In lyrical, penetrating essays, Bill McKibben offers an optimistic response to his bestselling "The End of Nature", focusing on successful community ventures to preserve the wilderness and reverse environmental damage. From his home in the Adirondack Mountains to a city in Brazil and a state in India, McKibben searches for realistic models for the future of the planet.

For eons, female members of the Porcupine caribou herd have made the 2,800-mile journey from their winter feeding grounds to their summer calving grounds. They once roamed borderless wilderness; now they trek from Canada, where they're protected, to the United States, where they are not. What's more, beneath the calving grounds lay vast reserves of oil. Determined to convey both the enormity of the caribous' migration and the delicacy of their habitat, Karsten Heuer and his wife spent their honeymoon following the herd. For five months, they traveled an uncharted course on foot over...