{"product_id":"the-sespe-wild-southern-californias-last-free-river-environmental-arts-and-humanities","title":"The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River (Environmental Arts and Humanities)","description":"\u003cp\u003eA hundred miles northwest of Los Angeles  Sespe Creek flows through some of the wildest territory in California. A mostly roadless expanse of chaparral and mixed forest  in many places nearly inaccessible even on foot  the Sespe is the untamed heart of Southern California  a wilderness on the edge of one of the worlds major metropolitan developments. To nature writer and outdoorsman John Bradley Monsma  the Sespe is both his place of escape and the place \"that teaches me to be fully alive.\" In The Sespe Wild  Monsma shares his exploration of this unique and fantastic region. His attention ranges from the physical Sespe  examined on foot or by kayak  to the subsurface geology that shaped it  the Chumash people who first occupied it  and the impact of Spanish and then American settlers. He also considers the Sespe through the eyes of some of its nonhuman populationsthe nearly extinct condors  the vanished grizzlies  the mountain sheep  the steelhead trout  the red-legged frogs. Through the metaphor of the river  he ponders the tensions between preservation and overmanagement of wildlife and wilderness areas  the ecology of fire  the intricate connections between species  and the almost miraculous ways that the Sespe has escaped the fate of other Southern California streams  dammed or carved up into canals by development. \"To consider this place \" Monsma says  \"is to call up issues crucial wherever wilderness and cities meet: recreational impacts on wildlife habitat  the dynamics of accessibility and protection  the physical and psychological need for healthy ecosystems  threats of development and resource extraction.\" Monsmas engaging text addresses the Sespes losses and its ongoing pattern of creation and renewal  leading us through rich layers of natural and cultural history in a narrative as colorful and exciting as a day on a Sespe trail. The Sespe  existing at the intersection of ecological processes and human ideals of wilderness  reminds us that nature and culture have always intermingled  and that the past and present  animal and human  \"natural\" and \"unnatural\" are ultimately and irrevocably inseparable.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44986455654453,"sku":"ByrdShop_0874175364","price":50.36,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780874175363.jpg?v=1770905546","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-sespe-wild-southern-californias-last-free-river-environmental-arts-and-humanities","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}