5 Nature Books to Read in 2012

Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction (non-fiction) By David Quammen

If there’s a single book that everyone interested in nature and conservation should read—besides The Lorax—it’s Song of the Dodo.

Read it and you’ll know:

• why Alfred Russell Wallace was greater than Darwin in fieldwork and deductive reasoning.
• why islands upsize some animals like Komodo dragons and downsize other animals like Sumatran rhinoceros.
• the places in the Indian Ocean where there are giant tortoises just like those on Galapagos.
• what happened to the dodo and what its meat tasted like.

Perhaps most importantly, read Song of the Dodo and you will know how the major themes in conservation emerged. You’ll see how far and how fast we have come in conservation.

A richly rewarding read.

—Reviewed by Craig Leisher, senior advisor on poverty and conservation, The Nature Conservancy

A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest (non-fiction) By William deBuys

If you want to know what climate change will bring to the Earth’s aridlands, look to the North American Southwest. A Great Aridness offers an eloquent account of how rising temperatures and extreme events—drought, mega-fires, forest die-off—are transforming ecosystems and society in this transcendently beautiful region.

The thoughtful scientists and managers who are deBuys’ protagonists testify that, to sustain the beauty and function of ecosystems and society, we must set qualitatively different goals, such as resilience and sustainability, that are difficult to define but better fitted to a no-analog, no-equilibrium world.

After recounting the toll taken on people and nature by the recent spate of extreme climate-driven events and identifying the prospects for even greater transformation ahead, deBuys lays out a climate adaptation agenda for the Southwest. This “unfinished business,” he writes, amounts to “what we should have been doing all along”: achieving water security, rehabilitating forests, and devising a responsible program for dealing with displaced and work-starved populations.

A Great Aridness provides a glimpse of what’s to come for regions that haven’t yet been significantly affected by climate change, and a prescription for responding with grace when the inevitable changes arrive.

—Reviewed by Patrick McCarthy, director, Southwest Climate Change Initiative, The Nature Conservancy

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (non-fiction) By Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver

Animal, Vegetable Miracle begins with a family move from Arizona to Appalachia. But this move represents much more than a physical change in address. It’s also a movement away from the food system in which they have long participated—one where food is grown far away and shipped, trucked, trained to large supermarkets out of season—to one where they feed themselves entirely with food either grown on their Virginia farm or within the local food community.

As a dedicated locavore, I related strongly with the Kingsolvers through their journey. This book will resonate with anyone who really loves food and is curious about their food system. Unlike other books that investigate the modern food system, this one will not make you never want to eat meat again or otherwise make you feel guilty to be alive. Rather, it inspires thought about the important link between food, society, conservation and economy. Most importantly to me, it is a story of people who are often forgotten and the camaraderie of sharing food that is so central to our humanity.

—Reviewed by Bryan Piazza, conservation planner, The Nature Conservancy in Louisiana

Related: Books That Make Great Gifts