The Incidental Steward
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Reflections on Citizen Science
Akiko Busch; Illustrated by Debby Cotter Kaspari
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Format: PaperPrice: $16.00
A thoughtful citizen scientist contemplates our changing natural world and the value of environmental stewardship
"Sensuously lush and thought-provoking chronicles. . . . A beautiful and incisive affirmation of how 'full engagement with the natural world enriches the human experience.'"—Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review
A search for a radio-tagged Indiana bat roosting in the woods behind her house in New York’s Hudson Valley led Akiko Busch to assorted other encounters with the natural world—local ecological monitoring projects, community-organized cleanup efforts, and data-driven citizen science research. Whether it is pulling up water chestnuts in the Hudson River, measuring beds of submerged aquatic vegetation, or searching out vernal pools, all are efforts that illuminate the role of ordinary citizens as stewards of place. In this elegantly written book, Busch highlights factors that distinguish twenty-first-century citizen scientists from traditional amateur naturalists: a greater sense of urgency, helpful new technologies, and the expanded possibilities of crowdsourcing.
The observations here look both to precisely recorded data sheets and to the impressionistic marginalia, scribbled asides, and side roads that often attend such unpredictable outings. While not a primer on the prescribed protocols of citizen science, the book combines vivid natural history, a deep sense of place, and reflection about our changing world. Musing on the expanding potential of citizen science, the author celebrates today’s renewed volunteerism and the opportunities it offers for regaining a deep sense of connection to place.
"Sensuously lush and thought-provoking chronicles. . . . This is a beautiful and incisive affirmation of how 'full engagement with the natural world enriches the human experience.'"—Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review
"Every subject Akiko Busch touches, she fills with grace. In The Incidental Steward, she has combined her spiritual appreciation of the Hudson Valley with her own gift for elegant prose to chronicle the quiet work of dedicated citizen scientists whose observations and data are helping us all to understand the landscape and prepare for its future. Busch invests the commonplace of the valley--its weeds and vernal pools, herring and eels, bats and bald eagles, and countless other flora and fauna--with fresh revelation, and the wisdom of one who knows the land."—Tom Lewis, Skidmore College, author of The Hudson: A History
"In recounting her experience, Busch shares her considerations on nature and how individuals can use their observations to add data to scientific studies; her work is both informative and inspirational."—Publishers Weekly
"Sure to delight and inform nature lovers."—Kirkus Review
"Busch’s examples of citizen scientists, those who regularly observe, record, and act upon the wrongs visited on the natural world in their own back yards, seem to have a deeper sense of place than those of us who stopped paying attention. They also get their hands dirty, like Busch and her cohorts have done in the Hudson Valley, where she made these observations about nature, human nature, and the nature of deep connections to place."—Susan Szenasy, metropolismag.com
"In her sensuously lush and thought-provoking chronicles, Busch recounts her adventures counting herrings, glass eels, eagles, and a species of “dislocated” bats driven north in search of cooler temperatures and helping assess damage wrought by the invasive mile-a-minute vine. She has an extraordinary gift for combining glimmering personal reflections and sharp insights as she celebrates passionate watchfulness and committed stewardship, endeavors made urgent by the consequences of global warming. Elegantly illustrated by Debby Cotter Kaspari, this is a beautiful and incisive affirmation of how “full engagement with the natural world enriches the human experience.”"—Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review
“Always engaging and often enlightening, . . . [Busch] has in abundance a scientist’s keen passion for close observation and—critically—an abiding respect for the people who feel compelled, for a variety of intriguing reasons, to take part in what are often thankless and inconclusive actions on behalf of conservation.”—David Harmon, Biological Conservation
“‘To observe the natural world is to observe a complex web of relationships,’ says science writer Akiko Busch, and in this series of thought-provoking chronicles she highlights the work of people who engage with their local wildlife and contribute to 21st-century citizen-science projects.”—Jo Price, BBC Wildlife Magazine
Publication Date: April 29, 2014
11 b/w illus.
