Includes bibliographical references (p. 294-299) and index.

Native American management and conservation of biodiversity in the Sonoran Desert bioregion: an ethnoecological perspective / Gary Paul Nabhan -- Relationships between Mexican ethnobotanical diversity and indigenous peoples / Robert Bye, Edelmira Linares -- Ethnopharmacology and the search for new therapeutics / Walter H. Lewis -- "We live by them": native knowledge of biodiversity in the great basin of western North America / Catherine S. Fowler -- "Just like a garden": traditional resource management and biodiversity conservation on the interior plateau of British Columbia / Sandra L. Peacock, Nancy J. Turner -- Iwígara: a Rarámuri cognitive model of biodiversity and its effects on land management / Enrique Salmón -- Human disturbance and biodiversity: a case study from northern New Mexico / Richard I. Ford -- Levels of native biodiversity in eastern North America / Gayle J. Fritz -- Ethnohistory of aboriginal landscapes in the southeastern United States / Julia E. Hammett. "Exploring the relationship between Native Americans and the natural world. Biodiversity and Native America questions the widespread view that indigenous peoples and minimal ecological impact in North America. Introducing a variety of perspectives - ethnopharmacological, ethnographic, archaeological, and biological - the expert contributors show that Native Americans were active managers of natural ecological systems. The book covers groups from the sophisticated agriculturalists of the Mississippi River drainage region to the low-density hunter-gatherers of arid western North America."--Jacket.