Defending Earth: Amazon to Climate
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- The Fate of the Forest by Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn was published by Verso in 1989, documenting Amazon deforestation at the height of the rubber-tapper conflicts.
- Barry Lopez won the National Book Award in 1986 for Arctic Dreams, blending natural history with Inuit perspectives on landscape.
- Thomas Berry's The Dream of the Earth (1988) introduced the concept of Earth jurisprudence — the idea that ecosystems have legal standing.
- Russell Means's Defending Mother Earth (1991) connected Indigenous land sovereignty to environmental justice two decades before the term went mainstream.
- Sharon Beder's Global Spin (1997) exposed corporate astroturfing tactics that are now standard practice in fossil fuel PR.
- Ian Watson's Fighting Over the Forests (1990) mapped Australian timber wars that predate the current culture clash over native logging.
The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers And Defenders of the Amazon — Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn
Quick Verdict: The best boots-on-the-ground account of 1980s Amazon politics you'll find — before Netflix made rainforest activism aesthetically pleasing.
Hecht and Cockburn wrote this in 1989, when Chico Mendes's assassination was still fresh news and cattle ranching was torching the jungle at a rate that makes today's deforestation look almost quaint. The book doesn't romanticise rubber-tappers or demonise developers — it maps the economic forces that turned the Amazon into a corporate free-for-all, then shows how grassroots alliances between Indigenous communities and extractivist workers nearly derailed the whole project. The prose is sharp, the research is fieldwork-heavy, and the analysis holds up three decades later. Our preloved copy has the yellowed pages and underlined margins of someone who actually studied this, not just skimmed for Instagram quotes. Explore our current copy of The Fate of the Forest. Browse more Art books at Patina.
The Dream of the Earth — Thomas Berry
Quick Verdict: A Catholic priest rewrites Western theology to put rivers and mountains on equal footing with humans — radical then, necessary now.
Berry's 1988 manifesto argues that the Enlightenment's human-centric worldview is killing us, and the only fix is a return to "the sacred community of all beings." That sounds hippie-dippy until you realise he's laying the intellectual groundwork for Earth jurisprudence — the legal philosophy that eventually gave rivers in New Zealand personhood status. The prose veers mystical, but the argument is concrete: if we don't recognise ecosystems as subjects (not objects), we're ecologically doomed. As of August 2026, Patina's Art collection includes early editions of eco-theology that pre-date the current wave of animist resurgence. This copy has foxing on the title page and a creased spine that suggests someone wrestled with Berry's ideas in the margins. Explore our current copy of The Dream of the Earth. Browse more Art books at Patina.
Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape — Barry Lopez
Quick Verdict: The 1986 National Book Award winner that treats polar bears, Inuit hunters, and ice formations as co-authors of a 400-page meditation on place.
Lopez spent years in the Arctic collecting stories, natural history, and Inuit oral traditions, then wove them into a genre-defying book that reads like memoir, science, and philosophy all at once. He's not preaching environmental collapse — he's mapping the cultural and ecological intelligence embedded in a landscape most Westerners treat as empty wasteland. The chapter on narwhals alone is worth the cover price. Our secondhand copy has the weight and heft of a proper hardback, with that particular smell old bookstores have when the heating's been off all winter. If Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, or Annie Dillard are your vibe, this is essential. Explore our current copy of Arctic Dreams. Browse more Art books at Patina.
Defending Mother Earth: Native American Perspectives on Environmental Justice — Russell Means
Quick Verdict: The Lakota activist who occupied Wounded Knee delivers a no-nonsense manifesto connecting land theft to ecological collapse — required reading if you want to understand why "climate justice" is inseparable from Indigenous sovereignty.
Russell Means wasn't interested in polite environmentalism — he argued that saving the planet requires dismantling the colonial property systems that treat land as a resource to extract, not a living relation. Published in 1991, this collection of essays and speeches connects uranium mining on Navajo land, U.S. Forest Service mismanagement, and the erasure of Indigenous stewardship knowledge into a single coherent argument: environmental justice starts with giving land back. The tone is confrontational, the politics are radical, and the analysis predicted the current wave of Indigenous-led climate activism by two decades. Our preloved copy has underlined passages and margin notes from someone who clearly used this as a study text, not a coffee-table decoration. Explore our current copy of Defending Mother Earth. Browse more Art books at Patina.
