This is the first comprehensive study of an east African lake for thirty years. It represents the culmination of research expeditions which stretch back twenty years and is thus able to pick up long term changes which the individual research activities do not reveal. Lake Naivasha is a tropical lake whose natural fluctuations are now dwarfed by human impacts. Papers show how the irrigation for horticulture and power cooling has reduced the lake depth significantly; exotic arrivals have altered the plant community beyond recognition and its commercial value as a fishery and a tourist feature are reduced by over use. Despite this, the lake has considerable conservation value at present. It provides a different case study in the ever-growing library of the effects of human follies. Lake Naivasha has achieved global importance in the past ten years because its waters are used to sustain the largest horticultural industry in Africa. The book highlights its fragility under such pressure and points out the way towards sustainable use of the water and the ecosystem.

This is the first comprehensive study of an east African lake for thirty years. It represents the culmination of research expeditions which stretch back twenty years and is thus able to pick up long term changes which the individual research activities do not reveal. Lake Naivasha is a tropical lake whose natural fluctuations are now dwarfed by human impacts. Papers show how the irrigation for horticulture and power cooling has reduced the lake depth significantly; exotic arrivals have altered the plant community beyond recognition and its commercial value as a fishery and a tourist feature are reduced by over use. Despite this, the lake has considerable conservation value at present. It provides a different case study in the ever-growing library of the effects of human follies. Lake Naivasha has achieved global importance in the past ten years because its waters are used to sustain the largest horticultural industry in Africa. The book highlights its fragility under such pressure and points out the way towards sustainable use of the water and the ecosystem.

With compassion and an unswerving regard for the truth, veteran journalist Mark Seal lays bare the deeply moving, inspirational story of Joan Root, a dedicated environmentalist and Oscar-nominated wildlife filmmaker. He covers her early days in Kenya as a shy young woman with an almost uncanny ability to connect to animals; her whirlwind courtship with the dashing Alan Root, their marriage, and the twenty years of nonstop adventure and passionate romance that followed, both in Africa and around the world; the shattering disintegration of the marriage and partnership; and Joan’s triumphant struggle to reinvent herself as the protector of her lakeshore community’s fragile ecosystem—a struggle that would lead to her tragic death in January 2006. Joan Root dreamed of a bright future for Kenya, a country blessed with unmatched beauty but scarred by decades of colonization and a culture of corruption. She spent her life fighting to make that dream a reality. Her life ended too soon, but “thanks to Seal’s meticulous re-creation, her extraordinary life lives on.” (People, four-star review)

In an open cart Elspeth Huxley set off with her parents to travel to Thika in Kenya. As pioneering settlers, they built a house of grass, ate off a damask cloth spread over packing cases, and discovered—the hard way—the world of the African. With an extraordinary gift for detail and a keen sense of humor, Huxley recalls her childhood on the small farm at a time when Europeans waged their fortunes on a land that was as harsh as it was beautiful. For a young girl, it was a time of adventure and freedom, and Huxley paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up among the Masai and Kikuyu people, discovering both the beauty and the terrors of the jungle, and enduring the rugged realities of the pioneer life.

The Wetland Book is a comprehensive resource aimed at supporting the trans- and multidisciplinary research and practice which is inherent to this field. Aware both that wetlands research is on the rise and that researchers and students are often working or learning across several disciplines, The Wetland Book is a readily accessible online and print reference which will be the first port of call on key concepts in wetlands science and management. This easy-to-follow reference will allow multidisciplinary teams and transdisciplinary individuals to look up terms, access further details, read overviews on key issues and navigate to key articles selected by experts.

Honorable Mention for the Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW) Book prize The potential of floriculture grows at Lake Naivasha Kenya supplies more than 35 percent of the fresh-cut roses and other flowers sold annually in the European Union. This industry—which employs at least 90,000 workers, most of whom are women—is lucrative but enduringly controversial. More than half the flowers are grown near the shores of Lake Naivasha, a freshwater lake northwest of Nairobi recognized as a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance. Critics decry the environmental side effects of floriculture, and human rights activists demand better wages and living conditions for workers. In this rich portrait of Kenyan floriculture, Megan Styles presents the point of view of local workers and investigates how the industry shapes Kenyan livelihoods, landscapes, and politics. She investigates the experiences and perspectives of low-wage farmworkers and the more elite actors whose lives revolve around floriculture, including farm managers and owners, Kenyan officials, and the human rights and environmental activists advocating for reform. By exploring these perspectives together, Styles reveals the complex and contradictory ways that rose farming shapes contemporary Kenya. She also shows how the rose industry connects Kenya to the world, and how Kenyan actors perceive these connections. As a key space of encounter, Lake Naivasha is a synergistic center where many actors seek to solve broader Kenyan social and environmental problems using the global flows of people, information, and money generated by floriculture.

This is the third volume in the Birds of Africa series, covering the rich avifauna of the world's second largest continent. Volume III deals with the near-passerines, from parrots to woodpeckers. Universally recognised as by far the most authoritative work ever published on the subject, The Birds of Africa is a superb multi-contributor reference work, with encyclopaedic species texts, stunning paintings of all species and numerous subspecies, hundreds of informative line drawings, detailed range maps, and extensive bibliographies. Each volume contains an Introduction that brings the reader up to date with the latest developments in African ornithology, including the evolution and biogeography of African birds. Diagnoses of the families and genera, often with superspecies maps, are followed by the comprehensive species accounts themselves. These include descriptions of range and status, field characters, voice, general habits, food, and breeding habits. Full bibliographies, acoustic references, and indexes complete this scholarly work of reference. This third volume in the series deals comprehensively with the parrots, turacos, cuckoos, barn owls, typical owls, nightjars, swifts, mousebirds, trogons, kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, wood-hoopoes, Hoopoe, hornbills, barbets, honeyguides and woodpeckers. The editors and artists have worked closely with other authors - all acknowledged experts in their field - to produce a superb reference in which comprehensive texts on every species are complemented by accurate and detailed paintings and drawings of the birds themselves.