999 research outputs found
Private Property Rights to Wildlife: The Southern African Experiment.
No full textIn most nations around the world wildlife are owned and managed by the State. However, in the past 30 years Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa have altered their legal regimes to give full control over the use of wildlife to the private owners of the land on which the wildlife are located. Following the privatization of wildlife management in southern African nations, wildlife tourism on private lands has boomed. In Zimbabwe, a majority of many desirable species - including 94 percent of eland, 64 percent of kudu, 63 percent of giraffe, 56 percent of cheetah, and 53 percent of both sable and impala - are found on commercial ranch properties. In Namibia, wildlife populations on private lands have risen by 80 percent since the creation in 1967 of a regime of private wildlife ownership. Privatization of control over use of wildlife has had more success in promoting biodiversity in the southern African region than any other policy measure. Other parts of the world may be able to benefit from the lessons learned from the successes of southern African nations in privatization and commercialization of wildlife. Based on the southern African experience, many wildlife managers should reconsider whether positive incentives might not be more effective in the future in promoting wildlife populations than the past club of state commands and controls.Wildlife; Privatization; Africa; Biodiversity; Economic Development
Dr Muir and Patient
No full textDr. Kay Muir of the UK works on patient at the Eastman Dental Dispensary (1955)
Letter from [author unknown] to John Muir, 1895 Dec 23.
No full textSomers, Dec. 23rd. 1895.Mr. John Muir,Your book “The Mountains of California” has given such pleasure to one reader that she wishes to express gratitude to the author. My trip was a limited one and taken many years ago, but so far as ray experience went, your book confirms and revives my impressions. It was read with keen enjoyment and sympathy and many another will follow its pages with the same zest. The lines were not inspired by the book, but perhaps they will be in touch with it. My name has no significance and so it is not signed, but perhaps it will gratify you to know that your descriptions have brought some of the glories you have seen to an obscure person in an obscure village.Merced.Merced, Merced, thy crystal waveO\u27er granite sands doth flow, Whereon the vagrant sunbeams weaveA net of gold below.Thy banks are daintily besetWith ferns and grasses fine And beds of snowy violetThe tangled roots entwine.The stately rocks (E1 CapitanCathedral, Brothers Three) Within thy bosom hold divanIn tranquil majesty.Unaltered \u27neath the flowing tideThose sharp reflections dwell; E\u27en so while busy lustrums glideEndures thy beauty\u27s spell.[Envelope containing letter inscribed, in Muir\u27s handwriting, “Miss No Name, Somers, Cal.”]02054https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/25216/thumbnail.jp
The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2010/2011
No full textPage 1 transcription missing
PAGE 2 John Muir Back and Newsletter Going Digital After a year, we are back! Last year we announced that we would become an occasional newsletter, projecting two issues per year. We only released one issue this past year. In an age of high cost of reproduction and mailing we have decided to follow the trail of other newsletters by going digital. Those with e mail can continue to receive at no charge the newsletter as part of a web serve list. Simply e mail us at [email protected] and we will include you in our future announcements and you will receive a PdF version of the Newsletter. Those who do not have web access, please send us a short note requesting a hard copy of the Newsletter. We suggest a donation of nln 1 869: OYamhte, to tne AMmmll al JlLount Jy^olLmxxAt, eX&Q&n tnauAana LeeX, nian, tne, hiatve&t paint in wle. 6, iawun&n nvn LeeX, natie. net taucnea. From Mount Hoffman John Muir My First Summer in the Sierra By Terry G if ford Your \u27ramble\u27 up from the Valley To spend a night on this bare mountain, A steep ascent of five thousand feet, Left me breathless before I turned the page. And even starting from Snow Flat I was pleased to pause on a real chair (My first in weeks of boulder- seats) Left outside by the tree-stump table Amongst the cabins of May Lake Camp. Breathless from the final scramble And the view, looking down on Half Dome, Cloud\u27s Rest, far glaciers and Tenaya Lake, I sit quite still and meet the marmots Smiling eerily like cats as they creep Out from their crevices, expecting to be fed. Disgusted by these half-tame summit pets I turn and scree-slide down the dusty trail To bathe my legs in the clear May Lake. From: Terry Gifford, Reconnecting with John Muir (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2006), p. 131. John Muir Event at Pacif April 13 On April 13, 2011, a special John Mur event will be held in the Janet Leigh Theater at University of the Pacific. From 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. photographer Scot Miller will give a presentation on his work in the illustration of the 100th anniversary edition of My First Summer in the Sierra. From 7:30 until 9:15 p.m., film maker Catherine Tatge of Global Village Media will give a brief introduction to her film John Muir in the New World . This is a biographical documentary of the extraordinary life of John Muir and his influence on American history. The 90 minute film, which is sched uled to be broadcast on the PBS American Masters series on April 18, will be shown after Ms. Tatge\u27s introduction. From 9:15 until 10:00 p.m. there will be a reception and book signing by Scot Miller.
Page 3 Mike Wurtz In the archives 2010 Online Inventory of Muir Papers is Updated By Michael Wurtz Holt-Atherton Special Collections University of the Pacific Library Recently, the staff of the Holt-Atherton Special Collections had announced the addition of thousands of John Muir correspondence to the web - library.pacific.edu/ha/muir and click on digitized material. This was added to images of Muir\u27s drawings, photographs, and journals. These digital assets have been a tremendous help to researchers around the world. However, there is still much of the collection that is not available online. Digitally scanning and loading the entirety of John Muir Papers and other collections would be a daunting task, so only the most useful and significant items are made available via the web at this time. In addition to all the new online material, we have updated the John Muir Papers finding aid. A finding aid, sometimes referred to as a finding guide, could be considered an inventory, table of contents, index, and annotated bibliography all in one. Collections that are the size and scope of the Muir Papers cannot be easily itemized. Atypical six inch box can hold over a thousand individual documents. To list and describe each of those items would take a great deal of time. Archivists have chosen to organize collections along the lines of what the creator (in this case, John Muir) intended. Once we have created the categories (such as letters, drawings, published materials, etc.) we describe them in slightly more specific terms, such as by date or location or subject. Then the researcher must request the items by folder or box. The online material represents the richest portion of the John Muir Papers. However, it is a minority of all the Muir material. The microform project that was completed in the 1980s includes much more of the collection, but still not every item. The entire collection resides at Holt- Atherton Special Collections in the University of the Pacific Library. How can the researcher find out about what is in the materials that are not accessible via the web or microform? The online finding aid is the answer. It lists the contents to every folder in the collection. For example, researchers will find that the Papers contain most of the collected bibliography of Muir as listed in Kimes\u27 John Muir: A Reading Bibliography. They will also find photographs that have been donated to the collection since the microform project was completed. In addition, the collection includes Muir biographer William F. Bade\u27s transcriptions of many of Muir\u27s Journals, as well as Bade\u27s collected reminiscences, and personal letters. One can also find Linnie Marsh Wolfe\u27s correspondence and papers as she wrote her biography of Muir, and her transcriptions of some of Muir journals. Papers from the Strenzel and Muir family including legal and business papers for the Muir ranch in Martinez are also available. There is also poetry to and about Muir; John Muir\u27s clipping files that he kept on many different topics and memorabilia that includes Muir\u27s odds and ends such as passenger lists, maps and botanical information from trips he took around the world. Researchers can also find a few real jewels within the John Muir Papers that have never made it to microform or online including photographs of construction of the Half Dome Cables Trail in 1919 and clippings on early California agriculture that were probably collected by Muir and his father-in-law, John Strentzel. To get to the finding aid for the John Muir Papers, visit library.pacific.edu/ha/muir/find and click on Finding Aid of the John Muir Papers. From the above website, researchers are invited to click on Related Collections. Here, researchers can see over a dozen finding aids to other Muir related collections that the University of the Pacific Library holds.
