Discussing Rare Desert Species with Author Christopher Norment
By Katie-Leigh Virginia Corder, Dianne Timblin
An ecologist offers an eloquent perspective on imperiled desert species.
October 14, 2015
From The Staff Environment Evolution Policy Ecology Nature Conservation Scientists Nightstand
For our very first Scientists' Nightstand podcast, author Christopher Norment joins us to discuss his book, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea: Survival, Extinction, and Conservation in a Desert World, from University of North Carolina Press. It tells the story of six rare desert species native to the Death Valley region. Along the way, Norment considers practical and ethical questions about conservation, especially around the issues of water use and climate change. He offers an eloquent, personal take on evolutionary history that's firmly grounded in ecological science and enlivened by closely observed detail. Relicts of a Beautiful Sea presents a convincing argument for biodiversity conservation.
Christopher Norment is professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Biology at the State University of New York College of Brockport. He's the author of several books, including In the Memory of the Map: A Cartographic Memoir from the University of Iowa Press. He spoke to us in Durham, North Carolina, while he was here to present a lecture and reading for the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Days, an event presented by the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity foundation and Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.
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