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Island Press began with a simple idea: knowledge is power—the power to imagine a better future and find ways for getting us there. Founded in 1984, Island Press’ mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems.

Showing 81-100 of 311 items.

The Bird-Friendly City

Creating Safe Urban Habitats

Island Press

How does a bird experience a city? A backyard? A park? As the world has become more urban, noisier from increased traffic, and brighter from streetlights and office buildings, it has also become more dangerous for countless species of birds. In The Bird-Friendly City, Timothy Beatley, a longtime advocate for intertwining the built and natural environments, takes readers on a global tour of cities that are reinventing the status quo with birds in mind. Efforts span a fascinating breadth of approaches: public education, urban planning and design, habitat restoration, architecture, art, civil disobedience, and more. Readers will come away motivated to implement and advocate for bird-friendly changes, drawing from inspiring examples that show it’s possible to make our urban environments more welcoming for many bird species.
 

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Naturalist

A Graphic Adaptation

By Edward O. Wilson; Illustrated by Chris Butzer; Adapted by Jim Ottaviani
Island Press

E.O. Wilson’s bestselling memoir comes to life in a beautifully illustrated graphic adaptation.

  • Copyright year: 2019
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Fixation

How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet

Island Press
  • Copyright year: 2020
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Diversifying Power

Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy

Island Press

In Diversifying Power, energy expert Jennie Stephens argues that the key to effectively addressing the climate crisis is diversifying leadership so that antiracist, feminist priorities are central. 

Stephens examines climate and energy leadership related to job creation and economic justice, health and nutrition, and housing and transportation. She explains why we need to reclaim and restructure climate and energy systems so policies are explicitly linked to social, economic, and racial justices.

Diversifying Power shows that anyone working on issues related to energy or climate (directly or indirectly) can leverage the power of collective action. The work to shift away from an extractive, oppressive energy system has already begun. By highlighting the creative individuals and organizations making change happen, Diversifying Power provides inspiration and encourages action on climate and energy justice.
 

  • Copyright year: 2020
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The Affordable City

Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach (and Keeping it There)

Island Press

In The Affordable City, housing expert Shane Phillips argues that to effectively address the housing crisis, cities must support both tenant protections and housing abundance.

Phillips offers more than 50 policy recommendations addressing what he refers to as the “Three S’s” of Supply, Stability, and Subsidy. He makes a moral and economic case for why each is essential and recommendations for making them work together. He ends with a policy blueprint and concise implementation plan for each policy, including whether it should be pursued as an immediate, medium-term, or long-term priority.

The Affordable City is an essential tool for professional city planners, policymakers, public officials, and advocates working to improve affordability and increase community resilience through local action.
 

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Right of Way

Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America

Island Press

In Right of Way, journalist Angie Schmitt shows that pedestrian traffic deaths are not unavoidable “accidents,” They are predictable, occurring in stark geographic patterns that tell a story about systemic inequality. These deaths are the forgotten faces of an increasingly urgent public health crisis that we have the tools, but not the will, to solve.

Schmitt examines the increase in pedestrian deaths in the US as well as programs and movements that are beginning to respond to the epidemic. Right of Way is a call to reframe the problem, acknowledge the role of racism and classism in the public response to these deaths, and energize advocacy around road safety.

Right of Way unveils a crisis that is rooted in both inequality and the undeterred reign of the automobile in our cities. It challenges us to imagine and demand safer and more equitable cities, where no one is expendable.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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The Cougar Conundrum

Sharing the World with a Successful Predator

Island Press

Mountain lions, once on the edge of extinction, have made a remarkable comeback. But this has led to an unexpected modern conundrum: Do more mountain lions mean they’re a threat to humans and domestic animals? Or do they need our help to survive? Mountain lion biologist and expert Mark Elbroch dismisses old myths, arguing that ecosystems depend on keystone predators to keep them in healthy balance. Humans and mountain lions can coexist, he explains, if we arm ourselves with knowledge and common sense. Elbroch explores the realities of human and livestock safety in the presence of mountain lions, as well as human impacts on lions and the need for sensible management strategies.
 
The Cougar Conundrum delivers a clear-eyed assessment of a modern wildlife challenge, offering practical advice for wildlife managers, conservationists, hunters, and those who share their habitat with large predators.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Planetary Health

Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves

Island Press

Human health depends on the health of the planet. Earth’s natural systems—the air, the water, the biodiversity, the climate—are our life support systems. Yet climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of land and freshwater, pollution and other threats are degrading these systems. The emerging field of planetary health aims to understand how these changes threaten our health and how to protect ourselves and the rest of the biosphere.