Page 4 Charles E. Swann\u27s Military Map of Kentucky and Tennessee www.davidrumsey.com &heJve, \A nathlna, nuyce, eXaauenl in. JLatwie, than a nvoumXain fivtteam, ana Void, id, tne, Ia/iaI s eXleA, daw.. . . (continued from page 1) Muir\u27s choices of routes, and through comparison to modern maps. Some of the maps examined were George Woolworth Colton\u27s 1869 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee, 9 A.J. Johnson\u27s 1866 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee, 10 as well as all the relevant, internet- available maps from the collections of the Library of Congress11, the David Rumsey collection of historical maps12, and the historical map archive of the University of Alabama.13 These comparisons show that the best available map from the era of Muir\u27s walk is Charles E. Swann\u27s 1863 Military Map of Kentucky and Tennessee. 14 Also valuable because it gives the names and characteristics of roads, is N. Michler\u27s 1862 Map of Middle and East Tennessee.15 The 1863 map Mountain Region of North Carolina and Tennessee by W. L. Nicholson and A. Lindenkohl16 has almost twice the scale and was useful for confirming the previous two maps. Finally, the General Topographical Map by Julius Bien & Co. was issued by the United States War Department in 1895, but it was part of an Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861- 1865 and seems to show features as they existed in 1865, not 1895. Sheet XV is the relevant map.17 None of these maps show features with the accuracy and scale with which we are familiar today. None of them show elevation contours; however the General Topographical Map of Julius Bien mentioned above depicts mountain- David Rumsey Map Collection r.........,n, I ous terrain through the use of hachures. The earliest maps that would today be considered topographic maps are the 30 minute quadrangles18 issued by the US Geological Survey in the 1890s. These were surveyed two or three decades after Muir\u27s walk, so they need to be used judiciously and in connection with the Civil War- era maps. Reconstructing the route In order to reconstruct Muir\u27s probable route, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf and Muir\u27s journal for the trip were searched for geographical clues, then a reasonable route was traced out on Civil War-era maps. That information was then transferred to topographical maps from the 1890s, and then transferred to modern maps. The result of this process has been recorded on Google maps.19 To see this map, go to http:// maps.google.com/ Click on search options. On the drop-down menu, select User-created maps. Type in John Muir Cumberland. Click on search maps. Then click on John Muir\u27s Crossing of the Cumberland to see Muir\u27s route and places visited along the way. This process is for the most part easier than it sounds, and while it cannot be and does not pretend to be exact, most individuals performing the process would come up with a very similar route; however a researcher possessing detailed local historical and geographical knowledge could probably improve the end result. According to Muir\u27s journal and A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, Muir passed through Burkesville, Kentucky on September 8. He (i.nriivil inttncjf.-Tphk.-il m,sp. Sh^r-1 XV. lull us Hkn A Co.r I itfe.., \.Y. (EH\u27J] ifw:*) The author found this map of the Cumberland drawn in 1895, but represents this area from the Civil War, to have provided the most detail of that area from the time that Muir passed through. (captured from the David Rumsey Map Collection website)
page 5 Google rn a PS John Muir Cumborl and Search Maps 6M Cmrtiom UlMUX Save 1oM» Mans Jolin Muir\u27s Crossln-g of Hie Cumberland My cost estimation ti4 ihe route t aken b| John Muir when he crossad tho Cumberland Plateau on 10.11, and 12 September 1 ST. Thw was pan of Mun\u27i wilh horn Lour*rfle. Kairtiicky.to Cedar h\u3ejr. Fkwde. 0\u3es.cnfced ^ Ins boor: *A Thousand-Mae Walk To 1h* GuT Red poioLert re-piesert towns v.s*ed bj Mini. Qfue\u3e poeTtera iapres*nl ailee to w* too ** to 901 b tew* of what Muir saw in 1867 Map by Dan Si yei. 7Z eiawa - Publ ic C» *!»d on Aug 38.2QB - Updated Mat 31 By Dan Slyer PM* Ineirtip-Will* tHrtrt»nt fftjftaaili KY Mun pasted through on 8 Septeenoir 1967 tjaraeslawn. 1H Muir passed through on 10 Seplerribe r 1887. ftnonuoirion. TH Howe ghost Irjwn Hur passed through in Che fflafleee] ol 17 Senteenbei 1967 t Kingston TN Mlui tie (Bit ten the night, of 1? Senlembar 1867 / Mull\u27. Wllle tnybesl eetlnwiion of the roule liken by John Mue wSoo ha ciassed the Cnmberland Placeau on 10. 11. and 12 Seplernoor 1867. This best eelmiatBd mule mosltp follows moderrt-datr roaoH, tot or places (a tf\u27T\u27 \u27 Blurts, rocknSut*s, natoril avclves. fpapa Cmk Sale Malum fraa 5tal* Natuul Area Jkichee and watereat* In Ihe 1356 Wwibuig (uadranuje, this lit! was called simply The Wideirwss 5 John Muir Cgmbe dand The author posted this user-created map of John Muir\u27s 1867 route through the Cumberland on Google maps. The map includes clickable points with information and photographs of places that Muir had visited. Instructions for finding this map online are included in the article. crossed the state line into Tennessee towards evening 20 on September 9. The next day, after a few miles of level ground 21 Muir walked upgrade with occasional views in which Kentucky was grandly seen 22 for six or seven hours 23 to reach the top of the Cumberland Plateau. He passed through Jamestown and as previously mentioned, spent the night with a blacksmith and his wife. On September 11 he walked a long stretch of level sandstone plateau 24 and was compelled to sleep with the trees in the one great bedroom of the open night. 25 Finally, on September 12 Muir breakfasted in Montgomery and descended the east slope of the Cumberland Mountains. He forded the Clinch 26 and reached Kingston before dark. 27 The Civil War-era maps show several routes from Burkesville to Jamestown, but the most direct route, the route that would be more in Kentucky than in Tennessee,28 the only route that would give a view north to Kentucky while climbing the plateau, and the only route that is level until one long steady climb to the top of the plateau, is the route through Albany, Kentucky and Pall Mall, Tennessee. In the author\u27s opinion, the only plausible ^oute from Jamestown to Montgomery is the Pile Turnpike. Montgomery, now a ghost town but then the Morgan County Seat, was then located on the upper reaches of Emory River, just west of Wartburg. From Montgomery to Kingston, the only practicable route is east through Wartburg, then branching southeast at Crooked Fork and proceeding northeast of Bitter Creek. This road reaches Emory Iron Works on the watercourse variously known as Emory Creek, or Little Emory Creek, or Little Emory River (its modern name). This route then descends through a gap in Wal- den Ridge on the left bank of the Little Emory, and finally fords the Emory and Clinch Rivers in the lowlands east of the plateau. In the text of A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, the eloquent... mountain stream 29 crossed by Muir on September 12 is identified parenthetically as the Emory River. However the mountain stream is unnamed in his journal. The gorge of the Emory River, as it descends from the plateau, is so rugged that no road followed it in 1867 and no road follows it even today. The author asserts that the name was inserted incorrectly either by Muir or by editor William Frederic Bade long after the trip,30 and that the eloquent mountain stream is actually the Little Emory River. JLe
