Spirit Builders
The inspiring story of how one organization has tried to alleviate the struggles faced by First Nations peoples in Canada by building houses and developing livable communities for those in desperate need.
The people who were living here on Turtle Island (North America) before us have been pushed aside from their own land for decades. Mining companie …
At Sea with the Marine Birds of the Raincoast
An illustrated narrative that interweaves the shifting seasons of the Northwest Coast with the experiences of a conservation biologist surveying thousands of kilometres of open ocean in order to uncover the complex relationships between humans, marine birds and the realities of contemporary biodiversity.
At Sea with the Marine Birds of the Raincoast …
The Real Thing
The Real Thing is the first official biography of Ian McTaggart Cowan (1910–2010), the “father of Canadian ecology.” Authorized by his family and with the research support and participation of the University of Victoria Libraries, Briony Penn provides an unprecedented and accessible window into the story of this remarkable naturalist. From hi …
Tod Inlet
Tod Inlet has been a place of refuge for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, but few are aware of its history. This tiny fjord, less than a half hour from downtown Victoria, is part of Gowlland/Tod Provincial Park and is accessed by a forested path beside Tod Creek. For centuries it was the home of the WSÁNEC (Saanich) people, providing everythi …
Storm Warning
Human beings and industrial-based society are changing the composition of our planet’s atmosphere and causing it to warm at an unnatural and oftentimes astonishingly rapid rate. Much of that warmth is being absorbed by water, which as a result is moving through the global hydrological cycle faster and in unprecedented ways. A warmer atmosphere ca …
The Climate Nexus
Secure supplies of water, food and energy are essential to human dignity and well-being around the globe. In turn, the vitality of these three depends on a thriving biodiversity supported by healthy ecosystems. The complex interdependence among these four factors is known as the Nexus.
Global demand for the first three elements is increasing due to …
Saving Farmland
When Nathalie Chambers and her husband, David, first took over Madrona Farm, 27 acres on southern Vancouver Island with a deep history, they never thought their small-scale agricultural business would blossom into an international political act. As pressures from heirs, land developers and industrial farmers grew alongside their rows of organically …
Technology and Sustainability
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
The developed world is increasingly obsessed with two things: electronic gadgets and our changing climate. We stand in open-mouthed awe of our technological achievements while dejectedly shrugging our shoulders at …
The Columbia River Treaty
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
The Columbia River Treaty ratification in 1964 created the largest hydropower project in North America, with additional emphasis on flood protection for the United States. As the treaty approaches its 60th anniver …
Salmon
Salmon: A Scientific Memoir investigates a narrative that is important to the identity of the Pacific Northwest Coast – the salmon as an iconic species. Traditionally it’s been a narrative that is overwhelmingly about conflict. But is that always necessarily the case?
The story follows John Steinbeck’s advice: the best way to achieve reality i …
An Altar in the Wilderness
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
Father Kaleeg Hainsworth, an Eastern Orthodox priest with a lifetime of experience in the Canadian wilderness, grounds this manifesto in the literary, philosophical, mystical and historical teachings of the spirit …
Global Chorus
Global Chorus is a remarkable, illustrated collection of 365 daily meditations around some very large and increasingly crucial themes:
“Do you think that humanity can “nd a way past the current global environmental and social crises? Will we be able to create the conditions necessary for our own survival as well as that of other species on the p …
Flood Forecast
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
Hydro-climatic change is no longer an abstract or theoretical concept if you have been directly affected by the increase in the duration and intensity of extreme weather. In this new RMB manifesto, two of Canada …
On Fracking
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
Across North America and around the world, a significant shift from conventional to unconventional energy extraction is occurring like never before. As traditional energy sources dwindle and the insatiable demand …
The Earth Manifesto
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
We live in critical times. Choices we make daily now will affect the future of life itself. Years from now children will study our era on the brink and ask their elders “When the planet was burning, what did you …
Saving Lake Winnipeg
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
In February of 2013, as reported by major media from all around the world, Lake Winnipeg was recognized by the Global Nature Fund as the world’s “Threatened Lake of the Year” for 2013. It is not just Manitob …
The Homeward Wolf
Winner! 2014 Mountain Literature / Jon Whyte Award, Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
Wolves have become a complicated comeback story. Their tracks are once again making trails throughout western Alberta, south …
Wild Horses, Wild Wolves
Established in 1967, the Ghost River Wilderness Area, located along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta, is one of only three provincially designated wilderness areas in the province. As such, it is supposed to have the strictest form of government protection available in Canada, with development, motorized transportation …
Bears
Fear of bears seems almost to be part of what it is to be human. Our species emerged out of the depths of time into a world already populated by these great carnivores. Before we mastered iron and later developed firearms, we had few defences against bears—only watchful caution and elaborate ceremonies and sacrifices to ward off fear.