Fighting Over the Forests — Ian Watson
Quick Verdict: The Australian timber wars of the 1980s–90s, documented before the culture clash became a predictable script — essential for understanding why forest conservation debates still run hot.
Watson maps the political and economic forces behind Australia's native logging conflicts, focusing on Tasmania and Victoria's old-growth battles. The book isn't cheerleading for either side — it dissects how corporate interests, union politics, and conservation movements collided into a decades-long stalemate that's still unresolved. The research is dense, the prose is workmanlike, and the historical detail is unmatched if you're trying to trace how we got from "jobs vs. trees" to today's climate activism. Our copy has a creased spine and foxing on the edges — the physical wear of a book that's been passed between readers who actually care about this stuff. Explore our current copy of Fighting Over the Forests. Browse more Art books at Patina.
Global Spin: The Corporate Assault On Environmentalism — Sharon Beder
Quick Verdict: A 1997 exposé of corporate greenwashing tactics that reads like a blueprint for every fossil fuel PR campaign of the last 25 years — disturbingly prescient.
Beder, an engineer-turned-academic, dismantles the PR machinery that corporations use to undermine environmental regulation: astroturf groups, junk science, SLAPP lawsuits, and the co-opting of "green" language to sell business-as-usual. The case studies span oil, tobacco, and chemical industries — the tactics are identical across sectors, and they're still in use today. The prose is academic but accessible, and the research is sourced from court documents and industry memos that prove her thesis isn't conspiracy theorising. Our secondhand copy has highlighting throughout — someone clearly mined this for citations. If Naomi Klein or George Monbiot are on your shelf, Beder belongs there too. Explore our current copy of Global Spin. Browse more Art books at Patina.
These titles aren't nostalgia — they're the intellectual scaffolding that today's climate activism is built on. Reading them now means tracing the arguments, tactics, and injustices that shaped the current crisis before it became a TikTok trend. Shop all Art books at Patina Paperbacks →
Where can I buy secondhand environmental justice books in Sydney?
Patina Paperbacks stocks rotating preloved titles on environmental justice, eco-theology, and Indigenous land rights — the physical copies ship Australia-wide from our Sydney warehouse, and you can browse the full catalogue online. We don't specialise exclusively in environmental books, but our Art and non-fiction collections include classic and out-of-print titles that predate the current wave of climate literature.
Are these environmental books still relevant in 2025?
Honestly, yes — most of the tactics Sharon Beder documented in Global Spin (1997) are still standard practice in fossil fuel PR, and Russell Means's argument about land sovereignty has only become more urgent as Indigenous-led climate activism gains traction. Barry Lopez and Thomas Berry might feel dated in tone, but their core ideas about ecosystems as subjects (not resources) are now foundational to Earth jurisprudence movements worldwide.
What's the difference between environmental justice and climate activism?
Environmental justice explicitly connects ecological harm to social inequality — it started in the 1980s when communities of colour in the U.S. fought back against toxic waste dumps being sited in their neighbourhoods. Climate activism tends to focus on emissions and policy; environmental justice asks who suffers most, who profits, and whose land gets sacrificed. Russell Means's Defending Mother Earth is the clearest example of this framing in our current stock.
Do you stock more Indigenous environmental books beyond Russell Means?
Our inventory rotates, so stock changes weekly — Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams includes substantial Inuit perspectives, and we occasionally get Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu or Tyson Yunkaporta's Sand Talk when they come through as preloved copies. If you're after a specific Indigenous author or title, the best approach is to check back regularly or subscribe to our newsletter for new arrivals.
Why are these books filed under Art and not Environment?
Patina's collection taxonomy is broad and sometimes counterintuitive — Art includes cultural criticism, philosophy, and interdisciplinary non-fiction that doesn't fit neatly into Science or Politics. Thomas Berry's eco-theology and Barry Lopez's nature writing blur genre lines, so we shelve them where thematic overlap lives. If you're hunting environmental titles specifically, try searching "climate," "ecology," or "Indigenous" across all collections.