Page 6 A y^/^ •&&** w \u27*ZSZ~L^M~ —S5
PAGE 7 Cystopteris (bladder fern) One of the plants mentioned by Muir From: luirig.altervista.org seat of Jamestown. Indeed, even today the telephone book shows that there are three households named Livingston in Jamestown. And all of them live near the author\u27s estimated route south of downtown Jamestown! At this point the author reached a dead end toward a solution of the blacksmith question, as many Fentress County records were lost during a 1905 courthouse fire. However, a determined seeker armed with local records and local knowledge might be able to uncover more. A visit today In his thousand-mile walk, Muir sought out the wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find. 34 The geographical route Muir took is no longer particularly wild, leafy, or untrodden. Anyone wishing to recreate Muir\u27s journey will need to take side trips away from Muir\u27s geographical route to glimpse his spiritual route through the wild, the leafy, and the least trodden. John Muir\u27s Crossing of the Cumberland 35 suggests more than two dozen sites to visit, from waterfalls to overlooks to springs to virgin forests. It is interesting to note that the thousand- mile route taken by Muir is not the route taken by the present-day John Muir Trail, which runs for 42 miles in the Cumberland Plateau through Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area and adjoining Pickett State Forest. Nor is it the route taken by the John Muir National Recreation Trail, which runs for 21 miles along the north bank of Hiwassee River within Cherokee National Forest in eastern Tennessee. These two trails were named to acknowledge Muir as an early naturalist walker in the area, not to recreate his precise route. Acknowledgement The author is grateful for the help of Willie R. Beaty, President of the Fentress County Historical Society in Jamestown, Tennessee, who suggested some profitable avenues of investigation. Also to Wil Reding of Kalamazoo, Michigan who with his wife Sarah Reding retraced the thousand-mile walk route on 5 May to 25 June 2006, suggested improvements to a late draft of this article. ENDNOTES 1. Digitized images of Muir\u27s notebooks are available through http://librarv.pacific.edu/ha/ digital/muiriournals/muiriournals.asp See journal number 1, images 9 through 13. 2. John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, ed. William Frederic Bade (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916). Reprinted in John Muir, The Wilderness Journeys, ed. with introduction by Graham White (Edinburgh: Canon- gate Classics, 1996) 3. Ibid., (1916), p. 17; (1996), ed. White, p. 9. 4. Ibid., (1916), p. 22; (1996), ed. White, p. 11. 5. Ibid., (1916), p. 29; (1996), ed. White, p. 14. 6. Bonnie Johanna Gisel, ed., Kindred and Related Spirits: The Letters of John Muir and Jeanne C. Carr, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2001), pp. 57-59. 7. Muir, op. cit., (1916), p. 15; (1996), ed. White p. 8. 8. Ibid., (1916), p. 30; (1996), ed. White, p. 15. Muir\u27s Houghton-Mifflin editor, William Frederick Bade identified the river in brackets as [Emory River]. 9. George Woolworth Colton\u27s 1869 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee (scale 1:1,584,000) is available through http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/ us states/kentuckv/index.html It shows a road running from Montgomery, Tennessee to Kingston, Tennessee, along the west bank of the Emory River. The road shown on this map supposedly crossed Obed\u27s River just before that river joins with Emery\u27s River. Modern names for these rivers are Obed River and Emory River. Modern maps show that this supposed road would have to descend a 400-foot cliff to reach the Obed and then immediately ascend a 400-foot cliff on the other side. Colton\u27s map also shows Clear Creek emptying into the Obed upstream of Daddy\u27s Creek, whereas modern maps show that the reverse is correct. No other map of that era shows this road. 10. A.J. Johnson\u27s 1866 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee (scale 1:1,521,000) is available at the same web site listed in note #9. It shows a road direct from Kingston, Tennessee to Madisonville, Tennessee. 11. http://memorv.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/ gmdhome.html 12. http://www.davidrumsey.com/ 13. http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/ historicalmaps/index.html 14. Charles E. Swann, Military Map of Kentucky and Tennessee, 1863, scale 1:350.000 Available throughhttp:// www.davidrumsey.com/maps2433.html http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3951s.cs0216800 no tonxx^A, •pa/i/tiou.- ta/ttu, -\\kia, tWtXu-, qa, unviaOG^n. Had Muirwalked this same route 143 years after he did, he would have plenty of food options. This Hardee\u27s fast food restaurant on the Knoxville Highway in Wartburg, TN is probably only a few steps off the thousand mile walk to the Gulf. (Used with permission from the Fisherman\u27s Quartet website http:// thefishermansquartet.com November 18,2010
Page 8 Schrankia, (sensitive briar) One of the plants mentioned by Muir kansasnativeplantsociety.org 15. N. Michler, Map of Middle and East Tennessee, 1862, scale 1:235,000. Available through http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/ g3962t.cws00162 16. W.L Nicholson and A. Lindenkohl, Mountain Region of North Carolina and Tennessee, 1863, scale 1:633,600. Available through http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3900.cw0053000 17. Julius Bien & Co., General Topographical Map, sheet XV, United States War Department, 1895. Scale 1:633,600. Available through http://www.davidrumsev.com/detail?id=l-l- 26982-1100281 18. These U.S. Geological Survey 30 minute quadrangles (scale 1:125,000) are relevant: Wartburg, Tennessee, Edition of Mar. 1896. Topography by A.E. Murlin. Surveyed in 1893. Briceville, Tennessee, Edition of July 1896. Topography by J.F. Knight and E.C. Barnard. Surveyed in 1888-91. Loudon, Tennessee, Edition of Oct. 1895. Topography by F.M. Pearson 1884-5. Topography by C.E. Cooke 1891. Kingston, Tennessee, Edition of Mar. 1891. Topography by F.M. Pearson. Surveyed in 1884-5. Available through http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/ us_states/tennessee/topos/30mintopos.html 19. John Muir\u27s Crossing of the Cumberland. Available through http://maps.google.com/ Search User-created maps for John Muir Cumberland. 20. Muir, op. cit, (1916), p. 15; (1996), ed. White, p. 7. 21. Ibid., (1916), 22. Ibid., (1916) 23. Ibid., (1916). 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., p. 15. 26. Ibid., 27. Ibid.. (1916), (1916), p. 16; (1996), ed. White, p. 7. p. 16; (1996), ed. White, p. 8. p. 16; (1996), ed. White, p. 8. p. 26; (1996), ed. White, p.13. pp. 29-30; (1996), ed. White, (1916), p. 31; (1996), ed. White, p.16. (1916), p. 32; (1996), ed. White, p.16. 28. About 25 miles in Kentucky and 10 miles in Tennessee, to the base of the plateau at Pall Mall. 29. Muir, op. cit, (1916), p. 30; (1996), ed. White, p. 15. 30. Although most of A Thousand-Mile Walk to The Gulf is a journal, wr
Letter from John Muir to W[illiam] E. Colby, 1914 May 23.
