This is a story of fish and fishing in Lake Victoria, one of Africa's Great lakes. In the early 1990s, Uganda started industrial fish processing in response to the lucrative markets overseas. This has led to a situation whereby larger-scale industrial fisheries have been systematically favored in the belief that the benefits derived from the newer fisheries would flow through the economy to the original participants. The customary system, rules and regulations are being replaced through the promotion of conventional science, foreign technology and centralization of power. The question of whether the economic importance of fisheries for local populations/households (that originally survived on the lake's resources) has been tackled is what the study follows. It will further focus on how local fishers employ LEK to sustain their meager economy amidst the interference of state agencies and external actors. It explores how local fishers are coping with the new natural resource management policies and whether Lake Victoria is heading for an environmental catastrophe.

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award "Nimbly splices together history, science, reporting and personal experiences into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative.… Egan’s book is bursting with life (and yes, death)." —Robert Moor, New York Times Book Review The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.

Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakestraces the evolution of the Great Lakes shipping industry over the last three centuries. The Great Lakes shipping industry can trace its lineage to 1679 with the launching on Lake Erie of the Griffon, a sixty-foot galley weighing nearly fifty tons. Built by LaSalle, a French explorer who had been commissioned to search for a passage through North America to China, it was the first sailing ship to operate on the upper lakes, signaling the dawn of the Great Lakes shipping industry as we know it today. Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakes is the most thorough and factual study of the Great Lakes shipping industry written this century. Author Mark L. Thompson tells the fascinating story of the world's most efficient bulk transportation system, describing the Great Lakes freighters, the cargoes of the great ships ,and the men and women who have served as crew. He documents the dramatic changes that have taken places in the industry and looks at the critical role that Great Lakes shipping plays in the economic well-being of the U.S. and Canada, despite the fact tat the size of the fleet and the amount of cargo carried have declined dramatically in recent years. Spanning more than three centuries, from LaSalle's voyage in 1679, through 1975 with the mysterious sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, to life aboard today's thousand-foot behemoths, this important volume documents the evolution of the industry through its "Golden Age" at the end of the nineteenth century to the present, with a downsized U.S. fleet that numbers fewer than seventy vessels.

Why on earth would anyone want to float a pool up the Atlantic coastline to bring it to rest at a pier on the New York City waterfront? In The Floating Pool Lady, Ann L. Buttenwieser recounts her triumphant adventure that started in the bayous of Louisiana and ended with a self-sustaining, floating swimming pool moored in New York Harbor. When Buttenwieser decided something needed to be done to help revitalize the New York City waterfront, she reached into the city's nineteenth-century past for inspiration. Buttenwieser wanted New Yorkers to reestablish their connection to their riverine surroundings and she was energized by the prospect of city youth returning to the Hudson and East Rivers. What she didn't suspect was that outfitting and donating a swimming facility for free enjoyment by the public would turn into an almost-Sisyphean task. As she describes in The Floating Pool Lady, Buttenwieser battled for years with politicians and struggled with bureaucrats as she brought her "crazy" scheme to fruition. From dusty archives in the historic Battery Maritime Building to high-stakes community board meetings to tense negotiations in the Louisiana shipyard, Buttenwieser retells the improbable process that led to a pool named The Floating Pool Lady tying up to a pier at Barretto Point Park in the Bronx, ready for summer swimmers. Throughout The Floating Pool Lady, Buttenwieser raises consciousness about persistent environmental issues and the challenges of developing a constituency for projects to make cities livable in the twenty-first century. Her story and that of her floating pool function as both warning and inspiration to those who dare to dream of realizing innovative public projects in the modern urban landscape.

Aug. 29 and 30 hearings were held in Chicago, Ill.