Add to that the telecommunications networks with which we


have blanketed the globe with our virtually omnipresent digital devices, and is there any place where a person can still be alone in ‘nature’? Given all of this, not to mention the plethora of current social


and political issues plaguing the planet, as Jason Mark — longtime editor of Earth Island Journal and now Sierra Magazine editor-in- chief — asks quite simply in the book’s prologue, “What would twenty-first century wilderness look like?” To begin to answer these and their many follow up questions,


Mark takes us with him into the backcountry, trekking solo into Ari- zona’s Sonoran desert, with friends — including backpacking neo- phytes — in Yosemite’s high country, exploring the dense forests of the Olympic peninsula, on a river trip on Alaska’s north slope, track- ing wolves in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness, visiting Lakota terri- tory in the Dakota badlands and on a teen boys’ Outward Bound course in the mountains of Colorado. The backdrop to these expeditions is the dilemma we now face


in defining what is natural and what can be considered wild on what Mark calls our “post-pristine planet.” Now that climate change, chemical pollutants that turn up in


wildlife from pole to pole and oceans filled with durable plastic trash have left their mark everywhere, how do we make sense of the boundaries traditionally drawn to protect wild places? Mark makes it clear from the outset that he stands firmly on the


side that believes wild places and the ability to experience these land- scapes outside human influence is more important than ever. Places left undominated by humans are essential, Mark says,


both for what they can offer us intellectually, physically and spiritu- ally and for their value as biological and ecological refugia. “I believe we are about to discover that the wild can be like a


multi-tool in our twenty-first century survival kit,” writes Mark. “For- get untouched,” he says. “What matters now is whether a place is un- controlled.” To help us understand why these questions continue to play such


a crucial role in American culture and politics, Mark explores key landmarks in this history. He reminds us convincingly — and without verging on the pedantic — why the writings of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Frederick Jackson Turner, Roderick Nash, Aldo Leopold, Theodore Roosevelt and William O. Douglas still deserve our atten- tion as we ponder the concept of wilderness in this age of the An- thropocene. While this historical territory is far from untrodden, it’s well


worth revisiting as Mark presents it in the context of phenomena like “Google Treks,” wolf packs sporting GPS collars and imbedded mi- crochips, people paying big bucks for workshops that teach them to live like it’s the Stone Age while communications satellites cruise overhead.


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Benefit” by Walter M. Brasch


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Extensive overview of fracking, with in-depth analysis of media coverage, ethical violations by aca- demic researchers theological base, the anti-fracking movement, and political-business connections.


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“We need to defend the wild,” Mark writes, “because in an oth-


erwise programmed and micro-managed society, it remains one of the last bastions of unpredictability.” Mark offers numerous cogent and gracefully articulated argu-


ments for why wilderness — landscapes and wildlife that we don’t control — and whatever it was that Thoreau meant by wildness may indeed be more important than ever. And for those like me who have spent time in remote landscapes


and have a visceral affinity for them (I once had a life-changing back- packing trip in the Utah wildlands and count among my major ac- complishments a solo multi-day kayak trip), “Satellites in the High Country” might be just the book to hand to friends and family won- dering why you’re heading off with a heavy pack to sleep on the ground where there’s a danger of bears, rather than staying in a nice hotel.


Elizabeth Grossman is a freelance writer and book author based in Portland, Ore., and is a member of SEJ’s board of directors.


Beyond Fair Trade: How One Small Coffee Company Helped Transform a Hillside Village In Thailand By Mark Pendergrast Greystone Books, $18.95


Reviewed by JoANN M. VALENTI “Compassionate capitalism” sure


sounds suspiciously wonky during a polit- ical campaign season, but brace yourself for a credible example.


In “Beyond Fair Trade: How One Small Coffee Company


Helped Transform a Hillside Village in Thailand,” author Mark Pen- dergrast offers a convincing story that a multinational partnership can deliver shared profits (maybe) and provide sustainable farming for a marginalized tribe in a challenging mountain environment. Pendergrast has a penchant for exploring the business of bever-


ages (see his “Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World” and “For God, Country, and Coca Cola”). Now he’s back to coffee in a narrative about a once-migrant tribe, showcasing his skill at weaving history, culture, economics and en- vironmental science in a mere 290 pages. The tribe, the Akha, eagerly abandoned the CIA/USAID sup-


ported opium poppy trade for organic Arabica coffee beans in a deal with a wealthy Canadian businessman. The Doi Chaang Coffee Com- pany launched in Canada in 2007. One of the book’s key characters is Canadian hedge funder John Darch, a complicated figure who made his millions in mining and


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“Saved by the Sea: Hope, Heart- break and Wonder in the Blue World” by David Helvarg


New World Library www.indiebound.org/book/9781608683284


David Helvarg’s story is a profound, startling and sometimes funny reflection on the state of our seas and how our lives are linked to the natural world.


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