Description In the West, shortsighted human self-interest has resulted in devastating environmental losses.
Fur trade beaver trapping meant streams and wetland ecosystems deteriorated.
Grazing livestock depleted native bunch grasses.
Migrating Idaho Salmon once reached the ocean in ten to fourteen days.
Now dams stretch the journey to fifty or more.
The author's goal is to encourage people to think like a mountain--to consider long-term consequences.
His essays examine cultural conflicts over resource extraction, threats to watersheds by abandoned mines, wolf recovery in the northern Rocky Mountains, the lingering effects of livestock grazing on western rangelands, and the rapidly disappearing sage grouse.
They discuss the importance of forest fires, the value of beavers, the failed promises of salmon hatcheries, the reasons behind the decline of the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest, and how unlikely allies learned to set aside their differences in order to resolve long-standing disputes.
Jacket In the West, shortsighted human self-interest has resulted in devastating environmental losses.
The fur trade decimated beaver populations, and streams and wetland ecosystems deteriorated.
Though most mining ceased by the late 1920s, water running from the Pacific Mine nearly a century later still carried ten times the lead level standard set by the federal Clean Water Act.
Where grazing depleted native bunchgrasses, fire-prone cheatgrass grew in its place.
Migrating from Idaho streams, salmon once reached the ocean in ten to fourteen days.
Now it takes fifty or more.
In 2016, a snowstorm blew a flock of snow geese off course.
They landed on contaminated water, and about three thousand died.
Author Niels S.
Nokkentved takes a fresh look at environmental challenges affecting Northwest residents.
His essays examine cultural conflicts over resource extraction, threats to watersheds from abandoned mines, wolf recovery in the northern Rocky Mountains, the lingering effects o.
Washington State University Press To think like a mountain: environmental challenges in the american west, paperback/niels s. nokkentved
