Blog

Nature on the Edge: Lessons for the Biosphere from the California Coast


My new book from Oregon State University Press will be out in September 2024!

Cover with photo of western cliffs of Tomales Point, Point Reyes National Seashore (photo by the author)
Cover with photo of western cliffs of Tomales Point, Point Reyes National Seashore (photo by the author)

You can pre-order online at Oregon State University’s website:
Nature on the Edge: Lessons for the Biosphere from the California Coast

I hope you enjoy and learn from Nature on the Edge! 

  • Please share this announcement with your friends, colleagues, and students; your favorite local bookstore(s) and book club; and your local library.  
  • Please consider announcing the book or reviewing it in the newsletter of an environmental organization, your local newspaper, or an appropriate magazine or academic journal. 

I am planning a number of in-person events (readings, talks, and book signings) to introduce the book in the San Francisco Bay and Santa Barbara areas beginning in mid-September.

Stay tuned for a schedule of such events!    

Description from the OSU Press catalogue: 

In Nature on the Edge, ecologist Bruce Byers offers readers new perspectives on two iconic California coastal regions, San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate and the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. While many people—in California and elsewhere—are familiar with these two areas, they may not know that they are part of a network of international biosphere reserves organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Nature on the Edge traces the history of nature conservation in these places and introduces the committed individuals who led those efforts and model effective action. 

In compelling dispatches from the edge of the continent, Byers explores topics ranging from butterflies to scrub jays, from salmon to whales. He describes the natural history, ecology, and evolution of key species and ecosystems in scientifically sound but accessible language, and notes that despite all we know, fascinating ecological mysteries still abound. Byers also surveys ecocentric philosophies and worldviews rooted in these places and argues for their importance in developing a more harmonious and sustainable relationship between humans and our home planet. 

UNESCO biosphere reserves are laboratories for understanding how humans affect ecosystems and models for how we can heal the human-nature relationship. While the biosphere concept and network has existed for fifty years now, it is still not well-known by the general public. Today, the US has twenty-eight biosphere reserves. By focusing on two beloved sites in California, Byers draws attention to the important work being done in these reserves around the world, with the goal of inspiring readers to reflection, action, and hope in the face of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental challenges. 

About the author

Bruce A. Byers is an ecologist, writer, and consultant with more than forty years of professional experience in more than forty countries. His work aims to inform and inspire a more ecologically sustainable, equitable, and resilient relationship between humans and the planet. He has worked in thirty-five biosphere reserves in seventeen countries.

_______

This book is a sequel to The View from Cascade Head: Lessons for the Biosphere from the Oregon Coast, which was published in 2020. The new book draws lessons from California’s two international biosphere reserves, Golden Gate and Channel Islands. It has been a few years in the making, and you may remember some stories posted here during earlier phases of my research and writing:  

The sixteen essays in the new book explore a range of subjects, from ecology and evolution to history, anthropology, and philosophy. Indigenous and non-Western ecological worldviews are given special attention. Extensive endnotes and a comprehensive index help interested readers follow up on topics of special interest to them.  

Table of Contents

Robin Chandler, a San Francisco Bay area artist, created an imaginative frontispiece illustration for the book. 

Frontispiece illustration (left page) with Mount Tamalpais and California condor by Robin L. Chandler
Frontispiece illustration (left page) with Mount Tamalpais and California condor by Robin L. Chandler

Nora Sherwood developed simple maps of the two biosphere regions that show key places discussed in the essays.

Map of Golden Gate Biosphere Region by Nora Sherwood
Map of Golden Gate Biosphere Region by Nora Sherwood



About Bruce Byers

Bruce Byers Bruce Byers is an ecologist, writer, and international ecological consultant. His creative nonfiction writing tells stories of science and conservation from around the world. As an independent consultant, he assists government agencies, NGOs, and the private sector in the United States and worldwide with strategies for conserving biodiversity and improving the human-nature relationship.

Leave a Reply




  • Stay in the know!

  • Connect With Me

    Bruce Byers Consulting Facebook Bruce Byers Consulting LinkedIn Bruce Byers Consulting Email

  • Recent Posts

    Nature on the Edge: Lessons for the Biosphere from the California Coast My new book from Oregon State University Press will be out in September 2024! You can pre-order online at Oregon State University’s website: Nature on the Edge: Lessons for the Biosphere from the California Coast I hope you enjoy and learn from Nature on the Edge!  I am planning a number of in-person events (readings, …...
    The View from Mukuntuweap February 2024. The canyons here are eroded into mostly Jurassic strata that were deposited near sea level roughly 200 million years ago, and later folded up by orogenic forces that raised them to elevations of up to 10,000 feet. In the recent instant of geological history since our human species reached this continent, this landscape …...
    The Cream in the Gooseberry Fool It’s a tale of obsession, religion, money, passion, beauty, science, and sex—every good story should have at least some sex in it, right? And it’s a tale of mystery. Actually, it’s two interwoven tales. The first relates to the Reverend Gilbert Henry Raynor, rector of Hazeleigh, a small village in Essex, England, at the turn …...
    Revisiting Poetry Cove August 2023. In my last story, I wrote about revisiting the tidepool at Middle Cove of Cape Arago on the central Oregon coast where I’d done some of my doctoral research. On that trip I also went back to another significant place at Cape Arago that I call “Poetry Cove.” Here’s the background: During my …...
    Revisiting the Great Tidepool Sunday, August 13, 2023. It was a decent low tide, less than a foot below the MLLW (mean of lower low water), the “0” of tide tables, but still low enough to easily get into the mid-intertidal zone. And at a decent hour too, a little after 0-dark-thirty. It was already starting to get light …...
    Whalers and Quakers On a recent trip to Cape Cod, we spent the first night in New Bedford, Massachusetts, once known as “the city that lit the world” because its whaling fleet was the largest in the world and whale oil was the fuel of choice for oil lamps (and spermaceti, from sperm whales, for the best candles). …...
    Walking the Cape with Henry Cape Cod, Thoreau’s last book, begins with “Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of the ocean…” and the final sentence concludes “A man may stand there and put all America behind him.” It was published posthumously in 1865, three years after his early death from tuberculosis at the age of …...
    The View from Limuw The indigenous inhabitants of the island called it limuw, “in the ocean.” A prosaic but apt geographical name for the place. The name has a very matter-of-fact, here and now implication. But the Spanish who explored the Chumash Channel and its islands beginning in the 16th century and colonized the area with their string of …...
    The Chumash Channel and its Islands When Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo sailed into the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, he found a thriving indigenous maritime culture living along the coasts and on the Channel Islands. One thing that impressed the Spaniards were the large seagoing canoes. One major coastal village had so many canoes on the beach that Cabrillo called it …...
    The Art of Ecological Restoration on Santa Cruz Island The large fabric print hanging on the west wall of the dining room of the Santa Cruz Island Reserve research station caught my eye immediately. A tangle of creatures drawn in detailed black covered the white background, intertwining in almost Escher-like fashion. There were sheep and foxes, eagles and jays, oaks and mallows, skunks and …...