Nature's Bookshelf

Best science and nature writing of 2006

2007-09-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

by Ray Zimmerman

It’s no secret that millions of native peoples around the world have been pushed off their land to make room for big oil, big metal, big timber, and big agriculture. But few people realize that the same thing has happened for a much nobler cause: land and wildlife conservation. Today the list of culture-wrecking institutions put forth by tribal leaders on almost every continent includes not only Shell, Texaco, Freeport, and Bechtel, but also more surprising names like Conservation International (CI), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Even the more culturally sensitive World Conservation Union (IUCN) might get a mention.” – “Conservation Refugees,” Mark Dowie
Mark Dowie partnered with Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 to conduct research that led to his article “Conservation Refugees,” which originally appeared in Orion. He brought to this enterprise a wealth of experiences gained by writing over 200 articles, which won him eighteen journalism awards. He is a former editor of Mother Jones magazine and a seasoned investigative reporter.
As the World Bank and its Global Environmental Facility encourage countries on every continent to set land aside for conservation through such programs as the debt-for-nature swap, Dowie is adamant that conservation organizations begin to respond to the challenge of including indigenous people in the planning process. He quotes Masai Leader Martin Saning’o, who makes the claim, “We are the original conservationists.”
Dowie traces the history of evicting native people for conservation as far back as the creation of Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks in the United States and challenges conservationists to find a better way. He mentions India’s official figure of 1.6 million conservation refugees.
“Conservation Refugees” is only one article appearing in “The Best American Science and Nature Writing: 2006.” His arguments are balanced by an article later in the volume, “Out of Time” by Paul Raffaele, who took readers of Smithsonian on a narrated journey to the land of the Batwa people in Brazil’s Javari Valley, a well protected exclusion zone in the Amazon region. Raffaele introduced readers to Sidney Possuelo, South America’s leading expert on remote Indian tribes. Possuelo researches by helicopter and airplane and rarely makes contact with the groups he is sworn to protect as a government agent. He interprets ‘protect’ to mean interfere as little as possible with the native culture and allow the people to continue their traditional ways.
Possuelo has been threatened and his camp surrounded by those who would enter the exclusion zone for profit or missionary work. Loggers, miners and other entrepreneurs would like to conduct commerce with the Indians or displace them to carry out extractive industry. Church leaders are especially interested in contacting them for the purpose of winning new converts. Interestingly enough, these twin motivations of commerce and conversion first brought Europeans to the American continents.
Possuelo would only allow Raffaele to visit one village. The people lived in a nearly stone-age culture but had wondered so close to the edge of the exclusion zone, contact was inevitable. This gave Raffaele an opportunity to meet and investigate one small sample of the Batwa away from the isolated main village of their tribe.
This pair of articles only hints at the many topics addressed in “Best Science and Nature Writing: 2006.” The editors looked at hundreds of articles to select the best for this volume. Topics range from a description of the Chandra orbiting X-Ray telescope to the source of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Computer aficionados will especially like “The Blogs of War” from Wired and “Torrential Reign” from Fortune. The second of these articles describes the development of Bit Torrent software, the first software for transfer of large files on the internet.
Two articles unmask the pseudoscience of intelligent design. In “Show Me the Science,” from the “New York Times,” Daniel C. Dennett quotes intelligent-design proponent and affiliate of the Discovery Institute, George Gilder, who said, “Intelligent design itself does not have any content.” He proposes a few steps intelligent-design proponents could take to legitimize their claims, including publication in a peer-reviewed journal, conducting experiments with testable hypotheses and investigating genomes or the fossil record.
Articles in “Best Science and Nature Writing: 2006” are both informative and enjoyable. A few articles on physics and astrophysics are highly technical, but most articles in the volume are an easy read. Brian Greene, guest editor, is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University. He has published two books, “The Elegant Universe,” and “The Fabric of the Cosmos.” Tim Folger, series editor, is a contributing editor at Discover and writes science articles for several magazines.