No full textPOSTAL TELEGRAPH - COMMERCIAL CABLESCLARENCE H. MAC KAY. President. TELEGRAMRECEIVED AT DELIVERY No 1773 The Postal Telegraph-Cable Company (Incorporated) transmits and delivers this message subject to the terms and conditions printed on the back of this blackDESIGN PATENT No 40529 .Parwa Family PapersBancroft Library8sfnc 47-Muir Cal May 23-14W. E. Colby,2901 Charming Way,Berkeley, Cal.The news of dear Parsons death is a stunning blow to me though: your letter the other day was alarming. Give my sympathy to Mrs Parsons and her family and tell her that I am writing to her and will visit her as soon as I am able. J. Muir.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/34126/thumbnail.jp
Letter from [author unknown] to John Muir, [1910 May 26].
No full textLos Angeles California.Sixth Grade, Hoover St. School,May. 26, 1910.Dear Mr. Muir,— Our teacher has just finished your story of Stickeen . The first thing that the children asked after she had finished was, Why didn\u27t Stickeen\u27s master give the dog to Mr. Muir since they was so attached to each other . There being no way of finding out except by asking you I thought I would ask of you. If not inconvenient please write in answer to this letter to Hoover St. School, Los Angeles California.Your\u27s respectfully,Wilbur Parker.04767 (8)https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/31910/thumbnail.jp
The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2014 Special Symposium Edition
No full textPage 1 transcription missing
Page 2 (continued from page 1) was founding Director of the Edinburgh\u27s Environment Center, which pioneered environmental education in Scotland from 1979 until 2001. In the 1980s he served on the Education Committee of the John Muir Trust in Scotland and in 1986, proposed that a John Muir Award should be established by the Trust in the UK as a national scheme for people of all ages; over 150,000 people have now completed the Award in the UK. He is author/ editor of: The Scottish Environmental Handbook; The Nature of Scotland - Landscape Wildlife and People; John Muir- Journeys in the Wilderness; John Muir; From Scotland to the Sierra; Sacred Summits-John Muir\u27s Greatest Climbs. As a beekeeper and conservationist, he has devoted much of the last eight years to campaigning against the global use of neonicotinoid pesticides, widely held to be responsible for the deaths of over ten million bee colonies in the United States, and for the deaths of uncountable millions of birds, amphibians and other pollinating insects. He was very involved in the campaign to get these neurotoxic pesticides banned in the twenty- seven countries of the European Union, which came into effect in December 2013; they remain legal in the USA where they are used on over 200 million acres of corn, soybeans, canola, wheat, potatoes and fruit. 11:45 Lunch Buffet (a fee event; see registration form) 12:30 Keynote, Andrea Wulf, Cosmos, Nature and the Web of Life. Alexander von Humboldt\u27s influence on John Muir. Andrea Wulf was born India, moved to Germany as a child, and now lives in Britain. She is the author of several books. Her book The Brother Gardeners. Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession won the American Horticultural Society 2010 Book Award and was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2008, the most prestigious non-fiction award in the UK. The Founding Gardeners. The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation was published under great acclaim in spring 2011 and made it on the New York Times Best Seller List. Andrea has written for many newspapers including the Guardian, the LA Times and the New York Times. She was the Eccles British Library Writer in Residence 2013 and a three-time fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. She is also appears regularly NPR in the US, and on radio and TV programmes on the BBC in the UK. She currently working on a book called \u27The Invention of Nature\u27 about Alexander von Humboldt and his influence on scientists, thinkers and poets (published by Knopf in late 2015). 1:30 PM Ronald Eber, The Eternal Battle - The Wilderness Legacy of John Muir. Ronald Eber is Historian for the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club. He has held many Sierra Club positions including National Campus Coordinator in 1971 and Chair and Wilderness Coordinator of the Oregon Chapter from 1980 -1985. He has written two previous essays for this conference entitled John Muir and the Pioneer Conservationists of the Pacific Northwest and Wealth and Beauty - John Muir and Forest Conservation that were published in the conference proceedings. He currently lives near Port Gamble, Washington. 2:20 Doug Scott, John Muir: Blazing the Path Toward the 1964 Wilderness Act and 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Doug Scott worked for forty years as a lobbyist and strategist persuading Congress to designate additional wilderness areas. He is proudest of his leadership role in the campaign for the historic Alaska National Interest lands Act of 1980. He is the author of The Enduring Wilderness: Preserving our Natural Heritage through the Wilderness Act (Fulcrum 2004) and Our Wilderness: America\u27s Common Ground (Fulcrum 2009), and of Wild Thoughts, a collection of excerpts of great writing about nature, wilderness, and the people who love them (forthcoming). 3:00 Stephen Holmes, Muir\u27s Cultural Legacy: Science and Storytelling from \u27The California Alps\u27 to Climate Change Communication Steven Pavlos Holmes, Ph.D., is an independent scholar of the environmental humanities, with a special interest in the emotional, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of our interactions with the natural world. He is the author of The Young John Muir: An Environmental Biography (winner of the Modern Language Association\u27s Prize for Independent Scholars) and of A Healing Landscape: Environmental and Social History of Mass Audubon\u27s Boston Nature Center and most recently editor of Facing the Change: Personal Encounters with Global Warming (Torrey House Press, 2013). He has taught at Harvard University and at the Cambridge (Mass.) Center for Adult Education. He lives with his partner Carlene Pavlos and their cat Millet in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. 3:45-4:30 John Muir Class University of the Pacific. Six students chosen from the twenty-six in Pacific\u27s University-level course focusing on John Muir\u27s World: the Origins of the Conservation Movement will summarize their research project connecting Muir with legacy people and places. 4:30-4:45 Wrap Up. 5:00-6:00 PM. Reception, University Library
Page 3 X Registration Form 60th California History Institute, University of the Pacific What we have seated; what we have lost: John Muir\u27s Legacy, 1914-2014 March 2122, 2014 March 21 Field Trip to Coulte nolle aid John Muir Highway with program at John MuirGeotourism Center aid lunch in Coulterville. Bus tour; 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM; Storer Coach leaves UOP Sirjimining Pool parking lot at 9:00 aid returns by 5 PM. Name Me al preference: Vegetarian Vegan Carnivore Cost 35.00 Student rate (high school or college) 25.00 Includes coffee/tea/seones; luncheon buffet; & reception (Cost at the door or after March IS will be 40; $30 for students) Name Affiliation Affiliation Address: Contact: (e mail please) Total Please send this form and a check in U. S. dollars to John Muir Center/WPC 99 University of the Pacific/Stockton/CA 95211
SIGN UP FOR THE ELECTRONIC VERSION BY CONTACTING: THE JOHN MUIR CENTER University of the Pacific 3601 Pacific Avenue Stockton, California 95211 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED -T~ ~r ~r -j. . i V rv \u3eV- ^ The John Mu Center The John Muir Center promotes the study of John Muir and environmental- ism at the University of the Pacific and beyond. Center Objectives As one of California\u27s most important historical figures, John Muir (1838- 1914) was a regional naturalist with global impact. His papers, housed in the library\u27s Holt-Atherton Special Collections, are among the University\u27s most important resources for scholarly research. Recognizing the need both to encourage greater utilization of the John Muir Papers by the scholarly community, and the need to promote the study of California and its impact upon the global community, the John Muir Center was established in 1989 with the following objectives: • To foster a closer academic relationship between Pacific and the larger community of scholars, students and citizens interested in regional and environmental studies. • To provide greater opportunities for research and publication by Pacific faculty and students. • To offer opportunities for out-of- classroom learning experiences. • To promote multi-disciplinary curricular development. Phone: 209.946.2527 Fax: 209.946.2318 E-mail: [email protected]://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1095/thumbnail.jp
The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2015
