Ecology

People talk a lot about the problems with intensive farming. But the problem isn't the adjective. It's the noun....

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science....

An Immense World will take us on an insider's tour of the natural world by describing the biology, physics and chemistry animals use to perceive it....

A dazzling scientific detective story from the ecologist who first discovered the hidden language of trees....

A new fully updated narrative edition of David Attenborough’s seminal biography of our world, Living Planet....

The nation’s greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads a brand-new edition of Life on Earth, now available as an audiobook for the first time....

It dawned on me one day that most of the scare stories in the media today are based on things that are either invisible, like CO2 and radiation, or very remote, like polar bears and coral reefs. Thus, the average person cannot observe and verify the truth of these claims for themselves....

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about future of life on Earth.... 

If you are at all interested in life on our planet, then you need to know about insects. They are the most successful group of animals ever to have lived on Earth. Making up three-quarters of all animal species, insects conquered the planet long ago....

Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection inviting listeners to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses....

A collection of probing essays and weekly meditations, this book addresses how to prepare emotionally and spiritually for the impending collapse of industrial civilization....

As ecologists Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe show, rewilding is a new and progressive approach to conservation, blending radical scientific insights with practical innovations to revive ecological processes, benefiting people as well as nature....

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many listeners, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism....

Sacred Nature is a book about 'deep ecology': it is about the most profound connections between humans and the natural world....

Reflecting on family, identity and nature, Belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home....

We humans tend to assume that we are the only living things able to experience feelings intensely and consciously. But have you ever wondered what's going on in an animal's head? Find out....

Masanobu Fukuoka's manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food....

Movement Matters is a collection of essays in which biomechanist Katy Bowman continues her groundbreaking investigation of the mechanics of our sedentary culture....

Ants have been walking the Earth since the age of the dinosaurs. Today there are one million ants for every one of us. The closer you get to ants, the more human they look: they build megacities, grow crops, raise livestock, tend their young and infirm, and even make vaccines....

When we talk about human history, we focus on great leaders, mass migration and decisive wars. But how has the Earth itself determined our destiny? How has our planet made us? Find out.... 

Delicately observed and rigorously researched, Losing Eden is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health....

As our civilization careens towards a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Yet another world is possible.....

A gripping, timely audiobook about the transmission of deadly viruses from animal to human populations and how we can tackle a global pandemic....

Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story....

A journey into the weird, wonderful and truly astonishing lives of the small but mighty creatures who keep the world turning....

For centuries, people have been returning to the same tired nature-versus-nurture debate, trying to determine what we learn and what we inherit. In Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, biologist Marlene Zuk goes beyond the binary and instead focuses on interaction, or the way that genes and environment work together. Driving her investigation is a simple but essential question: How does behavior evolve? 

Reflecting on family, identity and nature, Belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home. It is a love letter to nature, especially the northern landscapes of Scotland and the Scots pinewoods of Abernethy—home to standing dead trees known as snags, which support the overall health of the forest. Belonging is a book about how we are held in thrall to elements of our past. It speaks to the importance of attention and reflection, and will encourage us all to look and observe and ask questions of ourselves.

Oaks sustain a complex and fascinating web of wildlife. The Nature of Oaks reveals what is going on in oak trees month by month, highlighting the seasonal cycles of life, death, and renewal. From woodpeckers who collect and store hundreds of acorns for sustenance to the beauty of jewel caterpillars, Tallamy illuminates and celebrates the wonders that occur right in our own backyards. The Nature of Oaks will inspire you to treasure these trees and to act to nurture and protect them.

Have you ever wondered why honey bees are so vital to the health and vitality of our world? Join retired educator Howard Steel as he whimsically shares his passion for these amazing creatures and his experiences with beekeeping. Discover why these incredible producers are endangered and how we can help protect them with simple, personal lifestyle changes. Find out about the intricate and fascinating role of the honey bee in ecosystem pollination. Be inspired and learn how to start up your own hive right in your backyard! 

Our precious archipelago is ravaged by climate change, bereft of natural ecosystems and lies at the mercy of global warming, flooding, drought and catastrophic biodiversity loss. But could restoring species that once helped protect our islands help turn this crisis around? From familiar yet imperilled honeybees and ancient oak woods to returning natives like beavers and boars, Britain’s cornerstone species may hold the key to recovering our biodiversity on land and in our seas.

For most of human history nature was held to be sacred and our God or gods were believed to be present everywhere in nature. When people in the West began to separate God and nature in the 17th century, it was not just a profound breach with thousands of years of accumulated wisdom and experience: it was also the root of how we have come to plunder the natural world and to promote our individual selves in unhealthy and destructive ways. Karen Armstrong argues that if we want to avert the looming environmental catastrophe, it is not enough to change our behaviour.

"Lively writing about science and nature depends less on the offering of good answers, I think, than on the offering of good questions," said David Quammen in the original introduction to Natural Acts. For more than two decades, he has stuck to that credo. In this updated version of Natural Acts, curiosity leads him from New Mexico to Romania, from the Congo to the Amazon, asking questions about mosquitoes (what are their redeeming merits?), dinosaurs (how did they change the life of a dyslexic Vietnam vet?), and cloning (can it save endangered species?).

One of the most ubiquitous indicators of human activity, roads typically promise development and prosperity. Yet they carry with them the threat of disruption to both human and animal lives. Jones surveys the myriad, innovative ways stakeholders across the world have sought to reduce animal-vehicle collisions and minimize road-crossing risks for wildlife, including efforts undertaken at the famed fauna overpasses of Banff National Park, the Singapore Eco-Link, "tunnels of love" in the Australian Alps, and others. 

An innovative work of research and reportage, We Are the Middle of Forever places Indigenous voices at the center of conversations about today’s environmental crisis. The book draws on interviews with people from different North American Indigenous cultures and communities, generations, and geographic regions who share their knowledge and experience, their questions, their observations, and their dreams of maintaining the best relationship possible to all of life. 

People talk a lot about the problems with intensive farming. But the problem isn't the adjective. It's the noun. Around the world, farming has been wiping out vast habitats, depleting freshwater, polluting oceans, and accelerating global heating, while leaving millions undernourished and unfed. Increasingly, there are signs that the system itself is beginning to flicker. But, as George Monbiot shows us in this brilliant, bracingly original new book, there is another way.