A journey along the same trail originally followed by Lewis and Clark argues that the idealized "balance of nature" has never existed and explains that nature is in a perpetual, and sometimes radical, state of change.
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Review:
Daniel Botkin sets out to cover the same ground Meriwether Lewis and William Clark did in their 1804-1806 survey of the Missouri River. He maintains that their careful observations on the native species, landscapes, and human residents of that great stretch of country should serve as models for avoiding "a glamorized utopian vision of nature" and seeing the landscape for what it really is. "One of the ways our knowledge of nature has changed since the time of Lewis and Clark," he writes, "is that the field of statistics has developed, and we can state our errors quantitatively." Not so much exploring as following old paths, we can also gather data more thoroughly than did our ecologist predecessors, knowing a little better what it is we are looking for. Botkin does just that in long discussions of salmon ecology and the mismanagement of natural resources.
About the Author:
Daniel B. Botkin, Ph.D., is director of the Program for Global Change at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
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- PublisherG.P. Putnam's Sons
- Publication date1995
- ISBN 10 0399140484
- ISBN 13 9780399140488
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages300
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Rating