No full textSPRING 2015 jJui JMaaaa, JL^aXAXaa, V\u3eP , THE JOHN MUIR CENTER Reflections on John Muir— One-hundred years after his death Bill Swagerty, Co-Director, John Muir Center During 2014, many institutions honored John Muir\u27s legacy with an event associated with the centennial of his death on December 24, 1914. It was also the fiftieth anniversary of passage of the Wilderness Act by Congress in 1964 and the 150th anniversary of the Yosemite Act, transferring the core of what would become Yosemite National Park from the State of California to the federal government. Pacific hosted the 60th California History Institute from March 20-22 focusing on What has been saved; what has been lost: John Muir\u27s Legacy, 1914-2014. The symposium began with a field trip to Martinez on March 20 to visit John Muir National Historic Site. Twenty-four students in the John Muir Class were joined by other Pacific students, faculty, and guests of the university. As always, rangers and interpreters opened the doors to the Strentzel-Muir-Hanna house on the hill and allowed us the privilege of seeing Muir\u27s grave- site nearby. At the gravesite, Michael Wurtz, Head of Holt-Atherton Special Collections, read a 1914 obituary from a local newspaper which included mention of those who attended Muir\u27s funeral. On March 21, another field trip by bus took students and guests to Coulterville along the route that Muir walked in 1868 on his first trip to Yosemite. Ken Pulvino, founder of the John Muir Geotourism Center, joined the bus in Modesto and explained Muir\u27s stop at Horseshoe Bend, where he made an elaborate sketch of the landscape. Educator Monty Thornberg, current Director of the Center gave a presentation at lunch in the Hotel Jeffery on the activities of the Center, which promotes tourism and environmental education along the John Muir Highway. The Jeffery dates to 1851 and was a stagecoach stop for Yo- semite-bound passengers, as well as a resting place and reprovisioning opportunity for pedestrians like Muir on his long walk to the Valley. Bill Jeffery, husband to Pacific\u27s Pamela Eibeck, explained his family\u27s likely connection with the original builders. Unfortunately, after our field trip, the hotel experienced a major fire in the middle of the night on November 14, 2014, forcing closure. By 1889, it had burned three times, so this was the fourth structure-fire, but fortunately did not consume the entire building, which is currently undergoing restoration as a National Historic Landmark. We also saw the result of the Rim Fire, started by a hunter who set an illegal campfire on August 17, 2013 in Stanislaus National Forest. Named for the Rim of the World vista point on Highway 120 as it heads into Yosemite, the fire consumed 257,314 acres making it the third largest wildlife on record in the Sierra Nevada and costing around 25 or more were invited to attend the Spring Gathering. Donors in the John Muir Heritage Society (with annual gifts of 1,000 or more) were invited to attend a special dinner on Saturday night and additional activities on Sunday. For more information on Yosemite Conservancy, please call 800.469.7275. 6th Annual John Muir Festival May 16, 2015 The John Muir Geotourism Center in Coulter- ville, CA presents the 6th Annual John Muir Festival. A family friendly event! Experience All Things Muir when you visit and learn about Muir\u27s travels along the historic Muir Route along J132 to Yosemite. Meet other John Muir enthusiasts, experts and representatives from the John Muir Geotourism Center, Yosemite National Park and surrounding Yosemite region. On May 16, historic Coulterville celebrates John Muir\u27s historic walks to Yosemite before Yosemite became a National Park. There are multiple venues for family fun—all within the Main Street area of Coulterville. Entertainment, activities and food in Coulterville Park, John Muir Geotourism Center and the Coulter Cafe. Enjoy the historic Yosemite Tapestries exhibit, created by Miriam McNitt, commissioned by Yosemite National Park in 1967 and displayed in the Park for over 40 years. These tapestries depict the natural history of Yosemite as well as panoramic views of the Park\u27s wonders. Entrance is FREE. Festivities began at 10 am and go until 4 pm. John Muir Birthday-Earth Day Celebration *% Saturday, April 18th 2015 4202 Alhambra Avenue (at Highway 4) in Martinez FREE admission! 10 am - 4 pm nd the National Park St-rvice Come rain or shine! Presented by tbe John Muir Association a: r Keynote Speaker Beth Pratl-Bergstrotn, California Director of Ihe National Wildlife Federation Original east members to perform songs from the play,Mountain Days Meet John Mull and the Giant Sequoia he planted 130 years ago Exhibits and activities for everyone Live music And silent auctions John Muir\u27s 1882 Victorian home and orchards John Muir Conservation Awards presented Youth Activities with National Park Service rangers Food and beverages are available for purchase Join the National Park Service to celebrate John Muir\u27s 177th birthday during the annual Birth - day-Earthday event on Saturday, April 18, 2015 from 10 am to 4 pm at the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, CA. Participate in fun activities for all ages to commemorate Muir\u27s legacy. Special guest speaker Beth Pratt-Bergstrom, California Director of the National Wildlife Federation, will give the keynote address. The Celebration, held rain or shine, features family-oriented activities, food for sale, live music including a bagpipe band, song performances by original cast members of the play Mountain Days, and displays by national parks and local environmental organizations. Parking and admission are free. National Park Service Ranger Frank Helling will portray John Muir and recount some of Muir\u27s many wilderness adventures. Visitors can enjoy self-guided tours of Muir\u27s historic Italianate Victorian home where he wrote about protecting nature, as well as bid in two silent auctions. Proceeds benefit the John Muir Association, the nonprofit organization hosting the event in partnership with the National Park Service. The Association will also present the 37th annual John Muir Conservation Awards. For more information, please visit www.nps.gov/ jomu/planvourvisit/ directions.htm
PAGE 5 Shanna Eller Muir Center Staff Reorganization Since August, 2011, the Office of the President of University of the Pacific has supported an Office of Sustainability, housed within John Muir Center in the College. This past fall Shanna Eller, Director of Sustainability, was named Co-director of Muir Center by Dean Rena Fraden. In addition, Kendra Bruno, M.A., was hired as Sustainability Coordinator. A native of Kansas, Eller has lived in Portland most recently and holds a bachelor\u27s degrees in the History of Art and Architecture, as well as Journalism from the University of Kansas. She earned her master\u27s degree in Urban Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a doctorate in Urban Studies from Portland State University, where she was Director of Community Environmental Services before joining Pacific. Bruno is a graduate of the University of the Pacific with a joint major in International Studies and Spanish. She earned a master\u27s degree in Natural Resources and Peace from the University for Peace, Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Both Eller and Bruno work closely with administration, faculty, staff, a cadre of students on campus, making Muir Center a lively hub for anything green on the Stockton campus. They co-taught a Pacific Seminar for freshmen in 2014 on the topic of Fair Trade. The Office of Sustainability coordinates, advances and manages sustainability efforts on all three campuses of the University. Activities of the office are described separately in this newsletter. Muir Center continues to sponsor interns and has work-study assistance from undergraduates. David Sriboonreuang, a sophomore English major Kendra Bruno who is also minoring in Religious Studies and Ethnic Studies, has worked in the Center for the past three semesters and is digitizing the slide collection. He has also completed an inventory of the library and the video collection and is one of the chef-demonstrators at the University\u27s new Kitchen Co-op. Recently he showed participants how to make macarons. David Sriboonreuang WkZ •& sa WILDS SCENIC - ^//^^;- A WILI jENIG festival A WILD LIFE Wednesday April 8, 2015 University of the Pacific 3401 Kensington Way, Stockton, CA Biological Sciences Building, Room 101 Free and open to the public * 7:00 pm - 7:30 pm reception with filmmaker Matt Black • •7:30 pm - 8:45 pm films • •Q&A with Matt Black and intermission* •9:15 pm -10:00 pm films • j patagonla Orion ?^-^ Jjjgg 0EARTHJUSTICE U&H
Page 6 Things Cooking in the Co-op by Kendra Bruno New at Pacific this year, the Pacific Kitchen Co-op has created quite a stir! Beginning this Spring term, Pacific students, faculty and staff have been able to join as Co-op members allowing them to access a fully equipped kitchen, furnished dining area and delicious classes! The Pacific Kitchen Co-op is a place where members can go to cook their own meals, have a club meeting, have dinner with friends, bake some cookies and simply just enjoy themselves over some delicious home cooked meals. Want to make a cake, but do not have any of the kitchen gadgets needed to do so? The Pacific Kitchen Co-op does - all you have to do is bring your ingredients! Easy to join, the Kitchen Co-op is 35.00 (or iffijJM mu.V; \u27 .; k ■•.\u27- .\u27■. » H»\u27\u27|FkftjfeB i.uiiWK TAP i HOI st 1 \u3e- jl£X a LifililAaaia Patch BDH ■ ■ -A Clarksburg f\u27.li 4 Mues |\u3e.r\u3c| i \u27\u27*B^BI 1 giMU »\u3e»K , \u27 -■ \u27J kj, IM:W \u27 jJ&T %is««ii^fHB^ 3 Signs near Freeport
