Rambunctious Garden

Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World

De: Emma Marris

Narrado por: Renee Chambliss

A paradigm shift is roiling the environmental world. For decades people have unquestioningly accepted the idea that our goal is to preserve nature in its pristine, pre-human state. But many scientists have come to see this as an outdated dream that thwarts bold new plans to save the environment and prevents us from having a fuller relationship with nature. Humans have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistory, and climate change means even the remotest places now bear the fingerprints of humanity. Emma Marris argues convincingly that it is time to look forward and create the "rambunctious garden," a hybrid of wild nature and human management.

In this optimistic book, listeners meet leading scientists and environmentalists and visit imaginary Edens, designer ecosystems, and Pleistocene parks. Marris describes innovative conservation approaches, including re-wilding, assisted migration, and the embrace of so-called novel ecosystems.

Rambunctious Garden is short on gloom and long on interesting theories and fascinating narratives, all of which bring home the idea that we must give up our romantic notions of pristine wilderness and replace them with the concept of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden planet, tended by us.

©2011 Emma Maris (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Loved the content

I really liked the content of the book. Lots of good stories and the summary of ideas in the last chapter was really good. I didn't care for the reading style, because every sentence ended in a drawn out syllable.

Did not meet personal preferences

The point of this book is a paradigm shift from how we currently see, use, and restore nature. Objectively, the points Marris makes are not all that bad, and it seems like over half the book is citing other experts, giving the ideas credit. For me, I just really dislike the tone of the writing and the reading. I find Marris's writing style and opinions to be rather pompous and unforgiving to anyone who does not share her viewpoint. The reader sounds a bit this way, as well, but that is probably simply because of the text. She also has an unpleasant habit of drawing out the last vowel of the last word in a sentence or phrase, which is rather annoying to me.

informative and entertaining

narrator was engaging and kept me listening. the story had some rough parts. I learned a great deal of information about novel eco systems and how we can preserve this rambunctious garden of earth with people

Interesting Environmental Theory

Marris provides interesting environmental theory on conservation and how we should go about preserving our ecosystems.

Anti-science

Although the author brings up many important points to consider, she routinely denies the science behind many of these concepts in favor of controversial opinions by a single person that she interviews. She gives no valid arguments for why the science is incorrect beyond stating quotes from these (potentially uneducated) people. While the book is interesting, the science denial is concerning