Professor Robert Keiter, an environmental law expert, has published a new book, “Conserving Nature in Greater Yellowstone: Controversy and Change in an Iconic Ecosystem.”
“I’m pleased to see the book in print; it captures nearly 40 years of research and professional engagement in Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem conservation issues that have stirred cutting-edge controversies leading to major policy changes across the region and elsewhere,” Keiter says.
In the book’s preface, Keiter recalls riding in a friend’s convertible through Yellowstone National Park in summer 1967. As his friend drove into a pullout area next to several other cars to see wildlife, a large, hungry black bear suddenly appeared just inches from Keiter. Fortunately, the bear was distracted and no one was hurt, but Keiter recalls that the experience left an “indelible impression,” though he didn’t know at the time that his career would repeatedly take him to Yellowstone.
“Today, we better understand this unique, complex, and extraordinary place widely known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem where wild nature still prevails,” Keiter writes. “But change—warming temperatures, migration obstacles, wildlife diseases, and rampant subdivision activity, for example—is ever present, posing increasingly urgent challenges in the enduring quest to conserve this special place.”
Highlighting both the conservation successes and controversies connected with the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, “Conserving Nature” details the history of conservation biology, a commitment to ecological science within the Park Service and Forest Service, and the emergence of an assertive environmental movement.
“This book seeks to recount how this widespread commitment to nature conservation at the ecosystem scale has taken hold, what that has meant on the ground, and implications for the future. It is a story about ideas, controversy, and change, abetted by science, politics, economics, law, and cultural evolution,” Keiter writes.
Keiter has focused his research on public lands for more than 40 years and currently serves as a trustee of the National Parks Conservation Association. He also served as a member of the National Park System Advisory Board for two years. He has written numerous book chapters and journal articles about public lands and natural resource law and published several other books about national parks, including “To Conserve Unimpaired: The Evolution of the National Park Idea,” “Keeping Faith With Nature: Ecosystems, Democracy, and America’s Public Lands,” “The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: Redefining America’s Wilderness Heritage,” and “Visions of the Grand Staircase-Escalante: Examining Utah’s Newest National Monument.”
Learn more about “Conserving Nature in Greater Yellowstone: Controversy and Change in an Iconic Ecosystem.”