Page 8 John Muir Journal Transcription Project Picking Up Steam In the wake of the 100th anniversary of John Muir\u27s death on December 24, 2014, The Record (Stockton) ran an article - front page above the fold - about the Special Collections effort to crowdsource the transcription of the John Muir journals. The story was picked up by other newspapers and a couple of television stations, and it was tweeted copiously over the next few weeks. The publicity brought in over 30 new transcribers who dove into Muir journals with the same drive that Muir sojourned in the Sierra. Nearly 100 images have been transcribed, which means that well over half the 3000 images in the journals are now keyword searchable. The transcribers are devoted Muir enthusiasts digging for new inspirational quotes, long time hikers curious about Muir\u27s wanderings on their favorite paths around the world, and grade school students who giggle when Muir discusses the naked rocks, but were awestruck when he pondered the value of scientific inquiry. The long term value to harvesting Muir\u27s words in the journals will boost the discovery of the famous naturalist\u27s ideas and thoughts in their initial observational form. The project continues. If you would like to take a crack at connecting with Muir, there are still plenty of pages to go. Visit go.pacific.edu/ muirwords and get started.
has served the Special Collections for 10 years and has worked at Pacific since 1999. Nicole Grady is our newly minted Special Collections Librarian after serving three years as a temporary librarian. Nicole will continue to process collections, create exhibits, and
John Muir Newsletter, Summer 1995
No full textJohn Muir Newsletter summer 1995 university of the pacific volume 5, number 3 JOHN MUIR AND THE VAN DYKE RANCH: INTIMACY AND DESIRE IN HIS FINAL YEARS By Peter Wild (Editor\u27s note: Well-known author, poet, biographer and nature writer, Peter Wild is Professor of Modern Language at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The following paper is an outgrowth of his recent research on the Muir family in the Southwest. Part Two will be published in the next issue.) PARTONE When occasional gunfire erupted in the town, it could be heard at the nearby desert ranch, but that didn\u27t seem to bother Helen Muir. This is a beautiful day full of sunshine, and I am feeling sunshiny, too, Helen reassured herfather, John Muir (January 8,1908).\u27 I was very glad to get your all-well letter today, Muir responded from Martinez, at his orchard home in the San Francisco Bay area (January 9, 1908). Not many days before, Helen\u27s bout with pneumonia took a sharp turn for the worse, and Muir had made a desperate rush south with Helen in hopes that the warm, dry air of the Mojave desert would put his pallid daughter back on the path of recovery. Now the crisis, in an age when people regularly died of respiratory problems, seemed to be passing. Helen\u27s health would always be of concern, but in the main she grew ever more robust as the days passed into months. She came to love her new desert surroundings and eventually married a local rancher\u27s son. Such an upbeat exchange between father and daughter as marked the early correspondence of their separation beginning early in 1908 would be repeated overthe sixyears until Muir\u27s death in 1914. Duringthat time, Muir would take the train south to visit Helen, bounce his grandsons on his knee, regale the cowboys at the desert ranch with tales spun in his charming Scottish brogue and hand out boxes of pineapples, peaches, and cigars.2 Yet such happy letters often let slip hints of other, less pleasant matters churning under the surface of the hopeful Victorian prose flying between father and daughter. The truth is that Muir\u27s closing years were the most tumultuous of his mature life, and to probe such issues through letters and other documents gives a good measure of Muir both as a public figure and a private man. They show him to be a person, indeed, as his popular image suggested, rising with heroic strenuousness to wrestle with the national environmental problems of the day, writing doggedly in his final years to produce books that still stir nature lovers after almost a century, yet, less known, getting mired in the mundane afflictions that assail us all. Essentially, the problem was that Muir was getting old, and the cantankerous world was changing. Rude reality refused to conform to his bright vision of what it should be. Yet despite the pain and frustration this caused him, the dramatic loss of the biggest conservation battle of his life, the depths of his private loneliness for all his public acclaim, he would die a happy man, the comfort of any expiring writer, the manuscript of his next book nearly completed and laying beside him. Before that happened, unhappiness crept into Muir\u27s life. In 1905, he was living happily enough, surrounded by his wife, Louie, and his two daughters, Helen (continued on page 4)
1996 MUIR CONFERENCE PLANNING CONTINUES Be sure to mark your calendars for the special conference, John Muir in Historical Perspective, to be held April 18-21,1996. The planning committee is working on a three- day event, each day in a separate location to take advantage of the variety of Muir-related sites in Central California. Below is the tentative schedule: Thursday evening, April 18: Reception at John Muir National Historic Site, Martinez Friday morning, April 19: Academic sessions, John Muir National Historic Site Friday afternoon: Tours of Strentzel-Muir home, Muir Cemetary Saturday morning, April 20: Academic sessions, University of the Pacific, Stockton Saturday afternoon: travel to Yosemite National Park Sunday morning, April 21: Academic sessions, Yosemite Institute, Crane Flat Sunday afternoon: tour of Muir sites in Yosemite Valley Participants and guests will be invited to stay overnight at Martinez on Thursday. After Friday morning sessions and tours, they will travel to Stockton and stay overnight there. On Saturday afternoon, after morning sessions and a visit to the Holt-Atherton Library, home of the Muir Family Collection, the conference will recess so that participants may travel to Yosemite and spend the night at the Yosemite Institute in Crane Flat. On Sunday, following a morning academic session, they will have opportunity to visit several Muir sites in the Valley, and still have free time to enjoy the Park. The deadline for proposals is November 15. Tentative plans and locations may change, depending on the program committee\u27s recommendations and the success in developing the local arrangements. Outside funding will be essential. Any contributions, suggestions or comments will be most welcome and may be forwarded to: CHI96, John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211. The conference invites proposals on any aspect of the theme. Proposals for papers and sessions should be forwarded, along with a brief resume, to the CHI 96 Program Committee, in care of its Co-Chairs, Professors Sally Miller and Ron Limbaugh, Department of History, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 by November 15,1995. Phone (209)946-2145;fax(209)946-2318. ELECTRONIC LETTERS Date: Wed, 31 May 199510:21:00 +0900 Subject: Muir and Buddhism To: [email protected] In the Spring 1995 issue of the John Muir Newsletter. Michelle L. Dwyer argues persuasively that Muir\u27s experience of and writings about Nature show strong affinities to Zen Buddhism. As I argued in my contribution to John Muir, Life and Work, I don\u27t think there can be any doubt about this point. Muir\u27s essential perception of reality is in conformance with the basic perceptions of Zen. This perception of Oneness, of undifferentiated existence, is basic not just to the three sects of Zen, but to Buddhism as a whole. Indeed, such identification with nature is at the heart of many spiritual traditions. Thoreau, even as early as his stay at Walden Pond, was experiencing such perceptions and identifying them, correctly, as common both to the Vishnu Purana and the sufi philosophy of Kabir. William James detailed many such ideas in The Varieties of Religious Experience. Certainly, as Ms. Dwyer says, Muir had no systematic knowledge of Zen, since the first glilmpse of Zen teachings didn\u27t reach America until the World Parliament of Religions atthe Chicago World\u27s Columbian Exposition in 1892. Most of Muir\u27s published work seems to be based closely on diaries written long before Zen could possibly have influenced him. But he was exposed much earlier to Vedic and Sufi influences through his Transcendentalist contacts. But there is no need to posit a direct teaching influence. These ideas are freely available within the mind and appear periodically in most or all religious traditions. Don Weiss, Ryozenji, Temple l.Bando 126, Oasa-cho, Naruto City, Tokushima-ken, JAPAN 779-02, e-mail PXQO [email protected] JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER. VOL. V, NUMBER 3 SUMMER 1995 Published quarterly by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 Editor Center Director Staff © Sally M. Miller R.H. Limbaugh This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper.
