This section focuses on protecting and restoring the natural environment. It includes articles, speeches, reports, interviews, book and anthology excerpts, PowerPoint presentations, and presentation transcripts. Topics include habitat protection and restoration, endangered species, ecosystems, and stewardship of natural areas. Focuses include mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, parks, and other wild areas. Outdoor recreational activities and ecotourism are also covered.

Extraction and consumption of natural resources, population growth, urban sprawl, agriculture, and climate change are having dramatic impacts on the natural world. Human health and biodiversity are both threatened. Sustainability requires that we understand our impacts, learn how to lessen them, and restore ecosystems to reverse damage that has already been done.

Are Marine Mammals the New Canaries? By Michael Castleman. In the Baltic sea during early 1988, more than half of the harbor seals - some 25,000 animals - suddenly died. The die-off, the largest ever recorded for seals, was caused by a virus very similar to the one that causes distemper in dogs. Environmentalists immediately pointed to what they believed to be cause - industrial wastes discharged into the Baltic. Article >>

Breeding And Natal Dispersal, Nest Habitat Loss And Implications For Marbled Murrelet Populations. Anthology chapter by George Divoky and Michael Horton. The ability of Marbled Murrelets to disperse from natal sites, and their fidelity to breeding sites, has important implications for the potential of the species to respond to habitat loss and colonize or reestablish breeding areas when habitat has been altered. Anthology Chapter >>

Damn the Torpedoes & Torpedo the Dams. By Robert "Birdlegs" Caughlan. Four hundred miles of California's fabulous beaches are starving for sand, but surfers and other beach lovers have the muscle to bring them back. We know why they're starving and shrinking, and we know how to rescue them. Article >>

Distribution And Subspecies Of The Dovekie In Alaska. Article by George Divoky et al. The Dovekie is a primarily North Atlantic alcid that also breeds in the Arctic Basin of the north-eastern U.S.S.R. and probably eastward to the Bering Strait and the northern Bering Sea. Article >>

Ecologically Based Municipal Land Use Planning. By William Honachefsky. "I admit there was a time in my own early years as a young land surveyor (the pre-Earth Day decade at least) when I too regarded the land simply as a commodity, and not part of a larger continuum, intimately linked to the surrounding air, water, vegetation, and wildlife." Article >>

The Endangered Species Act At Thirty, Vol. 2: Conserving Biodiversity In Human-Dominated Landscapes. Book excerpt by Adam Davis. In this chapter on "Conservation Banking," market-based systems for protecting habit and species are discussed. The ability to purchase conservation credits allows developers to mitigate project impacts and landowners to benefit from protected species on their property. Book Excerpt >>

Environmental Stewardship Vs. Economic Development. By Walter McGuire. In the long term, the economy and the environment are inextricably linked. Today's economy depends heavily on the availability and cost of resources. Yet, we have built an economy that values resource consumption rather than stewardship. Article >>

From Walden To Wall Street: Frontiers Of Conservation Finance. Book excerpt by Adam Davis. "Imagine a marketplace where each unit of improvement in environmental quality was worth real money and competition managed cost so that the greatest amount of improvement per dollar could be purchased. In fact, this kind of market activity is already under way." Book Excerpt >>

The Humble Honeybee. Article by Reese Halter. Honeybees are incomparable little creatures. Not only do bees pollinate 75 percent of all the world’s food crops, but also all the cotton we wear. Honeybees produce an astounding 2.6 billion pounds of honey each year for humans. Honeybees and humans share many things: we socialize, dance, touch, feel, mimic one another, sleep, enjoy nicotine, caffeine, even vote, and we both get sick. Article >>

Our Plastic Century. Article by Wallace ‘J’ Nichols. But there’s nothing convenient about our future with plastic. We have a lot of work to do to reverse this mess. There are opportunities for leadership, innovation, research, solutions, green businesses, sustainable tourism, cleanup and restoration enterprises, and as much creative passion-filled activism as we can inspire. Reigning in and reversing the century of freedom we’ve given to plastic will take an enormous wave of personal and political will. Article >>

Pacific Trash Vortex Could Signify Future Of Our Oceans. Article by Summer Rayne Oakes. Oakes describes what she learned about ocean plastic debris from visiting with Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. He has been studying the "great Pacific garbage patch" in the North Pacific Gyre. Article >>

What Would Jacques Do? Article by Wallace ‘J’ Nichols. We must confront our own legacy with oil, plastic and associated toxins. We should stop pouring toxins, any toxins, into the drains around us; reject anything plastic we use once then throw away; and free our homes, schools and businesses of single-use disposable plastics. Article >>

Will Americans Stand Up For Parks And Open Space? Article by Huey Johnson. Johnson discusses whether or not parks and open space can win out over bottom line economics. Caught between money and morals, questions are raised about the value Americans place on environmental preservation. Article >>