Jeff Biggers chronicles cultural innovators

2007-07-02T17:48:00.000-07:00

By Ray Zimmerman

Appalachia needs no defense – it needs more defenders,” begins Jeff Biggers’ book, “The United States of Appalachia.” I was privileged to see Biggers speak with eloquence and passion at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga and interview him during his book signing tour of 2006.
Biggers believes in the human connection to the land. He says our music, writing and culture depend upon that connection. His own connection to the land is rooted in a 200 year-old cabin and a family cemetery lost to the ravages of King Coal.
Biggers’ book was 20 years in the making. During that time, he worked as a freelance writer and radio correspondent for various news organizations, both in the United States and abroad. Along the way, he edited “No Lonesome Road,” the story of Don West - poet, labor organizer, preacher, school superintendent and co-founder of the Highlander Folk School. West was near the end of a long life when Biggers met him, and he credits West as having a major influence on his own life and writing.
“The United States of Appalachia” followed close on the heels of “No Lonesome Road.” In this volume Biggers asserts that many of our American institutions began in Appalachia. The diverse group of writers he celebrates as Appalachian includes Pearl S. Buck, Cormack McCarthy, Willa Cather, Thomas Wolfe, Rebecca Harding Davis, James Sill and Edward Abbey. He also chronicles the innovations of several publishers, including Adolph Ochs of Chattanooga Times and New York Times fame.
Biggers points to the example set by Rosa Parks of the civil rights movement as one influenced by Appalachian innovators. Before refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Parks had attended a seminar at the Highlander Folk School of Tennessee, which was instrumental in training the workers of the Civil Rights Movement.
Although Biggers tends to wax poetic about the contributions of Appalachians to America’s growth and development, he does not gloss over the dangers posed by the mining economy, such as the Buffalo Creek mining disaster of 1972. An illegal earthen dam holding back a coal slurry pond washed out, resulting in a flood that killed 125 people, injured 1,100 and left 4,000 homeless. Biggers stated the mining companies have created hundreds of coal slurry ponds like the one that caused the Buffalo Creek flood. He knows people in the coalfields brace themselves for such disasters, which could happen in any wet, rainy year. As a journalist and a cultural historian, Biggers believes the issue of mountaintop removal must leave the local and regional consciousness and become a national issue before it can be seriously addressed.
Biggers believes Appalachia will continue to be a crossroads of innovators who can move America forward. “The people are an inspiration to me.”
Biggers returned to Chattanooga March 24 for another book signing. “The United States of Appalachia” has now been issued in paperback, and his new book, “In the Sierra Madre,” is available hardbound. It will be released in paperback later this year.
“In the Sierra Madre” chronicles the year Biggers spent living and working with the Raramuri people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon country. Biggers learned the story of these people by working with them in the fields, on wood cutting expeditions and on indigenous construction sites. He also joined local musicians at celebrations where he introduced them to his banjo, joined in as an accompanist to their music and entertained them with Appalachian tunes.
Biggers promotes his books in readings and book signings throughout the nation. His efforts will succeed in an era when that burden of promotion largely falls on the author. Meanwhile, he is working on a book documenting time spent living in India.

Selected Works of Jeff Biggers

2007-07-01T17:49:00.000-07:00

Don West: No Lonesome Road
University of Illinois Press, 2004
Edited by Jeff Biggers and George Brosi
Don West sprang from a southern mountain family to become a populist poet, and teacher, a minister and a labor organizer. With Myles Horton he co-founded the Highlander Folk School and worked throughout his life for the rights of the poor. He was also an early spokesperson for civil rights. In the introduction, Biggers gives a brief biographical sketch tracing the education and history of West, a neglected literary voice of the south. He compares West to the northern populist poet Carl Sandburg, and credits West as a major influence on his own writing.

The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America
Shoemaker & Hoard, 2006
Biggers traces the contributions of southern mountain people to the American Revolution, the publishing industry, the desegregation movement, American Indian rights and cultural growth of the nation. His true stories place Appalachian people in the vanguard of the nation’s development.

In the Sierra Madre
University of Illinois Press, 2006
This book is based on the author’s one-year sojourn in the Sierra Madre. He spent the time living and working with the Raramuri people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon country, the country which was also the setting of the 1948 film, “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston. It was based on the novel with the same title, written by the mysterious B. Traven.
Aside from documenting the Raramuri culture in the village Mawichi, Biggers included descriptions of the villagers’ interaction with Spanish speaking Mexicans, missionaries, and tourists. He also describes the introduction of Raramuri musicians there to his banjo and some Appalachian tunes. The narrative is dense with history, natural history and a view of American-Mexican diplomacy and politics.