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Title: Where the Buffalo Roam: Restoring America's Great Plains
ISBN: 0226510964
Author:
Anne Matthews
Publicate Date: 2002-11-15
Publish: 2002-11-15
List Price: $15.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $11.19
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $10.00
Amazon Merchant Price: $15.00
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Raises some good points but rambles, not enough information
Originally written by the author in 1992, She spent a year following the Poppers and their efforts to get people to see how the Great Plains states are dying. They are actually running out of water and losing population.
There are a lot of pages about their travels, speaking engagements with often hostile crowds,hostile press (not all western) and some sections dealing with the science of what is happening to the land out there. You also get a fair amount of history, some people always saw the Plains as land that shouldn't be developed as eastern land had been (it wasn't suitable for such useage).
I'd have liked more science and more detail on the Buffalo commons concept, it's an interesting idea but I don't see it becoming a national policy. The new forward and afterword deal with changes in the situation since the original publication but don't convince me that it has much chance of really happening.
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2: An interesting view of the West
This book is typical of a piece that evolves from a New York Times Magazine article: full of narrative, a bit rammbling at times and a bit on the lite side. Matthews gives some snippets of ecological and historical analysis, but ultimately this is not an analytical book. It is very readable, however, and raises awareness to the ecologic and economic crises of the Great Plains. The piece details two Rutgers academics, the Poppers, who are promoting the notion of a "Buffalo Commons," a plan that involves the federal government buying out the most marginal of Great Plains land to turn into a giant reserve for bison, shortgrass and Indians. The book details much of the angry Western reaction to the plan. It also shows large sections of the West in near ruin, in desperate need of a new, sustainable solution, as current attempts to exploit the arid West by argiculture is producing only dust storms, a depleted aquifier and busted-out farm communities.
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3: The Dilemma on the Great Plains
This book held my constant attention from the first time I picked it up. Ms. Matthews gives a very even-handed account of what I call "The Dilemma on the Great Plains." She thoughtfully explains the Buffalo Commons plan for the restoration of the plains. She introduces Frank and Deborah Popper, New Jersey academics from Rutgers University, who came up with the Buffalo Commons plan. I was riveted because I once lived in South Dakota, near the Montana and Wyoming borders and could empathize with the issue. The Poppers came up with the Buffalo Commons idea in the late 1980s as a way to "save" the plains. It has been very controversial, to say the least. The plains way of life and the emotions of the issue are handled brilliantly by Ms. Matthews. I was able to see both sides throughout the book. This issue has an importance to our nation. Read this book to know the issues about the decline in our Great Plains.
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