Living Deep Ecology: A Bioregional Journey is an exploration of our evolving relationship with a specific bioregion. It is set in Humboldt County in northwestern California, in the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion. By focusing on a specific bioregion and reflecting on anthropogenic changes in this bioregion over three decades, Bill Devall engages the reader in asking deeper questions about the meaning we find in Nature. He addresses questions such as how do we relate the facts and theories presented by science with our feelings, our intimacy, and our sense of Place as we dwell in a specific bioregion. This book engages the reader to consider our place in Nature. Devall approaches the bioregion not from the perspective of agencies and government, but from the perspective of the landscape itself.
Introduction
Preface
Chapter 1. Biogeography of the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion
Chapter 2. Passing Through the Redwood Curtain
Chapter 3. The Energy Dilemma
Chapter 4. An Enlightened City? Arcata, California
Chapter 5. A Geography of Hope: Restoration in Redwood National Park
Chapter 6. Grassroots Restoration and the Culture of Reinhabitation: Mattole River
Chapter 7. The Last Battle Over Old-growth Redwoods: The Headwaters Forest
Chapter 8. Fire on the Mountain
Chapter 9. The Republic of Ecotopia
Bibliography
About the Author
Bill Devall was in the Department of Sociology, Humboldt State University from 1968-1995 and Professor Emeritus from 1995-2009. Sing C. Chew is the founding editor of the interdisciplinary journal, Nature+Culture.
"With the courage of intellectual conviction, Bill Devall's work reminds us that humanity is not the central focus of existence, and that humans are inescapably intertwined with the whole of nature. After many years of bioregional living and exploration in the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion, Bill Devall left behind the ecology of wisdom: "Let the rivers live." Bill's trenchant analysis reveals how bioregionalists can begin to re-inhabit and live deeply in the way indigenous peoples always lived."
– Pat Lauderdale, Arizona State University
"Bill Devall has provided a revealing account of bioregional life and efforts to protect the Ancient Forests and Landscape of Northern California. It is a lucid and excellent account of the practice of Deep Ecology in an Age of Limits!"
– Daniel Sarabia, Roanoke College
"This is a posthumous publication of Devall's last work. The editor's introduction, which summarizes Devall's contribution to and practice of "deep ecology" as exemplified by his landmark publication Clearcut: The Tragedy of Industrial Forestry, quotes from one of Devall's last written notes: 'I can't 'save' anything, not even my mortal body [...] [but in defending ancient forests] I am 'saving' the possibility for evolution to continue.' The nine brief chapters of Devall's text present ways of considering the ecology in and around California's Redwood National Park. Recommended."
– Choice