Women Pioneers For The Environment

As the torchbearers of environmental activism, women from around the world have created profound changes that are helping to ensure a healthier planet for all living things. Whether it is Judi Bari, who was crippled by a car bomb because of her efforts to save California's ancient redwood forests; Dai Qing, who was imprisoned for her opposition to an environmentally destructive dam on China's Yangtze River; or Dr. Tatynana Artyomkina, who defied KGB threats and exposed health and environmental risks in the Soviet Union, women have put their lives on the line and persevered against daunting odds to restore and protect the environment. Mary Joy Breton provides absorbing sketches of these and other women activists in the Americas, Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, and Asia. Breton interweaves her accounts with narrative on the ecological hazards that drove these women to spearhead various environmental campaigns, examining why and how they challenged, and often defeated, the power structures of government and industry. Although these remarkable women come from various geographical regions and represent a wide range of economic, ethnic, and political backgrounds, they share insights, values, and a particular sensitivity to the Earth that led them to change the course of history. Their courageous efforts illuminate the crucial role of women in the environmental movement, and provide inspiration for a new generation of activists.

Compelling accounts from early champions of Louisiana's struggle to save natural resources

Written by one of the leading thinkers in environmentalism, Earthcare brings together Merchant's existing work on the topic of women and the environment as well as updated and new essays. Earthcare looks at age-old historical associations of women with nature, beginning with Eve and continuing through to environmental activists of today, women's commitment to environmental conservation, and the problematic assumptions of women as caregivers and men as dominating nature.

This book highlights the unique and complex role women have played in the shaping of the American environment from pre-Columbian Native Americans to present day environmental justice activists.

In Beyond Mothering Earth, Sherilyn MacGregor argues that celebrations of "earthcare" as women's unique contribution to the search for sustainability often neglect to consider the importance of politics and citizenship in women's lives. Drawing on interviews with women who juggle private caring with civic engagement in quality-of-life concerns, she proposes an alternative: a project of feminist ecological citizenship that affirms the practice of citizenship as an intrinsically valuable activity while allowing foundational aspects of caring labour and natural processes to flourish. Beyond Mothering Earth provides an original and empirically grounded understanding of women's involvement in quality-of-life activism and an analysis of citizenship that makes an important contribution to contemporary discussions of green politics, globalization, neoliberalism, and democratic justice.

In Rachel Carson and her sisters, Robert K. Musil redefines the achievements and legacy of environmental pioneer and scientist Rachel Carson, linking her work to a wide network of American women activists and writers and introducing her to a new, contemporary audience. Rachel Carson was the first American to combine two longstanding, but separate strands of American environmentalism -- the love of nature and a concern for human health. Widely known for her 1962 best-seller, Silent spring, Carson is today often perceived as a solitary "great woman," whose work single-handedly launched a modern environmental movement. But as Musil demonstrates, Carson's life's work drew upon and was supported by already existing movements, many led by women, in conservation and public health.

In 1860, at the age of fourteen, Susan Louisa Moir left England for British Columbia. After settling initially at Hope, she lived briefly in both Victoria and New Westminster, then B.C.'s two most important settlements. Returning to Hope, she helped her mother open the community's first school, and in 1868 she married John Fall Allison, riding on her honeymoon over the Allison Trail into the unsettled Similkameen Valley. Her record of the voyage, of Victoria, New Westminster, and Hope as they were in the 1860s, and her memories of the isolated but fulfilling life she, her husband, and their fourteen children led in the Similkameen and Okanagan Valleys provide a unique view of the pioneer mind and spirit.