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Extreme Conservation: Life at the Edges of the World
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About Extreme Conservation: Life At The Edges Of The World
Product Description "Extraordinary. . . . Berger is a hero of biology who deserves the highest honors that science can bestow."—Tim Flannery, New York Review of Books On the Tibetan Plateau, there are wild yaks with blood cells thinner than those of horses’ by half, enabling the endangered yaks to survive at 40 below zero and in the lowest oxygen levels of the mountaintops. But climate change is causing the snow patterns here to shift, and with the snows, the entire ecosystem. Food and water are vaporizing in this warming environment, and these beasts of ice and thin air are extraordinarily ill-equipped for the change. A journey into some of the most forbidding landscapes on earth, Joel Berger’s Extreme Conservation is an eye-opening, steely look at what it takes for animals like these to live at the edges of existence. But more than this, it is a revealing exploration of how climate change and people are affecting even the most far-flung niches of our planet. Berger’s quest to understand these creatures’ struggles takes him to some of the most remote corners and peaks of the globe: across Arctic tundra and the frozen Chukchi Sea to study muskoxen, into the Bhutanese Himalayas to follow the rarely sighted takin, and through the Gobi Desert to track the proboscis-swinging saiga. Known as much for his rigorous, scientific methods of developing solutions to conservation challenges as for his penchant for donning moose and polar bear costumes to understand the mindsets of his subjects more closely, Berger is a guide par excellence. He is a scientist and storyteller who has made his life working with desert nomads, in zones that typically require Sherpas and oxygen canisters. Recounting animals as charismatic as their landscapes are extreme, Berger’s unforgettable tale carries us with humor and expertise to the ends of the earth and back. But as his adventures show, the more adapted a species has become to its particular ecological niche, the more devastating climate change can be. Life at the extremes is more challenging than ever, and the need for action, for solutions, has never been greater. Review “Berger’s extraordinary new book Extreme Conservation reveals just how hard-won knowledge about various Arctic species is. . . . Berger’s research has taken him to two of Earth’s three poles: the Arctic and the ‘third pole,’ the Tibetan plateau. He has had to work in all-but-impossible situations—for example, in restricted military areas where he was opposed by bureaucrats, and in the most remote parts of Mongolia and Bhutan, where cultural differences can make research very difficult. In the US, he succeeded in securing pronghorn migration routes, convincing ranchers and oilmen of the necessity of setting aside land for conservation. Berger has a record of achieving great things in the toughest places on earth. Yet he is not always welcome. . . . Berger is a committed conservationist whose work has increased the chance that musk oxen, saiga antelopes, takin, and pronghorns will survive. But is such altruism sufficient to induce someone to live a life of freezing discomfort, trauma, frequent failure, and social alienation? As a biologist who undertook twenty-six expeditions to remote parts of Melanesia, I have some insights into the life Berger has chosen. Yes, the idea that you might be helping species survive is a powerful incentive. But another reason that near-death experiences don’t put you off is incurable curiosity: you just have to know what’s over that next mountain, or what that next observation will bring. . . . I gave up in my forties, when those mountains just seemed to be getting steeper and more exhausting to climb, and I began to believe that I might actually die in the field. But Berger continues, his hair graying and his body crying out for rest. He is a hero of biology who deserves the highest honors that science can bestow.” -- Tim Flannery ― New York Review of Books "Conserving wildlife at the ex
