OUR LIVING RESOURCES
Consider a
two-inch-thick tome produced by the federal government and your
eyelids are likely to fall. If the volume is Our Living Resources,
your reaction could be just the opposite. Anyone interested in
ecological issues may find this report
indispensable.
To begin with, the 530-page
document holds page after page of full-color photographs, maps and
charts. But what is most impressive is its scope. Compiled by the
National Biological Service, the embattled agency created to survey
American ecosystems, the book is an encyclopedia of the current
state of the nation’s natural resources. Nearly every animal
species, especially those that are rare or endangered, warrants at
least a brief chapter, as do entire ecosystems such as the Great
Plains, the Florida Keys, the Great Lakes and the Interior
West.
The 47-page index runs from Abert’s
squirrel to the Zuni sucker – a fish native to the Colorado River
Basin – and the government, academic and other scientists who
authored each chapter have generally, but not always, written in
layman’s terms.
Like anything the government
produces, the book is not cheap. It costs $44 (this includes
postage) and is available by writing the Superintendent of
Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA, 15250-7954 or calling
202/512-1800 or faxing a request to 202/512-2250. CD-ROM may also
be available.
– Michael
Milstein
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Our living resources.
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