BOOK Mori no seija: Shizenhogo no chichi John Muir [A Saint in the Forest: The Father of NatureProtection John Muir]. ByKatoNoriyoshi. Yama-to-keikokusha. (Tokyo: 1995) 279 pp. ¥1600. Reviewed by KozyAmemiya, Sociologist Kato Noriyoshi, the author of this book, abandoned a publishing career in order to live in the mountains, and he now writes on the subject of nature while running a lodge. He visited the Giant Forest in the Sequoia National Park in the winter of 1992 when he was inspired to learn more about John Muir, who has been little known in Japan. The result is this book, written as an introduction for the Japanese audience to Muir, the father of wilderness protection. It is not easy to write a book on Muir in such a way that would make sense to a Japanese audience unfamiliar with American history and geography. Mr. Kato takes up this task by narrating Muir\u27s life in chronological order against the historical backdrop supported by geographical descriptions, and succeeds at least in painting an overall picture of Muir\u27s accomplishments. Kato reconstructs Muir\u27s life around several external factors. First is Muir\u27s childhood in Scotland, especially his strolls in the field with his grandfather, to which Kato attributes Muir\u27s love of nature. Secondly, attendance at the University of Wisconsin provided Muir with basic scientific training and life-long mentors. The third and most significant factor is his accidental arrival in Yosemite whose magnificent beauty enraptured Muir. His glacier theory as to the creation of the Yosemite Valley is the fourth factor and the highlight of Muir\u27s career as a Yosemite specialist. Muir\u27s married life and his political campaigns for congressional protection of Yosemite and other wilderness areas are the last factors considered. Muir is depicted as a fiercely independent individual who wholeheartedly devoted himself to the wilderness and to his family. Muir is also contrasted with nature philosophers of the East Coast elite and with scientists in academic institutions. Notwithstanding all this, the picture of Muir, the man, remains superficial and does not fully come to life. The problem is that Kato\u27s description of Muir often falls into a trite portrait of an eccentric. As a result, Muir\u27s personal and professional lives are not integrated into the larger cultural context. Nor does Kato discuss Muir\u27s ideas about nature in depth and in what way they are related to the various ideologies of the environmental protection movement. For a Japanese reader to understand Muir, it is important that an author provide a basic grasp of American ideas about nature and wilderness as well as an exploration of how they might differ from Japanese ideas. For example, did Muir regard nature as basically at odds with human beings and in need of human protection? Were Muir\u27s ideas about nature and wilderness in line with or REVIEWS different from that of American mainstream thinkers? Does nature mean the same as shizen, a favorite concept of the Japanese? How does wilderness, to which the Japanese language has no exact equivalent, differ from nature? Without thinking about these questions, it will be difficult for a Japanese to understand the social and cultural meaning of national parks in the American context and to appreciate Muir\u27s work. This book explores John Muir\u27s achievements. Without discussions of Muir\u27s ideas on the relationship between nature and human beings, however, it does not sufficiently explain what propelled Muir in his pursuits. As the Japanese take more interest in the environmental protection movement in the United States, they will demand a book to help them understand Muir in greater depth. Until then, this book will serve as a fair introduction to Muir. Postsuburban California: The Transformation of Orange County Since World War II. Edited by Rob Kling, Spencer Olin and Mark Poster. (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1995) (paperback). Reviewed by Roy Childs, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of the Pacific (Editor\u27s Note: The John Muir Newsletter, with its focus on Muir and the environment sometimes finds that important work on urban and suburban developments merit attention. An example is the book considered below.) As this title suggests, the authors in this collection see the emergence of an urbanized Orange County late in the twentieth century as a phenomenon distinctly different in its spatial, economic and social patterns from urban centers which developed earlier. The resulting multinucleated metropolitan region may superficially resemble the stereotypical twentieth century suburb, but the reality is quite different. Hence, they apply the term \u27postsuburban\u27 to urbanized Orange County. The chapters in the book discuss the rise of Orange County\u27s postsuburban form as an element of post-industrial society, explain the economic forces responsible for this form, examine the resulting socioeconomic, occupational, and lifestyle consequences, and discuss the political dynamics, more or less in that order. The volume has value as a case study of Orange County and the kind of urban area it seems to epitomize, but has at least equal value as a discussion of contemporary urban theory. For, to make the argument that Orange County represents a new phenomenon, Kling, Olin, Poster and other contributing authors must critique existing theory as it applies to the Orange County case, and attempt new paradigms to frame the data they present. These discussions may prove as useful to the serious reader as the case study itself. (continued on page 6)
(continued from page 1) and Wanda, while managing the extensive orchards in Martinez. In June, however, Helen became seriously ill, and Muir\u27s life took a turn for the worse. Together with her elder sister, Wanda, Muir took Helen to Arizona to benefit from the bright sunshine and high desert air. Barely settled there, the three received word that Louie also was seriously ill. John Muir and Wanda rushed back to Martinez, only to stand by helplessly as Louie died in August. Now the family not only was weakened but split, with Helen remaining in Arizona because of her illness, while John and Wanda took turns traveling back and forth to stay with her. To complicate matters, Wanda married in 1906. Thereality of Muir\u27s vision of a stable Victorian home was disintegrating.3 For the rest of his life he would battle to shore up what had, to a large degree, already fallen apart. In his last extant letter to Helen, Muir was still lamenting: If I could only have you and Wanda as in the lang syne ... (Decembers, 1914). Adding to his woes, the growing city of San Francisco stepped up plans to enlarge its water supply. This would mean invading Yosemite National Park to create a reservoir inHetch-Hetchy Valley, one of the loveliest of the Sierra\u27s jewels. Bad enough in itself, this could be an alarming precedent, a license to violate other national parks for the real or imagined needs of an expanding economy. In response, Muir rallied the incipient conservation movement, rousing the nation to protest the invasion. Yet, despite years of exhausting activism and several near successes, Muir discovered that it was not enough to be on the side of the angels. Bankrolled by the proponents of growth, the politicians won out. Another battle lost.4 In short, during the closing years of his life, Muir was a torn man. As a youth exploring the Sierra in the 1870s, he may have been possessed by a genuine inner calm, but now in his seventies, he sat on his estate in sometimes foggy and chill Martinez, grieving for his lost wife and deceased friends, and depressed with loneliness.5 Usually not a man to complain, on February 13,1913, Muir wrote openly to James Whitehead. Briefly catching up his boyhood friend on the events of the decades, Muir concluded that his wife had died ... long years ago ... and that his two daughters were married. That left him ... alone in a large house with only