Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1970. The first American edition. Inscribed by Dorst to Claes Nobel: "To Mr. Claes Nobel/ as a tribute to his efforts to save man and nature/ Jean Dorst." Before Nature Dies was first published in French (in Switzerland) in 1965, before being translated into 17 languages: it catalogs man's assaults on nature, by continent, listed in "chronological order of their devastation," beginning with "Yesterday" (pre-Industrial Man) and continuing with "Today" (the 20th century). Dorst was Vice President of the Commission of Protection of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature; one of the founders of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos; and President of the 16th International Ornithological Congress. Nobel (grand-nephew of Alfred Nobel) drafted, in 1974, the Nobel Laureates Declaration on the Survival of Mankind, acknowledging that technological advances had contributed to environmental degradation while asking for pledges of conservation, and, in 1985, he authored the Global Declaration of Earth Ethics, attempting to raise standards of environmental stewardship. A fine copy in a very good, lightly rubbed and creased dust jacket, and an excellent association copy. Illustrated with photographs. [#035869] $950