Cover Image: Thinking Like a Mountain

Thinking Like a Mountain

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Member Reviews

This was a breezy, pleasant read. It was surprisingly quick, and yet chock full of content. As a student of environmental science, many of the things described in this book did not come as a surprise to me but the urgency and expertise of the author was clearly visible. This would be a good read for someone who was trying to understand the point of view of a conservation biologist in the climate change debate, since complex scientific ideas are distilled into somewhat simpler layman terms. That being said, there was a lot of jargon and a basic understanding of population ecology would come in handy if you decide to pick this up.

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I was excited to see the title "Thinking like a Mountain", a phrase popular by Aldo Leopold in his book "A Sand County Almanac".

R. Edward Grumbine is passionate when stating there is, "no endangered ecosystem act" and he writes, "from an ecosystem perspective, people are uterly dependent on biodiversity but so far, biological or economic meta-analyses to the consequenes of reducing biodiversity have not done much to alter peoples everyday behavior."

When I'm not blogging, I enjoy hiking at preserves and praries and this book provides a wealth of information that I was not aware of. There's a section on page 39 which explains that not all species benefit from edges and that forest songbirds have seen declines. Grumbine goes on to explain, "nest predation and parasitism increase dramatically near the edge of habitat patches. Much of this is because of increased population of racoons, skunks, opossums, and other middle-sized ominovores that thrive in fragmented landscapes."

Anyone who hikes the same preserve over a period will notice change. It's simply impossible not to. Up north of us, once stood sand dunes and praries with grasses and flowers. Between the dunes were wetlands with mucky, rich soil. These areas harbored a diverse landscape of rare plants and animals but today are a mere shadow of what they once were as fragmentation and land developement changed the landscape - trees crowded, groundwater levels flucuated, and invasive plants caused change to the landscape.

A thought provoking detail in the book reminds us, "Humans discount species that are difficult to interact with, that do their work unseen- spiders, soil, invertebrates, mycorrhizal, fungi, insects and so on." Unfortunately, the emerald ash borer, an exotic beetle from Asia, attacked the ash trees here causing a large precentage to fall or be removed. In cases where the trees are diseased or weak, removal will aid in providing more sunlight for rare plants to thrive. However, this must be watched closely to make sure invasive plants are contained. The “American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” of 2009 has helped begin the restoration of habitats with other native trees.

Yes, the natural world is a community to which we all belong and as the author eloquently points out, "Mountains may be silent, but they also lift the human spirit, they are role models for the long run and the far-reaching view.

I thought this was a very good book....the author does refer to his previous book Ghost Bears...and you can tell all his books are a labor of love. This book does provide a few images and ilustrations that are also enjoyable. A valuable book, well worth the time to read

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Informative and interesting. Though the book was not parallel with the topic I still loved it

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