Showing 1–12 of 135 results
-
Geelong’s Changing Landscape: Ecology, Development and Conservation
Artist/Author: Jones, David, Phillip Roös (Editors)$70.00 Add to cartGeelong’s Changing Landscape offers an insightful investigation of the ecological history of the Geelong and Bellarine Peninsula region. Commencing with the penetrating perspectives of Wadawurrung Elders, chapters explore colonisation and post-World War II industrial development through to the present challenges surrounding the ongoing urbanisation of this region.
-
Principles of Ecology EnviroGuide
Artist/Author: Brouwer, David$35.00 Add to cartLeaving your land in better condition than you received it is the aim of environmental management. Principles of Ecology is an outline of environmental and landcare themes. It aims to give you some basic tools of understanding before you get into more detailed studies of an area of land. In this book you will be introduced to some environmental terms and start to look carefully at a landscape you are working with
-
Those Wild Rabbits: How They Shaped Australia
Artist/Author: Munday, Bruce$40.00 Add to cartA century ago Australia was home to 10 billion rabbits, thriving in their adopted home. Storyteller Bruce Munday finds the rabbit saga irresistible – the naive hopes of the early settlers, the frustration, environmental damage, cost to agriculture, dreams shattered, and the lessons learned and ignored.
Those Wild Rabbits highlights not only the damage done but also Australia’s missed opportunities for real rabbit control. It recognises the bush’s paradoxical love affair with an animal that was at one time a significant rural industry and is still recalled with nostalgia. More importantly, it offers hope for a brighter future, making the case for continued research to drive the next rabbit-control miracle, because rabbit plagues of the past will become the future unless we capture the history and embrace the lessons.
Awarded the Keain Medal for the South Australian Historical Book of the Year, 2017
-
Among the Pigeons: Why Our Cats Belong Indoors
Artist/Author: Read, John L.$35.00 Add to cartDuring the last century, global domestic cat numbers rocketed past 200 million, along with a surge in cat diseases and numbers of feral cats and sick, injured and malnourished cats. Cat shelters are overflowing. Hundreds of thousands of cats are euthanised every year by despondent animal welfare workers. Misplaced sentimentality, sometimes promoted by corporate greed of cat food companies, has exacerbated this situation through promoting irresponsible feeding of strays.
Ecologist and author John Read has travelled the world consulting cat experts and collating the most recent science. In Among the Pigeons he balances the allure of indoor cats with the animal welfare, human health, and conservation issues they create when allowed to roam. But he also presents solutions, from breeding ideal indoor pet cats to development of humane and targeted tools to control feral cats.
In striking parallel to the repercussions of human-induced climate change, warnings about the damage wrought by free-ranging cats have been largely denied or overlooked. But we ignore these issues at our peril. For our own mental health and endangered wildlife worldwide, time is running out.
-
Learning from Agri-Environment Schemes in Australia: Investing in Biodiversity and other Ecosystem Services on Farms
Artist/Author: Ansell, Dean, Fiona Gibson, David Salt (Editors)$55.00 Add to cartLearning from Agri-Environment Schemes in Australia is a book about the birds and the beef — more specifically it is about the billions of dollars that governments pay farmers around the world each year to protect and restore biodiversity. After more than two decades of these schemes in Australia, what have we learnt? Are we getting the most out of these investments, and how should we do things differently in the future? Involving contributions from ecologists, economists, social scientists, restoration practitioners and policymakers, this book provides short, engaging chapters that cover a wide spectrum of environmental, agricultural and social issues involved in agri-environment schemes.
-
Islands and Snakes: Isolation and Adaptive Evolution
Artist/Author: Lillywhite, Harvey B, Marcio Martins (Editors)$185.00 Add to cartIslands and Snakes contains 13 chapters describing ecological systems with foci on snakes and their ecological roles on islands around the world. Each chapter is written by one or more authors who is an authority on that particular system. Summaries of research on the various islands are written in a narrative manner that includes science as well as personal insights in easily understood language. These varied vignettes of science feature islands around the world, and in all cases, fantastic species of snakes and their roles in the community of insular organisms in which they occur. Both challenges and opportunities associated with island life are discussed, as well as the unique attributes of snakes and their conservation as unique and important parts of nature. Chapters include colorful photographs and illustrations, and collectively they convey information on topics that include ecology, behavior, biogeography, physiology, adaptation, and evolutionary biology. An introductory chapter presents a review and perspective on the historical importance of island ecology and how snakes have contributed to our understanding of evolution and adaptation. The other chapters focus on snakes inhabiting islands associated with Asia, Australia, South America, North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. The final chapter features the unique “table top islands” or tepuis of South America as examples of ecological islands where elements of biota have become isolated by geographic features of landscape similarly to oceanic islands.