Interdisciplinary in nature, Planetary Health explores how accelerating environmental change affects each dimension of human health. It then turns to the rich terrain of solutions, reimagining our cities, our food systems, our energy sector, the chemicals we use, even our economics and our ethics. The result is a comprehensive and optimistic introduction to a field that is being adopted by researchers and universities around the world.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Parks and Recreation System Planning

A New Approach for Creating Sustainable, Resilient Communities

Island Press

Parks and recreation systems have evolved in remarkable ways over the past two decades. No longer just playgrounds and ballfields, parks and open spaces have become recognized as essential green infrastructure with the potential to contribute to community resiliency and sustainability. To capitalize on this potential, the parks and recreation system planning process must evolve as well. In Parks and Recreation System Planning, David Barth draws on real-world examples to provide a step-by-step approach to creating parks systems that generate greater economic, social, and environmental benefits. Chapters outline each step—evaluating existing systems, implementing a carefully crafted plan, and more—necessary for creating a successful, adaptable system.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Missing Middle Housing

Thinking Big and Building Small to Respond to Today’s Housing Crisis

Island Press

Daniel Parolek, an architect and urban designer, illustrates the power of Missing Middle housing types—such as duplexes, fourplexes, and bungalow courts— to meet today’s diverse housing needs. With the benefit of beautiful full-color graphics, Parolek goes into depth about the benefits and qualities of Missing Middle Housing, explains why more developers should be building them, and defines the barriers cities need to remove to enable them to be built.

Parolek proves that density is too blunt of an instrument to effectively regulate for twenty-first-century housing needs. Whether you are a planner, architect, builder, or city leader, Missing Middle Housing will help you think differently about how to address housing needs for today’s communities.
 

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, Revised Edition

Island Press

Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing is the most comprehensive resource on how green building principles can be incorporated into affordable housing design, construction, and operation. In this fully revised edition, Walker Wells and Kimberly Vermeer capture the rapid evolution of green building practices and make a compelling case for integrating green building in affordable housing. The Blueprint offers guidance on innovative practices, green building certifications for affordable housing, and the latest financing strategies. The completely new case studies share detailed insights on how the many elements of a green building are incorporated into different housing types and locations.
 
Every affordable housing project can achieve the fundamentals of good green building design. The Blueprint gives project teams what they need to push for excellence.
 

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Beyond Polarization

Public Process and the Unlikely Story of California's Marine Protected Areas

Island Press

Beyond Polarization is a story of hope about positive collective action. Written from an insider’s perspective, it tells the story of California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative—groundbreaking legislation passed after a ten-year public process that left an enduring legacy. The MLPA process provides a blueprint for successful public policy to conserve not just marine life, but any natural resource in contention across jurisdictions. The book is organized by geographical region, each with its unique stakeholders and concerns. Steven Yaffee, an expert on collaborative decision making, explains how its lessons can be applied to similar initiative processes across the country and internationally.
 
Beyond Polarization offers an optimistic message about the public policy process in a time of civic division: that policymakers, scientists, and local citizens can successfully collaborate to protect natural resources we all have a stake in.
 

  • Copyright year: 2020
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DIY City

The Collective Power of Small Actions

Island Press

Hank Dittmar, urban planner, friend of artists and creatives, sometime rancher, “high priest of town planning” to the Prince of Wales, believed in letting small things happen. Looking at the global cities of the world, he saw a crisis of success, with gentrification and global capital driving up home prices in some cities, while others decayed for lack of investment.
 
In DIY City, Dittmar explains why individual initiative, small-scale business, and small development matter, with lively stories from his own experience and examples from recent history.
 
Dittmar’s timely response to the challenges many cities face today is to make Do-It-Yourself the norm rather than the exception by removing the barriers to small-scale building and local business. The message of DIY City can offer hope to anyone who cares about cities.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Precision Community Health

Four Innovations for Well-being

Island Press

When Bechara Choucair was a young doctor, he learned an important lesson: treating a patient for hypothermia does little good if she has to spend the next night out in the freezing cold. As health commissioner of Chicago, he was determined to address the societal causes of disease and focus the city's resources on its most vulnerable populations. That targeted approach has led to dramatic successes, such as lowering rates of smoking, teen pregnancy, breast cancer mortalities, and other serious ills.

