Mountain Nature: A Seasonal Natural History of the Southern Appalachians

Mountain Nature: A Seasonal Natural History of the Southern Appalachians Review

The Southern Appalachians are home to a breathtakingly diverse array of living things--from delicate orchids to carnivorous pitcher plants, from migrating butterflies to flying squirrels, and from brawny black bears to more species of salamander than anywhere else in the world. Mountain Nature is a lively and engaging account of the ecology of this remarkable region. It explores the animals and plants of the Southern Appalachians and the webs of interdependence that connect them.

Within the region's roughly 35 million acres, extending from north Georgia through the Carolinas to northern Virginia, exists a mosaic of habitats, each fostering its own unique natural community. Stories of the animals and plants of the Southern Appalachians are intertwined with descriptions of the seasons, giving readers a glimpse into the interlinked rhythms of nature, from daily and yearly cycles to long-term geological changes. Residents and visitors to Great Smoky Mountains or Shenandoah National Parks, the Blue Ridge Parkway, or any of the national forests or other natural attractions within the region will welcome this appealing introduction to its ecological wonders.

Nature, Business, and Community in North Carolina's Green Swamp

Nature, Business, and Community in North Carolina's Green Swamp Review

This environmental history underscores the uneasy balance between conservation and commerce. By using North Carolina's Green Swamp as a case study, Tycho de Boer illustrates the struggle of a rural area trying to preserve its natural environment while encouraging economic growth.

 

De Boer highlights the complex relationship between the swamp, located in the extreme southeast corner of the state, local inhabitants, and outside entrepreneurs. He traces the growth of agriculture and the turpentine and lumber industries from the mid-seventeenth century to the present, and examines their impact, including the destruction of longleaf pine forests.

 

Yet he also reveals how businesses in this region took a leading role in managing the environment. What emerges is an understanding of the complex intersections between nature, business, and community. Naure, Business, and Community in North Carolina's Green Swamp is a history of a rare natural environment and its transformation that demonstrates how communal values and practices individuals can mitigate--and often have mitigated--the damage capitalist interests inflict on the world.

A Long Look at Nature: The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences

A Long Look at Nature: The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences Review

A Long Look at Nature: The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences Feature

• ISBN13: 9780807849859
• Condition: New
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What does a jar of preserved leopard frogs or the articulated skeleton of a beached sperm whale say about the way we understand nature in North Carolina? Margaret Martin explores this question in the story of the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, founded over 120 years ago to serve as a keeper of natural history collections, a vital resource for the scientific community, and a public interpreter of our natural world.

The book is organized around the museum's collections: Rocks and Minerals, Fossils, Invertebrates, Fishes, Reptiles and Amphibians, Birds, and Mammals. Martin looks at how these collections have been interpreted over time, tracing the shift away from a nineteenth-century presentation of nature as something ripe for exploitation to a more contemporary view of natural communities as complex, interconnected, and deserving of conservation.

With 175 color and black-and-white photographs, A Long Look at Nature is both an engaging introduction to the museum and a striking visual tribute to its collections. The book celebrates North Carolina nature in all its diversity and highlights the museum's crucial role in interpreting North Carolina's natural heritage.