose rights hinge upon responsibilities from one generation to the next."

Nature's Keepers: On the Front Lines of the Fight to Save Wildlife in America

Science & Math

Tobias, Michael

Biological Sciences

wiley

This collection of vivid and eloquent testimonies by environmentalists, eco-theologians, and native peoples illustrates a variety of responses to the same universal question: Where are we as a species heading on this planet? Contributors include Rick Bass, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard. Gretel Ehrlich, Barry Lopez, Peter Mattheisen, Thomas Moore, Terry Tempest Williams, and others.

The Soul of Nature: Visions of a Living Earth

Business & Money

Economics

Continuum Intl Pub Group

WORLD WAR III is the first comprehensive look at the most pressing and least understood problems of our time. Many have brought up the population problem before, but few have traveled the world in search of answers. Tobias journey and questions resulted in this document in the quest for hope in the next millennium. There are approx 300,000 people added to the planet every day, approx 3 million every ten days. This is must read for every concerned citizen&gt;

World War III

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Bloomsbury Academic

If current world population trends were to continue, human numbers could more than double to 13 billion people by the end of this century. Given humanity's consumerist trends, with resulting global warming and the overall impact on vulnerable biodiversity and habitat, this would be ecologically disastrous! This book is that rare chronicle of sobering optimism in a world more accustomed to thinking about population as a dilemma with little hope of positive change. The authors journeyed the world in search of what is happening in country after country and discovered changes that have resulted in smaller family sizes and the empowerment of women and chldren, while creating critical pathways towards ecological sustainability.

No Vacancy: Global Responses to the Human Population Explosion

New Society Publishers

For thousands of years humans have grappled with the idea of Nature. This enduring question has left its poignant mark on a multiplicity of images, stories, works of art, and philosophical and religious systems. In A Vision of Nature, Michael Tobias seeks to unravel the aesthetic, psychological, and philosophical impact that the Earth has had on humanity. It is a dramatic and invigorating overview of the new field of ecological aesthetics. Comprised of 10 autobiographical essays, A Vision of Nature is lavishly illustrated with art and images never before brought together in an ecological context. The author examines the mystical links between Vivaldi, Giorgione, and Dosso Dossi and draws important parallels between the Age of Exploration and the rise of the “interior landscape” in the works of van Eyck and Vermeer. Tobias examines the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, the ascetics of Sinai and Tibet, and the Pure Land Buddhists. He introduces the reader to the Jains of India, whose lifestyle is one of the most ecologically balanced in all of human history. In profiling various artists of 19th century Europe and America, Tobias discovers incisive continuities among such luminaries as British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Austrian impressionist Emilie Mediz-Pelikan, and American intimist painters Ralph Blakelock and George Inness. Tobias finds a common, transcendent instinct that affirms rebirth over destruction in the lives of explorer Francis Kingdon Ward, storyteller Hugh Lofting, philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis, and film character King Kong. He concludes his lyrical investigations in the Antarctic, where he ponders the future of humanity and its role as caretaker of the Earth. Ultimately, the survival of humankind and of all other species hinges upon our willingness to uphold and celebrate the truth, beauty, and very sanctity of Nature.

A Vision of Nature: Traces of the Original World

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

The Kent State University Press

An introduction to Jainism, one of the oldest religions in the world.

Life Force: The World of Jainism

Religion & Spirituality

Other Eastern Religions & Sacred Texts

Jain Pub Co

Photographs and essays by leading authorities in the field provide diverse perspectives on the aesthetics of mountains and mountain climbing

The Mountain Spirit

Drasdo, H.

Nature & Ecology

Overlook Books

Drasdo, Harold

Asian Humanities Pr

Environmental Meditation

Philosophy

Crossing Pr

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