-
The Secret Network of Nature: The Delicate Balance of All Living Things
Artist/Author: Wohlleben, Peter$33.00 Add to cartDid you know that trees can influence the rotation of the earth? Or that wolves can alter the course of a river? Or that earthworms control wild boar populations?
The natural world is a web of intricate connections, many of which go unnoticed by humans. But it is these connections that maintain nature’s finely balanced equilibrium.
Drawing on the latest scientific discoveries and decades of experience as a forester and bestselling author, Peter Wohlleben shows us how different animals, plants, rivers, rocks and weather systems cooperate, and what’s at stake when these delicate systems are unbalanced.The earth’s ecosystems are too complex for us to compartmentalise and draw up simple rules of cause and effect; but The Secret Network of Nature gives us a chance to marvel at the inner workings and unlikely partnerships of the natural world, where every entity has its own distinct purpose. And the more light that is shed on relationships between species, the more fascinating nature’s web becomes.
-
Bush Heritage Australia: Restoring Nature Step by Step
Artist/Author: Martin, Sarah$40.00 Add to cartWith a plan to own or manage one per cent of Australia by 2025, Bush Heritage Australia is an organisation with big ambitions.
Started by Bob Brown in 1991, Bush Heritage was born from an urgent mission: to protect pristine land from logging. After buying two blocks of land in Tasmania’s Liffey Valley, Brown built a philanthropic organisation to help pay for them. As donations flowed in and the organisation grew, Bush Heritage set its sights on acquiring tracts of land across the country, repairing environmental degradation and bringing native plants and wildlife back to health.
Twenty-five years later, with more than one million hectares in its care, Bush Heritage’s achievements are celebrated in this book along with its growth from humble beginnings into a large non-profit with benefactors all over the world. Central to this story are the ecologists, researchers, land managers, local Indigenous groups, staff, donors and a brigade of volunteers who have helped the organisation to thrive.
-
Fire Effects on Soil Properties
Artist/Author: Pereira, Paulo, Jorge Mataix-Solera, Xavier Úbeda, Guillermo Rein, Artemi Cerdà (Editors)$195.00 Add to cartBrings together research on the effects of fire on the physical, biological and chemical properties of soil.
Wildland fires are occurring more frequently and affecting more of Earth’s surface than ever before. These fires affect the properties of soils and the processes by which they form, but the nature of these impacts has not been well understood. Given that healthy soil is necessary to sustain biodiversity, ecosystems and agriculture, the impact of fire on soil is a vital field of research. -
World’s Most Endangered
Artist/Author: McCallum, Sophie$30.00 Add to cartA book that highlights the plight of critically endangered species, as classified by the WWF and IUCN. It focuses on 25 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, presenting each account in an interesting and informative way, with colour photographs and a fact panel giving key information.Animals covered include famous species such as South China Tiger, Mountain Gorilla, Pangolin, Leatherback Turtle and California Condor, together with lesser-known animals in peril, such as the Lemur Leaf Frog, Geometric Tortoise and Red Wolf. Each written account provides insight into the lives of these species, including details of their behaviour and habitat, the threats they face and the conservation efforts being made to ensure their survival. Existing books on endangered species tend to either concentrate on one animal, or are heavily academic, or are focused directly at children. This title, which is a handy size, gives an entertaining and engaging take on the subject, and is ideal for either reading right the way through or just dipping into one chapter at a time. It makes the perfect read for anyone with an interest in the natural world.
-
Lake Eyre Basin Rivers: Environmental, Social and Economic Importance
Artist/Author: Kingsford, Richard (Editor)$60.00 Add to cartOutlines the environmental, social and economic values of the rivers from a diverse range of perspectives.
Water is scarce in the Lake Eyre Basin in the heart of Australia. The region goes through natural cycles of boom and bust, and the flooding of the basin rivers is accompanied by spectacular responses from wildlife and vegetation. However, the Lake Eyre Basin faces the threat of diversion of water from rivers and wetlands and development of floodplains for irrigation and mining. Around the world, such water resource developments have caused widespread degradation of rivers and loss of habitats.
-
Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (Second Edition)
Artist/Author: Keddy, Paul A.$100.00 Add to cartRichly illustrated and packed with numerous examples, this unique global perspective introduces wetland ecology from basic principles to advanced applications. Thoroughly revised and reorganised, this new edition of this prize-winning textbook begins with underlying causal factors, before moving on to more advanced concepts that add depth and context. Each chapter begins with an explanation of the basic principles covered, illustrated with clear examples. More difficult concepts and exceptions are introduced only once the general principle is well-established. Key principles are now discussed at the beginning of the book, and in order of relative importance, enabling students to understand the most important material without wading through complex theory. New chapters on wetland restoration and wetland services draw upon practical examples from around the world, providing a global context, and a new chapter on research will be particularly relevant to the advanced student planning their own studies.
