This fifth installment of The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology continues this series' outstanding reviews in diverse topics in ecology and conservation science and policy. Included are papers on protection of orangutans; environmental governmentality, economic corporations, and ecological ethics; impact of Nature on experience and cognitive and mental health; consequences of vulture population declines worldwide; ecology and management of white-tailed deer; controlling the spread of invasive plants; reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; the boreal forest...

From its inception, the U.S. Department of the Interior has been charged with a conflicting mission. One set of statutes demands that the department must develop America's lands, that it get our trees, water, oil, and minerals out into the marketplace. Yet an opposing set of laws orders us to conserve these same resources, to preserve them for the long term and to consider the noncommodity values of our public landscape. That dichotomy, between rapid exploitation and long-term protection, demands what I see as the most significant policy departure of my tenure in office: the use of...