Baird, Nicola

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BAIRD, Nicola

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Office—Forest Management Foundation, 66 Warwick St., Oxford OX4 1SX, England.

CAREER: Forest Management Foundation, Oxford, England, director.

WRITINGS:

Setting Up and Running a School Library, Heinemann (Oxford, England), 1994.

A Green World? ("Viewpoints" series), Franklin Watts (New York, NY), 1997.

The Estate We're In: Who's Driving Car Culture?, Indigo (London, England), 1998.

More from Less: The More We Need, the More We Use, the More We Cause, Friends of the Earth (London, England), 2001.

The Toxic Home: Hidden Dangers around the Home, Women's Press (London, England), 2003.

Contributor to periodicals, including New Scientist, Manchester Guardian, and New Internationalist.

SIDELIGHTS: Nicola Baird is a freelance environmental journalist who is also director of the Forest Management Foundation, a British nonprofit organization that promotes sustainable community forest projects worldwide. She has written a number of books on environmental issues, in addition to her first book, Setting Up and Running a School Library. Chris Brown reviewed Baird's volume on libraryship in School Librarian, noting that the work's focus on managing library projects with limited resources through innovative means makdes it valuable in a range of circumstances and countries. Brown wrote that, "through a practical approach to the essentials, an enthusiastic and positive attitude is apparent throughout," and concluded that "such a wide-ranging and straightforward guide has to be an outstanding bargain for any school."

Reviewing Baird's A Green World? a Books for Keeps contributor felt that, in considering sustainable energy's place in an economic climate, the question mark of the title "is properly used." Baird followed this publication with books on car culture and consumption. She has also written for a number of publications on topics that range from chemicals and pesticides found in the human body to threats to the rainforest. The Toxic Home: Hidden Dangers around the Home examines cleaning products, their regulation, risks to children, products used in the garden, and how toxins can cause and exacerbate allergies and asthma. She discusses cost-effective alternatives and studies the ways in which we can minimize risk and advocate for better regulation and control of dangerous products.