In Precision Community Health, Choucair shows how those successes can be replicated and expanded around the country. The key is to use advanced technologies to identify which populations are most at risk for specific health threats and avert crises before they begin. Using this strategy can make a wholesale change in the way public health is practiced and in the well-being of all our communities.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Valuing Nature

A Handbook for Impact Investing

Island Press

Valuing Nature presents a new set of nature-based investment areas to help conservationists and investors work together to tackle problems such as climate change. The book examines the scope of nature-based impact investing, offers tools for investors and organizations to consider as they develop their own projects, and shares tips on how nonprofits can successfully navigate this new space. Case studies from around the world demonstrate how we can utilize private capital to achieve more sustainable uses of our natural resources.

William Ginn provides a roadmap for conservation professionals, nonprofit managers, and impact investors to improve the management of natural systems.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Unnatural Companions

Rethinking Our Love of Pets in an Age of Wildlife Extinction

Island Press

"Highly compelling...page-turning read" — TNC's Cool Green Science

We love our pets. But there is a dark side to our domestic connection with animal life. The pet industry is contributing to a global conservation crisis for wildlife—often without the knowledge of pet owners. In Unnatural Companions, journalist Peter Christie argues that to reverse the alarming trend of wildlife decline, pet owners must acknowledge the pets-versus-conservation dilemma. Our well-fed and sheltered cats too often prey on small backyard wildlife, seemingly harmless reptiles released into the wild might be the next destructive invasive species, and the popular trend of designer pet food may have deleterious effects on the environment.

Christie's book is a cautionary tale to responsible pet owners, but he concludes with the positive message that the small changes we make at home can foster better practices within the pet industry that will ultimately benefit our pets’ wild brethren.

  • Copyright year: 2019
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Designing Streets for Kids

By National Association of City Transportation Officials
Island Press

Building on the success of their Global Street Design Guide, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO)-Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) Streets for Kids program has developed child-focused design guidance to inspire leaders, inform practitioners, and empower communities around the world to consider their city from the eyes of a child.

  • Copyright year: 2019
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Designing the Megaregion

Meeting Urban Challenges at a New Scale

Island Press

In Designing the Megaregion, planning and urban design expert Jonathan Barnett takes a fresh look at designing megaregions. Barnett argues that planning megaregions requires ecological literacy and a renewed commitment to social equity in order to address the increasing pressure that growth puts on natural, built, and human resources. If current trends continue, new construction in megaregions will put additional stress on natural resources, make highway gridlock and airline delays much worse, and cause each region to become more separate and unequal. Barnett offers an incremental approach to designing at the megaregional scale that will help prepare for future economic and population growth.

There is an urgent need to begin designing megaregions, and Barnett offers a hopeful way forward using systems that are already in place.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Replenish

The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity

Island Press

"Nothing is more important to life than water, and no one knows water better than Sandra Postel. Replenish is a wise, sobering, but ultimately hopeful book." —Elizabeth Kolbert

"Remarkable." —New York Times Book Review

"Clear-eyed treatise...Postel makes her case eloquently." —Booklist, starred review

"An informative, purposeful argument." —Kirkus


We spend billions of dollars on irrigation, dams, sanitation plants, and other feats of engineering to control water for our own prosperity. What if the answer was not control, but replenishment? Sandra Postel takes readers around the world to explore water projects that work with, rather than against, nature’s rhythms. Forest rehabilitation is safeguarding drinking water, farmers are planting cover crops to reduce polluted runoff, and “sponge cities” are capturing rainwater to curb urban flooding. Postel argues that efforts like these will be essential as we adjust to a hotter, wilder climate. Will we continue to fight the water cycle, endangering ourselves and the planet, or recognize our place in it and take advantage of the inherent services nature offers? 

  • Copyright year: 2017
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Primer of Ecological Restoration

Island Press

The Primer of Ecological Restoration is a succinct introduction to ecological restoration. The book introduces readers to the basics of restoration project planning, monitoring, and adaptive management, as well as ecological principles to guide ecosystem recovery. It explains abiotic factors such as landforms, soil, and hydrology that are the building blocks to recovering microorganism, plant, and animal communities. Other chapters cover invasive species and legal and financial considerations. Each chapter concludes with recommended reading and reference lists. Extensive pedagogic resources are available online for instructors.
 
This timely primer summarizes recent trends in the field suitable for introductory ecological restoration classes or for practitioners seeking constructive guidance for real-world projects.
 

  • Copyright year: 2020
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