RECOMMENDED BOOKS

My Favorite Ezines

Books on Wildlife, Birds, Nature and Environment

Wildlife

The Secret Life of Tigers
Author: Valmik Thapar.
Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999. Pp99, Rs 295/-

Field Guide-Some South Indian Butterflies
K.Gunathila Garaj, T.N.A Perumal and M. Ganesh Kumar.
Published by Nilgiri Wildlife Association. Pp290, Rs. 395/-

BIRDS

What's That Bird?-A guide to birdwatching, with special reference to Delhi.
KalpaVriksh, Illustrations by Centre for Environment Education and KalpaVriksh. (1991) pp 93, Rs 30/-

Related publications of KalpaVriksh

1. Save the Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary(1986) pp 8, Rs.5/-

A note initiating the campaign to save this important sanctuary in Haryana from excessive tourism and other pressures. A more detailed book is under preparation.

2. A Sanctuary for Birds Only (1982) pp5, Rs. 5/-

Ashok Prasad and Harish Dhawan

A report on the police firing on graziers in Keoladeo Ghana National Park on November 7th 1982.

3. India's Wildlife: An Overview (1986) pp4, Rs/2-

A brief fact sheet for young people.

4. Save the Bhindawas Lake Bird sanctuary! (March 1989) pp9, Rs 5/-

Suresh Sharma and Ashish Kothari

A report on the pressures being faced by Haryana's largest wetland along with suggestions for management. Also includes a checklist of birds found at Bhindawas. A more detailed report is being prepared.

5. Ten thousand Ducks in 5 Acres! (May 1989) pp 4, Rs.2/-

Suresh Sharma

An appeal to declare the Gurukul Mahavidyalaya Lake at Rudrapur, U.P. a bird sanctuary. Also includes a checklist of birds found there.

6. Ravaged Forests and Soiled Seas: Ecological Issues in the Tropics with Special Reference to Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1989) pp63, Rs.20/-

Edited by Pallava Bagla and Subhdra Menon.

Illustrated booklets with papers of tropical rainforests, marine environment and the environmental crisis in general.

Common Birds pp 126, Rs.30/-

Salim ali and Laeeq Futehally

(first edition 1967, second 1989, reprint 1997)

National Book Trust, India  

go top

Nature

Nature Watch pp132, Rs 175/-

Kushwant singh, Suddhasattwa Basu

UBS Publishers'Distributors Ltd.

'Nature Watch' is the joint product of one of India's finest painters of natural phenomena and one of the country's leading novelists and short story writers whose series 'The World of Nature' was highly rated on Indian Television.

It is the diary of a nature lover patterned after the traditional Baramasi of Indian poets. It tells you of trees, flowers, fruits, birds, snakes, insects and animals to be seen during the twelve months of the year.

Environment

Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution

Authors: Amory and Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken

The book shows how innovative businesses can reap big productivity gains by behaving as if living systems, such as the supply of oxygen by green plants, were properly valued.

"Humankind has inherited a 3.8 billion year store of natural capital. At present rates of use and degradation there will be little left by the end of the next century. "

            The book teems with practical business examples of how industrial processes can be redesigned to cut waste and pollution and sharply boost productivity and energy efficiency. Natural capital should be stewarded as prudently as money by the trustees of financial capital since environmental damage cannot be repaired by conventional business wisdom, the authors argue.

          Their new industrialism would consist of a huge rise in the use of recycling, re-manufacturing, leasing and emerging technologies that mimic natural processes. Some examples:

·        Ultra-light hydrogen fuel cell-powered hypercars. The world's biggest car companies are already racing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in development. "How clean a car would you buy if its exhaust pipe, instead of being aimed at pedestrians, fed directly into the passenger compartment?" ask the authors.

Engineers have already designed cars that act as plug-in electric generators when they are parked and could become the small scale power plants of the future.

·        The world's supply of lumber and pulp could be grown in an area the size of Iowa if de-printable and re-printable papers and inks, plus innovative ways to use fibre, are adopted fully.

·        Houses so design-efficient that no air conditioning is needed.

·        Goods, like carpets or cars, are leased rather than sold, then returned to the manufacturers when they need replacing.

·        Building technologies already exist that can make oxygen, generate solar power and produce drinking water, helping owners pay the mortgage while they inhabit them.

·        Making markets in saved resources like energy, water, fibres, minerals of land, where arbitrageurs exploit the spread between the cost of used materials and saved materials.

Natural Capital is defined as the familiar resources used by humanity - water, minerals, oil, trees, fish, soil and air. It also means living systems - wet-lands, savannas, forests, tundra, estuaries and ponds, as well as inhabitants like fungi, fish, bacteria, mammals, amphibians, insects and birds, they say.

            The forest produces not only the resource of wood but also the services of water storage and flood management. The authors quote estimates that show biological services flowing directly into society from nature are worth $ 36 trillions annually, close to annual gross world product of $ 39 trillions.

          The three thinkers estimate that more than 90% of the global flow of physical materials used in industrial processes- some 500 billion tonnes per year-ends up as waste.

            But far from being eco-warriors, the authors see the profit motive as the best way to turn businesses into agents of environmental revival while maintaining shareholder returns.

            They concede that success depends on the reversal of 200 years of policies in taxes, labour, industry and trade meant to encourage extraction, depletion and disposal: Under natural capitalism, any waste sent to a landfill or incinerator would be taxed.

            "The atmosphere is not free when there are six billion other people who have to share it near term and untold generations after them. If you want to put gases there, you have to pay."

          Such changes might sound like a tall order but in fact that transformation is already on the way, they say, pointing to multinationals that fund research into climate protection.

            " While there may be no right way to value a forest, a river or a child, the wrong way is to give it no value at all. If there are doubts about how to value a 700-year-old tree, ask how much it would cost to make a new one."

                                                            Source: 'The Hindu ' Feb 17, 2000

Pachamama-Our earth - Our future

Published by United Nations Environment Program (UNEP and Peace Child International)

The book is comprehensive and the graphics draw children toward serious environmental issues. The book is drawn from the contributions of thosands of young people around the world. Sample Nigerian Chris Ugwa's take on afforestation. "My parents told me the forest is sacred. In the past, trees were cut responsibly, not indiscriminately as they are today. "he says. The observation is accompanied by facts on natural forests, deforestation, forest fires and sick forests. A dark green visual shows the location of the last remaining tropical rainforests.

| EcoTourism