Here are a few books I've read recently that I thought would be of interest to streamkeepers. Both were interesting, thought provoking, and well written.
King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon
David R. Montgomery
Westview Press, 2003.
ISBN 0-8133-4147-7
Montgomery is a Professor of Geomorphology at the University of Washington. The book is an excellent study of the decline of salmon, starting with Atlantic salmon in Europe, then moving across the Atlantic to eastern North America, and ending with the Pacific Northwest.
This well-documented book looks at the history of habitat destruction, and the repeated good intentions and the mistakes that have wiped out salmon runs. Legislation to protect salmon dates back well over 500 years (!), however poor enforcement and a lack of coordination between national, state/provincial, and municipal authorities abetted the decline.
He talks about what can be done to protect what we have left, and how to revive runs, with an emphasis on the Pacific situation. Highly recommended for anyone at all interested in streamkeeping, environmentalism, etc.
"Unlike our ancestors, those of us alive today comprise the generations running headlong into the limits of our use of natural systems while observing permanent loss of much of our natural heritage. The bottom line is that people have the freedom to change their behavior, whereas fish do not. If we are to save wild salmon, then some people will lose money or the ability to do things they wanted to do. But we all lose if we lose the salmon." (p. 245)
Cathedral of the World: Sailing Notes For A Blue Planet
Myron Arms
Doubleday, 1999
ISBN 0-385-49269-3
A book of short essays and thoughts about people and nature, particularly in relation to the vastness of the oceans that makes one realize how insignificant, yet damaging, humans are as a species. A wonderful, thought-provoking read, it is the kind of book that you can appreciate in nibbles. I kept finding myself staring off into space, lost in thought after reading each short section.
"...if we can silence our egos for a moment and set aside our preconceptions about who we think we are, we may begin to perceive some of the lessons that the rest of nature has to teach: lessons not of personality but of relationship, not of order but of complexity, not of private property but of shared responsibility, not of rationality but of mystery, not of the ultimacy of the human enterprise but of the interdependency of all life." (p. 47)
"... is the story we've been telling ourselves about our 'progress' as a species during the last ten thousand years really upside-down? Have we actually regressed, psychologically, from a state of harmony with our natural surroundings to a state of boredom, contentiousness, and alienation?" (p. 122).
"... we have learned to adapt, by increments, to the humanscapes around us until we can hardly remember what a natural landscape looks like any longer.... Most dangerous of all, we convince ourselves, perhaps because of the pervasiveness of the humanscape, that we are at the center of things -- that we are the controllers, the 'managers' of the planet."
If you've got some good reads to share, let me know!
Posted by Paul at January 25, 2004 06:12 PM