Pedro Brancalion is a professor of forest restoration at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In this presentation, he discusses the results of his research conducted in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. He applies these results to other tropical forests across the globe, stressing the importance of global restoration implementation.
Alternative Futures brings together 35 essays on India’s future, written by a diverse set of authors: activists, researchers, media persons, those who have influenced policies, and those working at the grassroots. Divided into four sections—Ecological Futures, Political Futures, Economic Futures, and Socio-Cultural Futures—the book covers a wide range of issues including environmental governance, biodiversity, democracy and power, law, agriculture, pastoralism, industry, languages, learning and education, knowledge, health and sexuality among others.
Birds in Our Lives is an account of bird conservation in India, written by conservationist Ashish Kothari. It educates the reader on the importance of birds in Indian culture and economy and highlights the imminent threats to their habitats and populations, as well as growing efforts to conserve birdlife.
In this special section on affective ecologies, Julia Hobson Haggerty, Elizabeth Lynne Rink, Robert McAnally, and Elizabeth Bird study the restoration of bison/buffalo by the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes to their reservation in Montana in the United States. They argue that ecological restoration can promote and facilitate emergent and dynamic processes of reconnection at the scale of individuals, across species and within communities.
By privileging music as a focus for applied ecology, Robin Ryan aims to deepen perspectives on the musical representation of land in an age of complex environmental challenge.
Looking to the work of Samuel R. Delaney, Sarah Ensor asks what it would mean to use the practice of cruising as a model for a new ecological ethic more deeply attuned to our impersonal intimacies with the human, nonhuman, and elemental strangers that constitute both our environment and ourselves.
Susanna Lidström and Greg Garrard trace the development of “ecopoetry” from the Romantic and deep ecological traditions of the 1980s to the complex environmental concerns of the 2010s.
Deane-Drummond’s article for the Special Commentary section focuses on Pope Francis’s statements about Catholicism, the environment, and social issues. She analyses how his choice of terminology and the concepts he engages set him apart from others speaking out on climate and inequality, and recognizes his contribution to environmental humanities literature.
Northcott’s article for the Special Commentary section discusses the content of Pope Francis’s Laudato si’, highlighting the economic implications of the Pope’s statements and the theological basis for them in the Christian tradition and elsewhere.
Goodchild’s article for the Special Commentary section analyzes Pope Francis’s Laudato si, focusing particularly on the concept of connectedness and the economic changes necessary for the Pope’s statements to become reality.
