Gardeners Of Eden: Rediscovering Our Importance To Nature

by Dan Dagget

Dan Dagget believes that humanity can have a positive effect on the land.  He demonstrates case after case of positive human engagement in the environment and of managed ecosystems and restored areas that are richer, more diverse, and healthier than unmanaged ones. Much of pre-Columbian America, he contends, was not a pristine wilderness but an ancient garden managed over millennia by native peoples who shaped the plant and animal communities around them to the mutual benefit of all.

Dagget recommends a new kind of environmentalism based on management, science, evolution, and holism, and served by humans who enrich the environment even as they benefit from it. His new environmentalism offers hopeful solutions to the current ecological crisis and a new purpose for our human energies and ideals. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the earth and anyone seeking a viable way for our burgeoning human population to continue to live upon it.
 
 

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Sue Rahilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

America is further ahead in the development of the concept that "locking-up" country does not work for conservation.
Mankind is part of nature and if we are removed, landscapes may go totally feral.
Good management by man is required for gppd conservation.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gardeners of Eden is a five-star book with a serious, pseudoscientific flaw. As such, it could do more harm than good if people read it with less-than-critical eye.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes the case for conservation and restoration through working landscapes rather than inviolate preserves in the west. Suggests many federal land managers don't know what they are doing.