Nature has presented us with a gift of incalculable value: astounding diversity of plant and animal life and interwoven biological and physical systems of intricate complexity and beauty. We are faced today with an existential environmental and moral challenge: can we find common purpose in protecting and cherishing these masterpieces and in restoring a sense of shared responsibility for stewarding our endowment?Forging a Sustainable Southwest introduces readers to four co...

A landscape of great natural beauty, Utah’s red rock country is a place where the passage from deep time to the present is revealed in stunningly sculpted and colorful geological strata that span 350 million years of Earth’s history. At the heart of this dramatic landscape is the Greater San Rafael Swell—a land of both geologic and human tumult.Natural and human history come together in The Greater San Rafael Swell, which spans much of Emery County in Utah. Authors Stephen...

Far to the south of Arizona’s sprawling metropolises, a rolling savanna of grass, oak, and mesquite rises above the surrounding deserts. The Sonoita Plain is a basin of a thousand square miles bracketed by mountains, a land once the domain of cowboys that is now more and more the focus of exurban development. These southwestern grasslands are both typical of and distinct from those of the Great Plains—similarly shaped by drought, grazing, and fire, but with a different flo...

Nearly five billion years ago, Earth and Mars were born together as planetary siblings orbiting a young, emerging Sun. Yet today, one planet is water rich and life bearing, while the other is seemingly cold, dry, and forbidding.Earth and Mars is a fusion of art and science, a blend of images and essays celebrating the successful creation of our life-sustaining planet and the beauty and mystery of Mars. Through images of terrestrial landscapes and photographs selected from ...

With its clear skies and low humidity, the southwestern United States is an astronomer’s paradise where observatories like Kitt Peak have redefined the art of skywatching. The region is unique in its loose federation of like-minded research outposts and in the quantity and diversity of its observatories—places captured in this unique guidebook.Douglas Isbell and Stephen Strom, both intimately involved in southwestern astronomy, have written a practical guide to the major observator...

In late 2016, President Barack Obama designated 1.35 million acres of public lands in southeastern Utah as Bears Ears National Monument. On December 4, 2017, President Donald Trump shrank the monument by 85 percent. A land rich in human history and unsurpassed in natural beauty, Bears Ears is at the heart of a national debate over the future of public lands.Through the stories of twenty individuals, and informed by interviews with more than seventy people, Voices from Bears Ear...

**“Wonderfully written…Mr. Owen writes about water, but in these polarized times the lessons he shares spill into other arenas. The world of water rights and wrongs along the Colorado River offers hope for other problems.” —Wall Street JournalAn eye-opening account of where our water comes from and where it all goes.**The Colorado River is an essential resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claim...

This may be hard to believe but it is very likely that more people live in closer proximity to more wild animals, birds and trees in the eastern United States today than anywhere on the planet at any time in history. For nature lovers, this should be wonderful news -- unless, perhaps, you are one of more than 4,000 drivers who will hit a deer today, your child’s soccer field is carpeted with goose droppings, coyotes are killing your pets, the neighbor’s cat has turned your bird feeder into...

How Native American history can guide us today: "Presents strong voices of old, old cultures bravely trying to make sense of an Earth in chaos." — Whole EarthWritten by a former Green Party vice-presidential candidate who was once listed among "America's fifty most promising leaders under forty" by Time magazine, this thoughtful, in-depth account of Native struggles against environmental and cultural degradation features chapters on the Seminoles, ...

Why the Left's anti-hunting propaganda is dead wrong! Nothing is more hated--and more misunderstood--by the trendy Left than hunting. But now intrepid hunter and pro-hunting activist Frank Miniter sets the record straight. In The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Hunting, he details the concrete benefits that hunting provides to all of us--even how it helps the environment. Speaking with wildlife biologists, hunters, farmers, anti-hunters, and victims of animal attacks, Miniter e...

With its soaring azure sky and stark landscapes, the American Southwest is one of the most hauntingly beautiful regions on earth. Yet staggering population growth, combined with the intensifying effects of climate change, is driving the oasis-based society close to the brink of a Dust-Bowl-scale catastrophe. In A Great Aridness, William deBuys paints a compelling picture of what the Southwest might look like when the heat turns up and the water runs out. This semi-arid land, vulne...

From an award-winning journalist and river raft guide, "a must-read for anyone who loves rivers or is concerned about the future of the West" ( Outside magazine).The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Meandering through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some of the most significant natural gas fields in the country, the riv...