Thomas Lowe Fleischner is Executive Director of the Natural History Institute (naturalhistoryinstitute.org) in Prescott, Arizona, Faculty Emeritus at Prescott College, and Chair of the Natural History Section of the Ecological Society of America. He is the editor of two anthologies: The Way of Natural History and Nature, Love, Medicine: Essays on Wildness and Wellness.
Fleischner’s work is strongly rooted in natural history, ecology, and conservation biology, but plies the terrain at the margins of disciplines. His main interests are the connections among sciences, humanities, and public policy, and between analytical and creative modes of thought. He also examines the confluence of nature and culture and of biology and adaptation, when considering humans as an ecological species.
He is the author of Singing Stone: A Natural History of the Escalante Canyons and Desert Wetlands. Fleischner’s edited volume, The Way of Natural History, made the “Best of Science” list in the Wall Street Journal. He has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters.
Fleischner’s field research projects include an ongoing study of migratory and wintering shorebirds at Estero Santa Cruz in the Gulf of California, Mexico, as well as multiple studies of livestock grazing in relation to ecology, wildlife conservation, and climate change concerns in western North America. His earlier field research concerned marine mammals and marine birds.
Fleischner was founding President of the Natural History Network, co-founded the North Cascades Institute in Washington state and has served on the Board of Governors of the Society for Conservation Biology, the Science Advisory Council of the Grand Canyon Trust, and many other local and regional organizations. He was a long-term member of the Education Committee of the Society for Conservation Biology and served as President of the Society’s Colorado Plateau Chapter.
Contributions to Humans & Nature:
- Natural History as a Practice of Kinship
From Minding Nature’s Fall 2019, Volume 12, Number 3 issue. - An Invitation to Attentiveness and Imagination
A response to “What does Earth ask of us?”
Noteworthy Links:
- T Fleischner
Visit Thomas Fleischner’s website. - The Natural History Institute
Explore the work of The Natural History Institute. - The Natural Histories Project
Listen to Thomas Fleischner’s perspective on Natural History.