Where human …
Cold Matters
Cold Matters is a vital and approachable work that distills the scientific complexities of snow, ice, water and climate and presents the global implications of research put forth and funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. This timely book gives the concerned reader an opportunity to take part in the conversation abo …
Digging the City
At the last census in 2006, just over 80 percent of Canada’s population lived in urban centres. How we feed that population and protect its food sources is an enduring subject of debate in food security circles these days. As consumers and citizens, we all need to take a hard look at the deficiencies in Canada’s ability to feed the urban poor; …
Gift Ecology
Global sustainability in the 21st century seems to be an elusive goal. There are too many issues, too many problems—and, increasingly, too many people—to make the major changes required in the time various experts tell us we have left before it’s too late.
To create a sustainable future, we need to change the game itself. We cannot simply try …
Little Black Lies
Beginning in 1967 and for just over 30 years, the oil industry toiled in the relative obscurity of Northern Alberta as machines peeled away earth and boreal forest to exhume what has now become one of humanity’s most precious and contentious resources: bitumen. As the years passed, the bitumen mines sprawled, poisonous tailings ponds spread, toxi …
Becoming Water
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
Becoming Water takes the reader on a tour of Canada’s glaciers, describing the stories they tell and educating the reader about how glaciers came to be, how they work and what their future holds in our warming w …
The Insatiable Bark Beetle
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
In our ever-warming world, trillions of indigenous bark beetles are killing billions of mature conifers throughout the forests of western North America and around the world, as they embark on their largest and mos …
Ethical Water
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
Fresh water is essential to both the ever-expanding human population and the ever-threatened natural landscapes that surround us. And yet, society seems to continually ignore the need for a common-sense approach t …
The Beaver Manifesto
Beavers are the great comeback story—a keystone species that survived ice ages, major droughts, the fur trade, urbanization and near extinction. Their ability to create and maintain aquatic habitats has endeared them to conservationists, but puts the beavers at odds with urban and industrial expansion. These conflicts reflect a dichotomy within o …
The Incomparable Honeybee & the Economics of Pollination
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
From Dr. Reese Halter comes a remarkable, concise account of the honeybees that have profoundly shaped our planet for the past 110 million years. They are the most important group of flower-visiting animals, polli …
The Grizzly Manifesto
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
The grizzly bear, once the archetype for all that is wild, is quickly becoming a symbol of nature’s fierce but flagging resilience in the face of human greed and ignorance—and the difficulty a wealth-addicted …
Restoring the Flow
Try as we might, parts of North America may not escape the impacts of the global water crisis. The same kinds of water supply and quality issues that have appeared around our crowded planet are already beginning to present themselves here. Unfortunately, this is occurring at a time when, as a direct result of declining global food production, the w …
Denying the Source
Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies.
First Nations are facing some of the worst water crises in Canada and throughout North America. Their widespread lack of access to safe drinking water receives ongoing national media attention, and yet progress ad …
Water, Weather and the Mountain West
Growing populations, increasing industrial use and heavy agricultural demand are beginning to tax water supplies in many regions of Canada.
Since many rivers are already fully allocated to numerous uses, future economic and social development will depend upon how much we know about our surface and ground water resources and how effectively we manage …