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Dreams
of Amazonia
--The
Cleveland Plain Dealer
--Scientific
American
--Houston
Chronicle The vanishing
rain forest has emerged as a symbol of our troubled environment. But how
much do we really know about this fragile, exquisitely beautiful, and profoundly
misunderstood ecosystem? Since the sixteenth century, when explorers first
came in search of El Dorado, people have sought to exploit its elusive
riches. Today Amazonia faces extinction at the hands of a new breed of
fortune hunter: developers.
In fascinating detail, Roger D. Stone writes of the history, ecology, politics, and economics of this endlessly alluring region. With expertise and insight, he addresses the question of how Amazonia can be preserved and can be economically viable at the same time. |
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The
Voyage of the Sanderling: Exploring the Ecology of the Atlantic Coast from
Maine to Rio
--William
Warner, author of "Beautiful Swimmers"
--Charles
Bracelen Flood
--Peter
Matthiessen
Roger Stone -- conservationist, chronicler of the natural world, and eager sailor -- set off in the summer of 1986 from Camden, Maine, in a 38-foot cutter called Sanderling, heading south. In April 1988, he and his crew completed the adventurous 8,000 mile cruise that took them all the way to Rio. Their plan and their accomplishment: to assess, from a valuable and neglected perspective, the environmental crisis afflicting the entire Atlantic coast of North and South America; to report on how that coast has changed in the five hundred years since the first Europeans arrived; and to evaluate its prospects for the future. Stone's gripping account of Sanderling's odyssey gives firsthand evidence of the many kinds of pollution besetting the eastern seaboard. He highlights the work being done by determined local people whose livelihoods depend on a healthy ocean -- fishermen, scientists, and others who are struggling to conserve their threatened shores. He carries us from New England and the rivers and bays of the Chesapeake region to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Georgia's Golden Isles, from the Bahamas and Cuba's hitherto forbidden north shore to the development obsessed islands of the Caribbean -- and finally, in a 1,640 mile passage against wind and current, to Brazil, and further experiences along its little visited coast. All along the way from Maine to Rio, Stone talked with scientists, conservationists, and experts, some of whom we see joining Sanderling as passengers and becoming part of the adventure, adding their new insights on the coast's decline. And, in rueful counterpoint, Stone reminds us how the unspoiled Atlantic shores were described in the journals of early navigators. The Voyage of the Sanderling is both a warning and an encouragement: the Atlantic coast is in trouble, but if we learn how to commit our energies to its restoration, it will recover. |
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The
Nature of Development
A few years ago, Roger Stone undertook a formidable challenge: to travel to representative villages in the tropical corners of the developng world to see how and whether economic development plans had improved the quality of peoples lives while also preserving each region's rich plant and animal life. In The Nature of Development, Stone reports on his findings and offers a lively prescription for sustainable economic growth that is environmentally sane and economically sound. By commercial and missionary airplane, bus, off-road vehicle, and dugout canoe--and of course by means of wearying foot journeys--Roger Stone reached his far flung destinations all over Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Once there, he lived, waled, and talked at length with many diverse peoples: the Awa of Ecuador and Colombia; the Oku, who live near Kilum Mountain in Cameroon; the Hatam of the Arfak Mountains in Indonesia's Irian Jaya province; the resourceful, if underequipped, wardens of Zambia's national park services; the fishermen and farmers of a St. Lucia that Caribbean tourists seldom discover. While in the Amazon basin, he found sad tales of people without a future and of relentless enviornmewntal losses. More often, though, he returned with stories of hope and encouragement. For, as The Nature of Development shows, conservation and economic-development agencies can work together, and the governments of poor and rich countries alike can cooperate to improve human lives and stop disastrous ecological losses in the world's richest habitats. As new imperatives replace the global preoccupation with warfare and reckless modes of development, Stone's book carries a resonant and important message about how we have mistreated our habitats in the past and how we can achieve a new environmental world order. |
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A New Vision for Long
Island: A pioneering brochure widely distributed on Long Island in 1996 that promotes many aspects of Smart Growth. Extracted from FairTide: Sailing Towards Long Island's Future, the 57 recommendations represent a framework of current works in-progress and those remaining to be done." |
