Talking environment, saving animals (IANS Books This Weekend)

Loss of flora and fauna poses a massive threat to human existence. To save and protect our environment, IANS has picked up some educational environment books for you to befriend. Take a look.

Book: Green wars: Dispatches from a Vanishing World; Author: Bahar Dutt; Publisher: Harper Collins; Pages: 164; Price: Rs. 299

What is more important, building a modern airport in rural Uttar Pradesh or conserving the shrinking habitat of the Sarus cranes? Producing more palm oil or protecting the orangutan? Do we allow the destruction of pristine forests with their rich flora and fauna so we can generate much-needed hydel power? A modernising economy brings in its wake ecological challenges and misplaced priorities. Development, environment, conservation, global warming - what do they mean in real terms, on the ground, to the people there? Must development always be in conflict with the environment?

Combining rigorous research with the experienced traveller's eye for piquant stories, this conservationist and environment journalist chases some of the biggest stories of our times. From Arunachal Pradesh to the Arctic, from Goa to Gangotri, from illegal mining to climate change, this book journeys to some of the richest wildernesses and explores the tension between a developing economy and saving the planet.

2. Book: Indian Mammals: A Field Guide; Author: Vivek Menon; Publisher: Hachette; Pages; 528; Price: Rs. 850

Covering the rich diversity of mammal species in India, from tigers, elephants, rhinos and whales to primates, rodents and bats, this is a comprehensive, field-ready and illustrated guide.

Accompanied by photographs, supplementary illustrations and maps and based on impeccable scientific research reviewed by experts, this book records details of virtually every mammal known to exist in India.

The book serves up in-depth up-to-date text by the author, who is a naturalist and an authority on

Indian wildlife.

The comprehensive book covers more than 400 species of both land and water mammals, has over 1,000 curated photographs and nearly 150 distribution maps.

3. Book: The Lonely Tiger; Author: Hugh Allen; Publisher; Rainlight; Pages: 214; Price: Rs. 395

This book recounts the author's encounters with animals of all kinds: snappish tigers in heat; a wounded, angry leopard; a surly, murderous boar; chattering, helpful monkeys; an enraged she-bear protecting her cubs; and a melancholy tiger which has lost its family to poachers.

4. Book: Environment And Social Theory; Author: John Barry; Publisher: Routledge; Pages: 350; Price: Rs. 795

The book outlines the complex interlinking of the environment, nature and social theory from ancient and pre-modern thinking to contemporary social theorising. It explores the essentially contested character of the environment and nature within social theory, and draws attention to the need for critical analysis whenever the term nature and environment are used in debate and argument.