The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River (Environmental Arts and Humanities) - Tapa blanda

"What sets the author aside from other environmental writers is that he finds the perfect balance between poetry and information. Throughout The Sespe Wild, Monsma shows over and over again that he's not only a capable writer, but also a knowledgeable and passionate nature enthusiast....The Sespe Wild is a great read, demonstrating both lyrical and factual qualities. It serves as a testament to California's wild past and its civilized - but in some ways wilder - present." - Joshua Chase, Las Vegas City Life "The Sespe Wild partly fills what has been a void: serious nature writing about the Sespe. Don't look for it to guide you to particular locations. Don't look to it for a detailed history of the last 15 years of conservation battles. Look to it as a book to enhance your sense of wonder at nature's magnificence in a place called the Sespe." - Alasdair Coyne, Los Angeles Sierra Club Southern Sierran"

Fifty miles northwest of Los Angeles, Sespe Creek flows through some of the wildest territory in California. To nature writer and outdoorsman Bradley John Monsma, it is the place ""that teaches me to be fully alive,"" a place that reminds us of what we've lost and inspires us to love what's left. ""The Sespe Wild"" chronicles Monsma's exploration of this fantastic region. His attention ranges from the physical Sespe to its subsurface geology, and he discusses both the Chumash people who first occupied it and the impact of Spanish and American settlers. He also considers the Sespe through the eyes of some of its nonhuman populations - the nearly extinct condors, the vanished grizzlies, the mountain sheep, steelhead trout, and red-legged frogs. He ponders the tension between preservation and management of wilderness and the critical issues that arise wherever wilderness and cities meet. Monsma's informative, nuanced, and witty meditation on one of California's last best places brilliantly combines history with attentive observations on the natural world, the symbolic and spiritual levels of human experience with the land, and the power of the land's ongoing creation and renewal.