Table of Contents

On Language

Acronyms

Introduction: Nature in a World of Humans

Part One: Alien Empires

Chapter 1: On Green Mountain

Chapter 2: New Worlds

Chapter 3: All at Sea

Chapter 4: Welcome to America

Chapter 5: Britain: A Nation Tied in Knotweed

Part Two: Myths and Demons

Chapter 6: Ecological Cleansing

Chapter 7: Myths of the Aliens

Chapter 8: Myths of the Pristine

Chapter 9: Nativism in the Garden of Eden

Part Three: The New Wild

Chapter 10: Novel Ecosystems

Chapter 11: Rebooting Conservation in the Urban Badlands

Chapter 12: Call of the New Wild

Latin Names

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

About the Author

Fred Pearce is an award-winning author and journalist based in London. He has reported on environmental, science, and development issues from eighty-five countries over the past twenty years. Environment consultant at New Scientist since 1992, he also writes regularly for the Guardian newspaper and Yale University’s prestigious e360 website. Pearce was voted UK Environment Journalist of the Year in 2001 and CGIAR agricultural research journalist of the year in 2002, and he won a lifetime achievement award from the Association of British Science Writers in 2011. His many books include With Speed and Violence, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, The Coming Population Crash, and The Land Grabbers.

Reviews

An Economist Book of the Year

“[Pearce] hits the nail on the head… [He] brings the balanced perspective of a seasoned, freethinking environmental reporter, pushing points that need to be made.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Pearce shows that biodiversity actually increases more frequently than it decreases when newer wildlife marches in. Must reading for environmentalists of every stripe, and an optimistic report on the resilience of nature in a world of constantly shifting ecosystems.”
—Booklist

“Pragmatic conservation has to begin with undogmatic, realistic ecology, which shows that alien-invasive plants and animals almost always increase biodiversity—and therefore nature’s general health and robustness. Fred Pearce’s ‘new wild’ suggests a matching ‘new conservation.’”          
—Stewart Brand, author of Whole Earth Discipline
 
“I wholly agree with Fred Pearce’s argument for rewilding. Life, from the smallest bacterium to the whole living planet, is dynamic. Species do not belong in a planet-sized zoo. We should let Gaia evolve.”
—James Lovelock, author of The Vanishing Face of Gaia and A Rough Ride to the Future
 
Praise for Fred Pearce
“Terrific . . . [Pearce has] produced a work of required reading for anyone concerned about global justice in the twenty-first century.”
—Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing

“ . . . enriching and farsighted . . .”
—Jai Singh, San Francisco Chronicle