Investing in Nature: Case Studies in Land Conservation in Collaboration with Business
Author: William J Ginn
In 2004, U.S. consumers spent $5.2 billion purchasing bottled water while the government only invested 5 percent of that amount to purchase critical watersheds, parks, and wildlife refuges-systems vital to clean water and healthy environments. How can we reverse the direction of such powerful economic forces? A group of dedicated business-people-turned-environmental-entrepreneurs is pioneering a new set of tools for land conservation deals and other market-based strategies. These pragmatic visionaries have already used these methods to protect millions of acres of land and to transform the practices of entire industries. They are transforming the very nature of conservation by making it profitable.
Drawing on his vast experience in both business and land conservation at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), William Ginn offers a practical guide to these innovative methods and a road map to the most effective way to implement them. From conservation investment banking, to emerging markets for nature's goods and services, to new tax incentives that encourage companies to do the "right" thing, Ginn goes beyond the theories to present real-world applications and strategies. And, just as importantly, he looks at the lessons learned from what has not worked, including his own failed efforts in Papua New Guinea and TNC's controversial compatible development approach in Virginia. In an era of dwindling public resources and scarce charitable dollars, these tools reveal a new, and perhaps the only, pathway to achieving biodiversity goals and protecting our lands.
Conservation professionals, students of land conservation, and entrepreneurs interested in green business will find Ginn's tales ofhigh-finance deals involving vast tracts of pristine land both informative and exciting. More than just talk, Investing in Nature will teach you how to think big about land conservation.
Table of Contents:
| Introduction : the scale of nature | 1 | |
| Pt. 1 | Conservation investment banking | 15 |
| Ch. 1 | Partnering with big timber | 17 |
| Ch. 2 | Debt for nature : the story of the Katahdin forest | 42 |
| Ch. 3 | Bankruptcy and biodiversity | 53 |
| Ch. 4 | Investing with an attitude | 63 |
| Pt. 2 | Creating new environmental markets | 73 |
| Ch. 5 | Carbon and forests | 75 |
| Ch. 6 | The bank of nature | 92 |
| Pt. 3 | Incentives | 105 |
| Ch. 7 | Greening business | 107 |
| Ch. 8 | Tax credits for conservation | 119 |
| Ch. 9 | Incentives for working landscapes | 136 |
| Pt. 4 | The path forward | 155 |
| Ch. 10 | If you build it, will they come? | 157 |
| Ch. 11 | Conservation at the scale of nature | 168 |
| Ch. 12 | Crossing the divide | 181 |
Interesting book: Living the GI Diet or Healthy Carb Diabetes Cookbook
American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California
Author: James N Gregory
Fifty years ago, John Steinbeck's now classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, captured the epic story of an Oklahoma farm family driven west to California by dust storms, drought, and economic hardship. It was a story that generations of Americans have also come to know through Dorothea Lange's unforgettable photos of migrant families struggling to make a living in Depression-torn California. Now in James N. Gregory's pathbreaking American Exodus, there is at last an historical study that moves beyond the fiction and the photographs to uncover the full meaning of these events.
American Exodus takes us back to the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and the war boom influx of the 1940s to explore the experiences of the more than one million Oklahomans, Arkansans, Texans, and Missourians who sought opportunities in California. Gregory reaches into the migrants' lives to reveal not only their economic trials but also their impact on California's culture and society. He traces the development of an "Okie subculture" that over the years has grown into an essential element in California's cultural landscape.
The consequences, however, reach far beyond California. The Dust Bowl migration was part of a larger heartland diaspora that has sent millions of Southerners and rural Midwesterners to the nation's northern and western industrial perimeter. American Exodus is the first book to examine the cultural implications of that massive 20th-century population shift. In this rich account of the experiences and impact of these migrant heartlanders, Gregory fills an important gap in recent American social history.
Library Journal
A thorough study of the migration of Oklahomans, Arkansans, Texans, and Missourians to California in the years of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Gregory dispels the popular Okie image built from The Grapes of Wrath , placing this unique exodus in economic perspective. He is particularly successful in tracing Okie impact on the San Joaquin Valley, where the Okie twang and culture have taken root to become the Californian. Gregory's prose is conversational, although his narrative lacks the compelling anecdotes that enrich history for the lay reader. This is, nevertheless, an important and necessary work on this period. Recommended.-- Timothy L. Zindel, Hastings Coll. of the Law, San Francisco
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