The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery

by Howard Gordon Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson, Richard W. Hazlett

The American West at Risk summarizes the dominant human-generated environmental challenges in the 11 contiguous arid western United States - America's legendary, even mythical, frontier. When discovered by European explorers and later settlers, the west boasted rich soils, bountiful fisheries, immense, dense forests, sparkling streams, untapped ore deposits, and oil bonanzas. It now faces depletion of many of these resources, and potentially serious threats to its few "renewable" resources.

The importance of this story is that preserving lands has a central role for protecting air and water quality, and water supplies--and all support a healthy living environment. The idea that all life on earth is connected in a great chain of being, and that all life is connected to the physical earth in many obvious and subtle ways, is not some new-age fad, it is scientifically demonstrable. An understanding of earth processes, and the significance of their biological connections, is critical in shaping societal values so that national land use policies will conserve the earth and avoid the worst impacts of natural processes. These connections inevitably lead science into the murkier realms of political controversy and bureaucratic stasis. Most of the chapters in The American West at Risk focus on a human land use or activity that depletes resources and degrades environmental integrity of this resource-rich, but tender and slow-to-heal, western U.S.

The activities include forest clearing for many purposes; farming and grazing; mining for aggregate, metals, and other materials; energy extraction and use; military training and weapons manufacturing and testing; road and utility transmission corridors; recreation; urbanization; and disposing of the wastes generated by everything that we do. We focus on how our land-degrading activities are connected to natural earth processes, which act to accelerate and spread the damages we inflict on the land.

Visit www.theamericanwestatrisk.com to learn more about the book and its authors.

640 pages, Hardcover

First published June 5, 2008

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a gem - it's a well-written investigation that also acts as a reference for many many questions I have had personally and professionally. The authors have been able to synthesize pertinent data in a way that's accessible (much more accessible than public records requests to say the least). I especially appreciate the detail and synthesis of pesticide information. For anyone who has ever had questions about the environmental realities of the West and what needs to be done to address them.

[Mary Dryovage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howard Wilshire, Jane Nielson and Richard Hazlett have written the must read book on preserving biodiversity, understanding water rights, and stopping the storage of nuclear waste for those of us in the Western U.S. who are working to save the planet for the next generation.

I will write a more detailed review, as soon as I can pull myself away from this fabulous book.

[Tattered Cover Book Store]

This book was recomended by author and historian Char Miller as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library's "A Reading List For the President Elect: A Western Primer for the Next Administration."

[Andy Arthur]

This sounds very interesting. I want to read this. I heard about it in High Country News.