Where Land and Water Meet: A Western Landscape Transformed (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

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Description

Water and land interrelate in surprising and ambiguous ways, and riparian zones, where land and water meet, have effects far out of doors their boundaries. The use of the Malheur Basin in southeastern Oregon as a case study, this intriguing and nuanced book explores the ways people have envisioned boundaries between water and land, the ways they’ve altered these places, and the regularly unintended results.

The Malheur Basin, once home to the largest cattle empires on the planet, experienced unintended widespread environmental degradation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After establishment in 1908 of Malheur National Flora and fauna Refuge as a secure breeding ground for migratory birds, and its expansion in the 1930s and 1940s, the area experienced equally extreme intended modifications aimed at restoring riparian habitat. Refuge managers ditched wetlands, channelized rivers, applied Agent Orange and rotenone to waterways, killed beaver, and cut down willows. Where Land and Water Meet examines the reasoning at the back of and effects of these interventions, gleaning lessons from their successes and screw ups.

Although remote and specific, the Malheur Basin has myriad ecological and political connections to much larger places. This detailed look at one tangled history of riparian restoration shows how―through appreciation of the complexity of environmental and social influences on land use, and through effective handling of conflict―people can discover ways to practice a style of pragmatic adaptive resource management that avoids rigid adherence to single agendas and fosters improved relationships with the land.

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