This is a book for its time.
Wherever I travel in the world I see more and more land being expropriated for human activity, with walls around countries and scorched earth security zones preventing the natural movement of organisms, and less and less land for wildlife and primal nature.
We have not yet fully come to accept that we are part of nature and not an imposition on it . If we can restore nature to our own backyards, we can have a measurable impact on re-establishing diversity. In the process we will find salvation and a deep sense of satisfaction. Imagine if you will, that an entire suburban neighbourhood naturalized its backyards. Collectively, the impact would be immense. Native plants would flourish, insect populations would explode, birds would find food and shelter, mammals would exercise their role as predator and prey in a healthy ecosystem. The green deserts that are lawns would be banished, noxious chemicals dispensed with, water consumption improved, trees would provide shelter and cooler temperatures in hot summers - the world would be a better place.
And it can be done!
This book provides a comprehensive outline of the measure to be taken on every plot of land from a postage stamp backyard in a modern subdivision to extensive estates. We can all do our part.
The book explores the full scope of integrated ecosystem activity, including the restoration of the impact large mammals have had on the environment.
No, we are not going to invite Grizzly Bears to the family picnic, but we can replicate the influence they had on landscape integrity.
In even the smallest backyard, indeed even on a balcony, simple measures can be taken to create microclimates and suitable habitat for the least among us, all of which play a critical role in a healthy, functioning ecosystem.
Henry David Thoreau famously said, "In wildness is the preservation of the world." There is surely deep irony in the fact that this maxim has been oft repeated, especially in flights of rhetoric by politicians, by some almost as a mantra, while we merrily proceed to routinely destroy wildness.
This book will truly help you to reverse your path of destruction and shine a light on preservation and restoration, with myriad practical ways to do it.
It should be a handbook for all who care about this one precious planet, the only home we will ever have, and our legacy to those generations yet unborn.
Natural Habitats & Wildlife Gardening: Inviting Nature into Your Backyard - Princeton University Press
Shaun McCoshum - Photographs by Loren Merrill and Leslie Miller
Paperback - US$29.95 - ISBN 9780691261003
352 pages - 5.875 x 8.25 inches (14.69 x 20.625 cm)
400 colour photographs - 23 diagrams
Publication date: 03 March, 2026
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