Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
If you've ever moved to a new place, you understand the power landscape has to spark a spectrum of emotion. From anxiety to excitement to serenity, our relationship with the land around us plays an integral role in our moods and our lives. Voices of the Land is a visual and written tribute to this relationship, bringing together a diverse community of people who speak out for greater stewardship of our landscape. Together with evocative photographs that detail the intricacies of nature, the essays in Voices of the Land encourage homeowners to respond to the existing character and ecology of the land as it becomes a home.
The eighteen writers in Voices of the Land are our neighbors. They are cooks, farmers, realtors, writers and architects. In essence, they are writing us letters about what it means to know a place; what it means to be stewards of the land. Through frank words and stunning photographs, these voices inspire us to think more deeply about how our actions affect the health and quality of our home ground.
A forest ecologist considers the role of his chainsaw in his backyard while a realtor wonders about the value of a hilltop site she is about to sell. Why clear a forest's understory when it provides important habitat for birds and mammals? Why build on an exposed ridge when the house will be blown by cold winter winds? By questioning conventional approaches, they challenge presumptions about ‘developing' land.
With a foreword by Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire, Second Nature) and photographs by Charles Lindsay (Menawai Shaman, Upstream: Fly Fishing in the American Midwest), Voices of the Land is a stunning tribute to land conservation efforts and a wonderful introduction to the process of connecting to a place.
Voices of the Land was commissioned by the Dutchess Land Conservancy and royalties from the book will support land conservation efforts.
From the Author
"Had I read something like Voices of the Land before I went at my land with chainsaw and bulldozer, I'm sure I would have come at the project in a completely different spirit-in a spirit, that is, of respect for the people and plants and animals who really made this place I now am said to own." -Michael Pollan (from the foreword)
"These photographs," says photographer Charles Lindsay, "are from two years of periodic wandering through forests, fields and wetlands to observe and photograph on behalf of this community. I returned to my favorite locations throughout the seasons to witness their changes and to reflect and work in different light. Moving slowly through a landscape, I'm drawn in visually but also by its smells and sounds: locust trees flowering, toads and screech owls calling in the fog, wind cracking branches, the smell of mint where deer have trampled it down by my pond. These are photographs from the extended place that I call home."
Voices of the Land
Voices of the Land,Michael Pollan,Jamie Purinton,Charles Lindsay,Chelsea Green Publishing Company,1931498504,Animals,Essays,Land use,Natural Resources,Nature,Nature/Ecology
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