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FairTide:
Sailing Toward Long Island's Future
--Dennis
Puleston, Environmental Defense Fund CoFounder
--William
W. Warner, Pulitzer Prize Winner
From the strange juxtaposition of the supersonic Concorde and the glossy ibis on the outskirts of Kennedy Airport--not to mention their uncanny similarity in profile--to the pastel golfers and ruddy turnstones of the Hamptons' Sebonac Creek, Roger Stone's incisive book challenges the conventional wisdom that the balance between a vibrant economy and a healthy environment is a zero-sum game. Rather, he argues, Long Island's competitive economic advantage is its environmental quality. Aboard the elderly sailboat, Piper, Stone embarks on a modern-day voyage of discovery. In circumnavigating Long Island he seeks not riches or new lands, but a new vision for this well-worn region's future. Transcending the broadaxe frontier psychology that has ruled the country's development for so long, he charts innovative routes toward a more stable, environmentally based economy. Three hundred years of rampant exploitation of the island's once plentiful natural resources, coupled with unbridled, unplanned development has not led to the promised land so loudly bally-hooed by politicial leaders, but to a region groaning under a confiscatory tax burden, the highest energy costs in the nation and a seesaw economy more prone to bust than to boom. But all is far from lost. The island's species diversity remains high, the beaches are splendid, the fishing is often good and the climate continues to be modulated by the passing Gulf Stream. And, most importantly, Long Island's people are waking up to their own strength. In this well-researched and hopeful book, Stone contends that pressure for change comes almost always from without the halls of entrenched power, and that an involved, organized citizenry is essential to promote new and better policies. He urges people everywhere to band together to seize the wheel of their own ship, as Long Island and the nation set sail toward a more rational future. |
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About the Author Roger D. Stone has traveled widely, often on the water, while working on five books and many articles about economic- environmental relationships in various parts of the world. He serves as director and president of the Sustainable Development Institute in Washington D.C., and as a member of the board of directors of organizations including Scenic Hudson and the Caribbean Corporation. Stone was formerly a vice-president at the World Wildlife Fund, vice-president at Chase Manhattan Bank and a correspondant and news chief for Time Magazine. At the Council for Foreign Relations, Mr. Stone served as the Consultant on Environmental Issues and was the Whitney H. Shephardson Fellow. |
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"This book is a remarkaly personal report of the authors' trans-tropical experiences with forest dwellers. The experiences were extensive, sometimes spanning years, and the account is the work of professional reporters, skilled at reaching to the core of critical issues of life and survival. The story is not a pretty one, and the prognoissi is not good. But in their eyes the key lies in restoring and defending the rights of forest dwellers and encouraging in every way their age-old interest in preserving the integrity of forestlands." George M Woodwell For twenty years, we have watched TV specials on the destruction of tropical forests - an acre a second lost, every second for twenty years. This beautifully written book takes you right to the middle of the current international debate about what to do about it. It offers a perspective that cannot be ignored and an answer that needs to be tried. James Gustave Speth "Stone and D'Andrea capture important lessons about the merits of local control over forest resources. Their wide-ranging portrayal of community-based forest management, set within the global context of deforestation and loss of biodiversity, provides compelling testimony to the wisdom of empowering local people and nurturing their spirit as effective forest stewards. Kathryn S. Fuller Tropical forests are vanishing at an alarming rate. This book, based on extensive international field research, highlights one solution for preserving this precious resource: empowering local people who depend on the forest for their survival. With engagingly written case studies from Thailand's Golden Triangle to Mindanao in the Philippines, from Indonesia, India, and Africa to Central and South America, Roger D. Stone and Claudia D'Andrea introduce us to the communities and the individuals, governments, loggers, agencies, and local groups who vie for forest resources. Stone and D'Andrea discuss the many reasons why international institutions and national governments have been unable and unwilling to stem the accelerating loss of tropical forestlands - and how local communities can often to better.
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Sustainable Development Institute, SDI
Copyright©1999 [SDI]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 02/24/02.