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Back to topWild Woman: Empowering Stories from Women who Work in Nature (Hardcover)
Description
An engaging blend of conservation stories and humorous, personal anecdotes from Philippa Forrester about women who, like her, choose to live and work in the wild.
Surviving in the wilderness has long been associated with men, and conservation and environmental biology have traditionally been male-dominated subjects. Yet many remarkable women also choose to live and work in wild and challenging landscapes.
In Wild Woman, Philippa Forrester considers the grit and determination required for women to maintain connections to wildlife and shares stories of female conservation heroes and other extraordinary wild women working in nature.
Talking to women from around the world, Philippa studies and celebrates what it means to be a wild woman. From the sixteenth-century botanist who was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe to modern-day women responding to bear attacks in Yellowstone, working to rewild reserves in South Africa, photographing Caribou in the Arctic and more, Philippa examines how these women benefit from a life spent in the wilderness and also considers what the natural world gains from them.
Relating some of her own experiences from three decades spent travelling around the world and working in some of the wildest places on Earth, Philippa asks: what does it take for a woman to live or work in the wild?
About the Author
Philippa Forrester's broadcasting career spans three decades of primetime TV including Robot Wars and Tomorrow's World. With her husband, she has also written and produced a string of award-winning science and nature documentaries for the BBC, Animal Planet and Discovery. Philippa has published three books and has degrees in English literature and Ecology and Conservation.
For six years, Philippa lived and worked in Wyoming encountering wolves, grizzly bears, moose and the odd cowboy. She returned to live in the UK in the summer of 2020. Back home, she is rediscovering her own patch of wilderness and the joys of the English countryside, especially her favourite wild animal, otters.
@philippaforrest
Praise For…
“After years of child-rearing and being wifely, Philippa Forrester emerges with a lot of pertinent questions. Wild Woman is a piercing, funny, self-deprecating answer to what it is to be wild. Locally, globally, diverse and female, it is full of a lifetime's awe – and wise. This delightfully brilliant, sometimes rightfully angry book, puts women where they should be: at the heart of conservation, knowing what it is to be wild, to tune in, mend and support the natural world and our place in it. I am cheering her, and all these wonderful women on!” —Nicola Chester, author of On Gallows Down
“A powerful testament to why women must have a greater say when conserving our natural world.” —Mike Dilger, naturalist and broadcaster
“Wild Woman is a timely reminder of the feminine energy behind some groundbreaking successes in global wildlife conservation.Through deeply personal experiences, Philippa shows us with spirit and gusto that the natural world is a source of strength, wisdom, humour and comfort.” —Sophie Pavelle, author of Forget Me Not
“Part memoir, part exploration of women's relationship with nature and part studies of other women who, like [Philippa], have chosen to work in the male-dominated fields of conservation.” —The Times
“[Forrester's] research takes her around the world as she records anecdotes of daring, discovery and danger.” —Sunday Express