Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources - Tapa dura

"This fascinating book is rich with information and beautifully written for a broad audience of both laypeople and professionals." - Sue Rosenthal, Bay Nature "Tending the Wild is an enormously rich and highly readable text on the remarkably diverse land management techniques practiced by California Indians over millennia. This book serves as an invaluable resource as we strive to conserve California's enormous cultural and biotic heritage in the new century. A triumph!" - Michael H. Horn, California State University Fullerton "Tending the Wild supports the little know fact that Indian groups in California historically practiced a kind of "environmental bonsai" through their centuries long management activities. Kat Anderson's work is timely and will make an important contribution toward a better understanding of the historic ecologies of North America." - Greg Cajete, University of New Mexico"

John Muir was an early proponent of a view we still hold today - that much of California was pristine, untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans. But as this groundbreaking book demonstrates, what Muir was really seeing, when he admired the grand vistas of Yosemite and the gold and purple flowers carpeting the Central Valley, were the fertile gardens of the Sierra Miwok and Valley Yokuts Indians, modified and made productive by centuries of harvesting, tilling, sowing, pruning, and burning. Marvellously detailed and beautifully written, "Tending the Wild" is an unparalled examination of Native American knowledge and uses of California's natural resources that reshapes our understanding of native cultures, and shows how we might begin to use their knowledge in our own conservation efforts.