The Rainforest Harvest

The Rainforest Harvest PDF Author: Friends of the Earth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description

The Rainforest Harvest

The Rainforest Harvest PDF Author: Friends of the Earth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description


Farming the Woods

Farming the Woods PDF Author: Ken Mudge
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603585079
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Learn how to fill forests with food by viewing agriculture from a remarkably different perspective: that a healthy forest can be maintained while growing a wide range of food, medicinal, and other nontimber products. The practices of forestry and farming are often seen as mutually exclusive, because in the modern world, agriculture involves open fields, straight rows, and machinery to grow crops, while forests are reserved primarily for timber and firewood harvesting. In Farming the Woods, authors Ken Mudge and Steve Gabriel demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be an either-or scenario, but a complementary one; forest farms can be most productive in places where the plow is not: on steep slopes and in shallow soils. Forest farming is an invaluable practice to integrate into any farm or homestead, especially as the need for unique value-added products and supplemental income becomes increasingly important for farmers. Many of the daily indulgences we take for granted, such as coffee, chocolate, and many tropical fruits, all originate in forest ecosystems. But few know that such abundance is also available in the cool temperate forests of North America. Farming the Woods covers in detail how to cultivate, harvest, and market high-value nontimber forest crops such as American ginseng, shiitake mushrooms, ramps (wild leeks), maple syrup, fruit and nut trees, ornamentals, and more. Along with profiles of forest farmers from around the country, readers are also provided comprehensive information on: • historical perspectives of forest farming; • mimicking the forest in a changing climate; • cultivation of medicinal crops; • cultivation of food crops; • creating a forest nursery; • harvesting and utilizing wood products; • the role of animals in the forest farm; and, • how to design your forest farm and manage it once it’s established. Farming the Woods is an essential book for farmers and gardeners who have access to an established woodland, are looking for productive ways to manage it, and are interested in incorporating aspects of agroforestry, permaculture, forest gardening, and sustainable woodlot management into the concept of a whole-farm organism.

Who Pays for and who Benefits from Improved Timber Harvesting Practices in the Tropics?

Who Pays for and who Benefits from Improved Timber Harvesting Practices in the Tropics? PDF Author: Grahame Applegate
Publisher: CIFOR
ISBN: 9793361425
Category : Forest management
Languages : en
Pages : 45

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Book Description


Harvesting the Biosphere

Harvesting the Biosphere PDF Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026201856X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production. The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared. Many species have exerted enormous influence on the biosphere's character and productivity, but none has transformed the Earth in so many ways and on such a scale as Homo sapiens. In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil offers an interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistory to the present day. Smil examines all harvests—from prehistoric man's hunting of megafauna to modern crop production—and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. Without harvesting of the biomass, Smil points out, there would be no story of human evolution and advancing civilization; but at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very foundations of civilization's well-being. In his detailed and comprehensive account, Smil presents the best possible quantifications of past and current global losses in order to assess the evolution and extent of biomass harvests. Drawing on the latest work in disciplines ranging from anthropology to environmental science, Smil offers a valuable long-term, planet-wide perspective on human-caused environmental change.

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond PDF Author: Brad Lancaster
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780977246434
Category : Arid regions agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
« "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1' is the first book in a three-volume guide that teaches you how to conceptualize, design, and implement sustainable water-harvesting systems for your home, landscape, and community. The lessons in this volume will enable you to assess your on-site resources, give you a diverse array of strategies to maximize their potential, and empower you with guiding principles to create an integrated, multi-functional water-harvesting plan specific to your site and needs. »--

