Editor's note: September 3 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act. To commemorate the anniversary, we asked a small group of Island Press authors to reflect on the influence of this law to date and how its role may or should change as we move into an uncertain future. We are sharing the series this week and next. This post was written by Richard Waring with assistance from coauthor Joe Landsberg.
This Friday, check out this selection from Mark Jerome Walters' Seven Modern Plagues. Since Walters first drew attention to these “ecodemics” in 2003 with the publication of Six Modern Plagues, much has been learned about how they developed.