A Land Imperiled: The Declining Health of the Southern Appalachian Bioregion (review)

I am a newcomer to the Southern Appalachians. Though I teach an undergraduate class on environmental issues in Appalachia, I still have much to learn about this region with its unique rugged topography, rich biodiversity, and varied cultural geography. There is a long history of human influence on the landscape here, and a strong connection between people and place. But here in the Southern Appalachians, like in many other places, we are experiencing profound environmental changes driven by forces acting at many scales, from suburban residential development to global climate change. For any student of geography, or the Appalachians, A Land Imperiled: the Declining Health of the Southern Appalachian Bioregion will be thought-provoking and informative.

This book provides an overview of many of the environmental problems and pressures affecting the Southern Appalachian bioregion, which John Nolt defines as the upper Tennessee River valley. The first chapter sets the temporal context, briefly sketching out the environmental history of the region from the late Pleistocene though the Civil War. The chapter emphasizes the ways that humans have shaped the landscape for more than 8.,... years, including the effects of pre-Columbian hunting and gathering, the use of fire, the development of agriculture, as well as post-contact hunting, trade, war, and pioneer settlement. The following chapters each focus on a single element or theme: air, water, biota, population and urbanization, food, energy, consumption and waste, and transportation. The final two chapters offer ideas regarding prospects for the future, and the important issue of environmental sustainability. John Nolt, professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee, serves as the main author while several of the book chapters are written or co-authored by others.

Discussion of general processes in environmental science is combined with specific descriptions of how these processes are influencing the Southern Appalachian bioregion. For example, in their discussion of impacts to the region's air quality, the authors interweave descriptions of the basic processes of formation of tropospheric ozone, particulate matter, and other air pollutants. Similarly, in discussing the region's water, the authors provide an introduction to basic hydrological processes. However, the authors do not claim to be impartial. As such, the book differs from a standard environmental or science text. For example, the authors editorialize by describing non-native carp as "undesirable" (p. 148), or the current road system as "ugly" (p. 299).

A Land Imperiled does not shy away from uncomfortable questions: How do individual choices and lifestyles impact the environment and other organisms? What are the ethical implications of such choices? The chapter on food and food systems is particularly compelling. Beginning with the question, "how are we fed?" (p. 173) the authors consider how our diets impact our own health, the land, local economies, small farms, and the animals that are raised and slaughtered for our consumption. Concerns over obesity and diet-related diseases, agricultural impacts, loss of small farms, and animal cruelty are relevant worldwide. However, some of these issues are particularly prevalent in the Southern Appalachian region. For example, according to the authors approximately 2/3 of the chicken available to U.S. consumers is produced in the wider Southern Appalachian region. While this means that chicken meat purchased here has likely not traveled far from warehouse to supermarket, it also means that production and processing impacts are concentrated here. Troubling issues include crippling injuries suffered by poultry workers, stress and suffering of the chickens themselves, and environmental impacts associated with carcasses, other processing waste, and manure.

The book takes a holistic approach to assessing the "health" of the bioregion. Health in this context is defined as denoting "wholeness" and "functional integrity" at multiple ecological levels, from the cell to the ecosystem (p. 2). As such, the health of the bioregion depends on the well-being and integration of its constituent parts, including its human inhabitants. Although the concept of ecological health is evocative...