North Pacific Temperate Rainforests

North Pacific Temperate Rainforests PDF Author: Gordon H. Orians
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295992617
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The North Pacific temperate rainforest, stretching from southern Alaska to northern California, is the largest temperate rainforest on earth. This book provides a multidisciplinary overview of key issues important for the management and conservation of the northern portion of this rainforest, located in northern British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. This region encompasses thousands of islands and millions of acres of relatively pristine rainforest, providing an opportunity to compare the ecological functioning of a largely intact forest ecosystem with the highly modified ecosystems that typify most of the world's temperate zone. The book examines the basic processes that drive the dynamic behavior of such ecosystems and considers how managers can use that knowledge to sustainably manage the rainforest and balance ecosystem integrity with human use. Together, the contributors offer a broad understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by scientists, managers, and conservationists in the northern portion of the North Pacific rainforest that will be of interest to conservation practitioners seeking to balance economic sustainability and biodiversity conservation across the globe. Gordon Orians is professor emeritus of biology at the University of Washington. John Schoen is a senior science advisor at Audubon Alaska. Other contributors include Paul Alaback, Bill Beese, Frances Biles, Todd Brinkman, Joe Cook, Lisa Crone, Dave D'Amore, Rick Edwards, Jerry Franklin, Ken Lertzman, Stephen MacDonald, Andy MacKinnon, Bruce Marcot, Joe Mehrkens, Eric Norberg, Gregory Nowacki, Dave Person, and Sari Saunders.

Breakfast of Biodiversity

Breakfast of Biodiversity PDF Author: John H. Vandermeer
Publisher: Food First Books
ISBN: 093502896X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Focuses on international commerce as the greatest threat to the world's rain forests. Argues that no single industry or activity is to blame for deforestation, but that the ways in which consumers around the world spend and invest comprises a web of interests that lead to the depletion of natural resources and the destruction of habitats. Advocates consumer behavior meant to curtail the destruction.

The Great Kapok Tree

The Great Kapok Tree PDF Author: Lynne Cherry
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780152026141
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
The many different animals that live in a great Kapok tree in the Brazilian rainforest try to convince a man with an ax of the importance of not cutting down their home.

Tropical Forests and Their Crops

Tropical Forests and Their Crops PDF Author: Nigel J. H. Smith
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501717944
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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Book Description
The tropics are the source of many of our familiar fruits, vegetables, oils, and spice, as well as such commodities as rubber and wood. Moreover, other tropical fruits and vegetables are being introduced into our markets to offer variety to our diet. Now, as tropical forests are increasingly threatened, we face a double-fold crisis: not only the loss of the plants but also rich pools of potentially useful genes. Wild populations of crop plants harbor genes that can improve the productivity and disease resistance of cultivated crops, many of which are vital to developing economies and to global commerce. Eight chapters of this book are devoted to a variety of tropical crops—beverages, fruit, starch, oil, resins, fuelwood, fodder, spices, timber, and nuts—the history of their domestication, their uses today, and the known extent of their gene pools, both domesticated and wild. Drawing on broad research, the authors also consider conservation strategies such as parks and reserves, corporate holdings, gene banks and tissue culture collections, and debt-for-nature swaps. They stress the need for a sensitive balance between conservation and the economic well-being of local populations. If economic growth is part of the conservation effort, local populations and governments will be more strongly motivated to save their natural resources. Distinctly practical and soundly informative, this book provides insight into the overwhelming abundance of tropical forests, an unsettling sense of what we may lose if they are destroyed, and a deep appreciation for the delicate relationships between tropical forest plants and people around the world.

Rainforest Tourism, Conservation and Management

Rainforest Tourism, Conservation and Management PDF Author: Bruce Prideaux
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136201092
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Globally rainforests are under threat on numerous fronts, including clearing for agriculture, harvesting for timber and urban expansion. Yet they have a crucial role in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and providing other ecosystem services. As the term is used in this book, rainforests include both temperate and tropical, although the emphasis is on tropical rainforests. Rainforests are also attractive tourist spaces and where they have been used as a tourism resource have generated significant income for local communities. However not all use of rainforests as a tourism resource has been sustainable. This book argues that sustainability must be the foundation on which tourism use of this complex but ultimately fragile ecosystem must be built upon. It provides a multi-disciplinary perspective, incorporating rainforest science, management and tourism issues. The book is organized into four sections commencing with Rainforest Ecology and Management followed by People and Rainforests, Opportunities for Rainforest Tourism Development and finally Threats to Rainforests. Each major rainforest region is covered, including the Amazon, Central America, Africa, Australia and south-east Asia, in the context of a specific issue. For example rainforests in Papua New Guinea are examined in the context of community-based ecotourism development, while the rainforests in Borneo are discussed in an examination of wildlife issues. Other issues covered in this manner include governance, empowerment issues for rainforest peoples and climate change.