The Ecology Of Hope

The Ecology of Hope is a remarkably upbeat account of a number of communities where collaboration among different factions and interest groups has led to breakthrough consensus on plans for achieving sustainability. The authors reveal the hopeful trend toward unanimous agreement on difficult local resource issues in forestry, rangeland, watershed and fisheries management in which citizens, government, business and even one-time foes form exciting collaborative partnerships.

The Ecology of Hope recounts the stories of seven communities helping to blaze this new trail:

• the Menominee Indians of northern Wisconsin who pioneered a progressive forest management program;
• environmental restoration and biodiversity stewardship projects in Ohio, and the Chicago metropolitan area;
• ground-breaking consensus in a highly polarized Californian logging town, and a rangeland-dependent community on the New Mexico-Arizona border;
• a unique plan to develop tourism yet preserve traditional lifeways on a small Maine coast island; and
• an ambitious experiment to protect world class coastal resources on Virginia's eastern shore while promoting long-term, ecologically sensible commerce.

The authors weigh what has worked and what has not, and trace hopeful routes toward sustainable resource management applicable to communities everywhere.