In this engaging travelogue of our world’s rivers, great and small, poet and biologist Mary A. Hood reflects on rivers as creators of place. Recounting her journeys along portions of the Mississippi, the Danube, the Amazon, the Yangtze, the Ganges, the Nile, and a dozen small U.S. rivers, Hood weaves together natural history, current environmental and conservation issues, encounters with endangered plants and animals, and tells some interesting tales along the way.
Like a river, the book begins small, with essays that are narrowly focused on themes of environment and place, such as the need to write our world (Three Rivers), how fires (and corporations) control the West (the Flathead), the effect of wind farms on a small town in western New York (the Conhocton), the giant redwoods and how they were preserved (the Klamath), and the search for moose in the great north woods (the Penobscot). The second section expands the themes of environment and place and looks at great world rivers, their long histories, their biological diversity, the effects of human use and tourism, and the paradox of human reverence and destruction. From endangered species to invasive species, from corporate control of national parks to wind farms, from urban sprawl to efforts at conservation and restoration, River Time offers insights into our relationship to the environment in the twenty-first century.
Tabella dei contenuti
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Part I. Small United States Rivers
Three Rivers: Writing Our World
Fossil Rivers: Apalachicola and Other Rivers of Three Corners
Willamette River: Mousing the Owl
Flathead River: Fires in the West
Tensaw River: Longleaf Magnolias
Cumberland River: Magnolias and Other Rare Plants of the Appalachians
Conhocton River: A New York State of Mind
Penobscot River: In Search of Moose
Klamath River: Forest Monoliths
Ellijay River: Applesauce
Alligator River: Tidewater Wolves and Swans
Yellow River: Conservation, Preservation, Restoration
Part II. The Amazon
Introduction to the Amazon
Cities of the Amazon
Amazon Water Lilies
Birds and Bats of the Amazon
Pacaya Samiria Preserve of the Amazon
Amazon Canopy Walkway
Insects of the Amazon
Trees of the Amazon
Part III. Other Great World Rivers
Mississippi River: The Atchafalaya Basin
Danube River: The Tizsa and the Hortobagy
Yangtze River: River of Change
Ganges River: One Lone Ibisbill and a Half-Billion People
Nile River: Tombs, Temples and Tourists
Conclusion
References
Index
Circa l’autore
Mary A. Hood is Professor Emerita of Biology at the University of West Florida. She is the author of
The Strangler Fig and Other Tales: Field Notes of a Conservationist.