books and hard literary work for companions. Feeling at loose ends as he shuffled around the big, empty house, he fretted over Helen\u27s health, while the hounds of the Hetch-Hetchy conflict constantly bayed, reminding him that what he had accomplished for wilderness preservation might be undone in one swoop. In the midst of this, plagued now by his own coughing assaults, he struggled to rouse himself, to find the energy and mental clarity to write what he knew would be his final books. At one point his friends saw illness and depression looming so large about him that a worried J. E. Calkins discussed Muir\u27s condition at length with fellow Sierra Club member A. H. Sellers. Calkins feared that ... we shall never have much more writing... from Muir before he ... crosses the Great Range (March 23,1908). One thing brought Muir through, and if to our far more skeptical age it smacks of cliche, it brought him through nonetheless. Time and again, when the Hetch-Hetchy affair looked bleak or when Helen again had a brush with death, Muir\u27s nineteenth-century optimism rescued him. It blended two impulses. Along with other Christians of the day weary of a constantly chiding and scowling God, Muir defanged his earlier Christianity of its hellfire and spun his beliefs into a rosy gauze, the generalized hope for abetter life now assured by a vague but avuncular Providence. Reinforcing this optimism was the transcendentalism popularized by the writings of Emerson and Thoreau. Again conveniently vague, making up with good feelings what it lacked in bothersome specifics, the attitude placed faith in intuition as the means to truth. It was an effervescent approach to nature-decades before Muir had called nature the great book full of priceless knowledge (September 13,1865). In this yeasty view, to study a leaf or to revel in the grand prospect of snowy peaks was to catch glimpses of nothing less than the face of God. Thus, taking all this together, Muir gives solace to a recent widow that her beloved husband now is in ... abetter world ... (ca. May 26,1914). MuirwritestheHookerfamily,rejoicingthatthey have found refuge in the ... healing, soothing mountains (June 13,1911). In fact, nature could be so efficacious that he urges Helen to leave home for a while and ... camp out under the pines ... as a cure for her baby\u27s teething (June 15,1911). And even when the Hetch-Hetchy battle is all but lost-and at the same time, the Kaiser\u27s army is marching roughshod across Europe-Muir consoles former Century Magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson that though things may look bleak now, ... we are making some slight progress heavenward ... and someday ... man to man the worldo\u27er shall brothers be... (September 17,1914). Not that John Muir was a fool. A realistic businessman when need be, he could cut a sharp deal with a publisher or honestly best his fellow orchardists in Martinez. During harvest time, a train stopped at the local station and in the twilight hours dropped off packing crates for the growers. On such days, Muir rose early, to be sure he\u27d be first at the platform and get his pick of the best boxes. However, despite the practicality, Muir also had the good fortune of a salving, overarching philosophy to get him through his nights. Not that those nights were all dark. Muir was swamped with letters begging for photographs and autographs and assaulting him with their authors\u27 poetic efforts, conferring honorary degrees on him, inviting him to speak at this confab and that. Mail from admirers to their wilderness hero often began with high praise, then quickly shifted into requests for advice about intimate personal problems explained in pages of painful detail. Or they reminisced about meeting Muir briefly on the trail decades before. None of that shillyshallying, whining, or lightly veiled ingratiation for John M. Pfautz, a robust fan writing from Lisbon, Iowa. Leaving his rival eulogists far behind, he opened directly
with In my eyes you are Gods [sic] beloved Apostle ... (undated; ca. 1914). The naive and unrestrained adoration might have chafed a more sophisticated and less patient man but, taking it all with cheerful appreciation, Muir penned gracious responses. Then, too, on the positive side, if his writing was coming hard, nonetheless it was coming along. The sales of My First Summer in the Sierra, for example, proved so lucrative that publishers were vying for his next book, which of course delighted Muir (June 25,1911). Even Helen\u27s illness, dire affliction that it was, had unforeseen benefits. Muir tended to be a cave bear when he wrote. While the Bay fog swirled around the big house in Martinez, he holed up in his study, for weeks on end fussing to turn his mass of irascible notes into polished prose. Helen\u27s illness got Muir out, forcing him to travel south. There, he renewed old friendships and made new ones among the heady literati typified by Southwestern booster Charles F. Lummis. Particularly important in this regard was the city of Pasadena, then a cultural center in Southern California, with Vroman\u27s bookstore on 60 East Colorado Street serving as a lively gathering place.6 Representing the cream of the intellectual set there was Muir friend Adam Clark Vroman himself, a bibliophile and pioneer photographer of Southwestern Indians.7 Rather different and mildly eccentric was Muir\u27s fellow conservationist-at-arms Theodore P. Lukens. A pioneer in successful reforestation but also an enthusiast for some ill- fated adventures--be they mastering the intricate evils of learning to drive a car8 or trying to make twisting eucalyptus trees defy their nature and grow into a crop of future telephone poles\u27—Lukens nevertheless prospered, becoming the mayor of Pasadena and leading the charge against Hetch- Hetchy from the southern part of the state. Not that Muir\u27s joy was unadulterated. Helen developed typhoid and, though eventually she regained her strength, for a while she was dangerously ill in a Los Angeles hospital (April 2,1909). Addingto the mountaineer\u27s worries at the time was a sleazy game played by Geo
University Engagement with Farming Communities in Africa
No full textThis book explains and explores how collaborations can be built and strengthened between African universities and farming communities to address real-world contemporary challenges.
The book focuses on Community Action Research Platforms, an approach that has successfully enabled African universities to break free of the ivory tower and prove their relevance to society through deep collaborative engagements in targeted agricultural value chains. Developed in a pan-African network of universities (RUFORUM) focused on capacity building in agriculture, the approach has been tested in diverse settings over the last 15 years. The book draws on the experiences and lessons from 21 different projects initiated by RUFORUM member universities in Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. It highlights a critical yet underutilised role for African universities as collaborators and catalysts for multisector solutions. These are solutions that increase productivity and address climate change. They develop livelihoods and resilience in rural communities, as well as promote farmers’ access to markets, innovation and trade while safeguarding biodiversity and enhancing food and nutrition security. The book makes a case for repositioning African universities as fulcrums of development in society. It shares the rich experiences, learnings and scientific findings of diverse researchers, practitioners and students who have been working towards achieving this reality on the ground.
This multidisciplinary book holds appeal for university leaders, higher education, agrifood and development specialists, researchers and practitioners, policymakers and development agencies engaged in African agriculture and rural development, higher education and sustainable growth
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