As environmental activists have made clear for decades, the preservation of Earth’s forests is essential to the existence of life. And, yet, continued exploitation of this resource and the simultaneous warming of Earth have placed forests in a precarious situation. The boreal forest is one of the largest biomes on Earth, second only to the …
The subtitle of the must-read book The Insect Crisis by Oliver Milman is The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World. Tiny empires indeed. Consider the following: Three out of four species on this planet are insects. There are more species of assassin fly on this planet (7,500+) than the entire world of …
If you were expecting a book called “Environment” to include an inspiring exploration of how trees communicate, poetic scenes of dolphins swimming gracefully through a blue ocean or an examination of sparkling lakes in gorgeous national parks, you’d be in for a downer surprise. The environmental overview that is Environment by Rolf Halden is instead—as the plastic …
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 2022 (Published in the UK as The Sea is Not Made of Water) Life Between the Tides is my kind of book. British author, Adam Nicolson, grandson of Vita Sackville-West, sets out to write about tide pools and the intertidal zone, but those subjects turn out to be just launching …
Notes on Wonder By Brian Doyle Little, Brown and Co, 2019 During that small window of time this year when it seemed safe enough to travel abroad, this book was given to me by a friend to take along on a cruise down the Danube River. Get it? One Long River of Song. But the …
In 2016, we began compiling lists of the best books we read that year (new or old, it didn’t matter). And now here we are in 2021, and we’ve got another wonderful list of the best environmental books we’ve read this year. These may not be the books you’ll find in the top lists of …
The magazine The Ecological Citizen is now accepting short fiction (in addition to nonfiction and poetry). Click here to learn more and submit.
So much of animal activism is focused around what one sees — witnessing the beauty as well as the suffering of the animals we share this planet with. But what about focusing less on one’s eyes and more on one’s ears? In Listen, We All Bleed Mandy-Suzanne Wong has compiled a rich array of essays …
Here is an excellent writing opportunity for young writers passionate about the West. Tom Bell founded High Country News in 1970. The Bell Prize honors thoughtful writing about the West by writers aged 18 to 25. We’re looking for stories about what it means to inhabit the Western U.S. at this time in history, whether …
I’m pleased to mention that EcoLit Books contributor The Center for Humans and Nature has published a five-book set called Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations. Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. These five Kinship volumes—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—offer essays, interviews, poetry, …
In A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Bird of Prey Jonathan Meiburg has crafted an epic ode to the caracara, a long-overlooked (and often derided) group of birds who deserves more attention and more protection. There are about ten species of caracara and Meiburg takes us around …
Here is amazing opportunity to spend time at sea with scientists at work. And there is a stipend included so you can stock up on meclizine. Sitka is continuing a unique partnership with Oregon State University that allows for a visual artist, writer or musician to spend two weeks on an oceanic research vessel. Artists …
Perhaps it is human nature to rank things. We rank cities and states and countries. We have the best restaurants and best movies; we even have best friends. And when it comes to our relationships with animals we share this planet with, there is a fair amount of ranking there as well, with the human …
Katherine Applegate’s Willodeen, out today from Feiwel and Friends, aptly begins with an epigraph quoting Greta Thunberg: “I have learned you are never too small to make a difference.” This middle-grade novel geared towards tweens, but also appropriate for younger readers, explores surprisingly mature topics in a way that is still accessible and engaging for …