What do you think?
Rate this book
Moody Forest: A Family’s Extraordinary Dedication to Big Woods
As a girl, Janisse Ray listened to stories of a mythic place on the Altamaha River, in the coastal plain of southern Georgia. It was then called Moody Swamp. People got lost back in there; hunters got confused and spent nights in hollow tupelos. People talked of panthers. Alligators marbled the duckweed of shadowy sloughs, and bobcat tracks in the bottoms slowly filled with dark water.
These were not just stories. Moody Swamp was a real place, a very wild place.
Word about Moody Swamp circulated among conservationists, who encouraged the family to sell the property to a conservation organization. The family had no desire to sell. For 15 years conservationists worked to preserve the property. When the last heir to the property died in 1999, the land was put up for auction. Many logging companies were bidding, and so was The Nature Conservancy.
When the birds were opened, The Nature Conservancy of Georgia outbid the loggers, and on October 2, 2000, all 3,500 acres of the Moody Forest, at the tune of 8.25 million, was saved forever.
Since, more acres have been added, bringing Moody Forest to more than 4,000 acres. Some of it is now managed by the State of Georgia as the Moody Forest WMA. The public is welcome to use the land responsibly for hiking, biking, and hunting.
The property contains some of the best riverbottom left in the South, hundreds of acres uncut. The uplands include one of the last pieces of pre-settlement longleaf pine forest left anywhere, replete with red-cockaded woodpeckers and gopher tortoises. A tree-ring scientist bored the trees, and found longleaf pines over 200 years old and massive bald cypress 200 to 600 years old.
The property stretches along miles of the wild, alluvial Altamaha River--refugium for migratory songbirds, endangered swallow-tailed kites, and freshwater mussels found nowhere else in the world.
This anthology, edited by Ray, contains testimonies of people who over the years have known the Moody Forest. These testimonies were originally compiled in an effort to save the forest. Ray invited anyone with any knowledge of, history with, or affection for Moody Swamp to write an essay about it, in order to enter into the public record a testimony of love and a plea for protection.
We don’t have to sit back and watch the things we love get obliterated in front of our eyes. We can defend what is precious to us. And we can win.
Moody Forest proves that.
Thanks to all who worked for its protection, all who have visited and enjoyed it, and all who still work to restore and defend it.
These were not just stories. Moody Swamp was a real place, a very wild place.
Word about Moody Swamp circulated among conservationists, who encouraged the family to sell the property to a conservation organization. The family had no desire to sell. For 15 years conservationists worked to preserve the property. When the last heir to the property died in 1999, the land was put up for auction. Many logging companies were bidding, and so was The Nature Conservancy.
When the birds were opened, The Nature Conservancy of Georgia outbid the loggers, and on October 2, 2000, all 3,500 acres of the Moody Forest, at the tune of 8.25 million, was saved forever.
Since, more acres have been added, bringing Moody Forest to more than 4,000 acres. Some of it is now managed by the State of Georgia as the Moody Forest WMA. The public is welcome to use the land responsibly for hiking, biking, and hunting.
The property contains some of the best riverbottom left in the South, hundreds of acres uncut. The uplands include one of the last pieces of pre-settlement longleaf pine forest left anywhere, replete with red-cockaded woodpeckers and gopher tortoises. A tree-ring scientist bored the trees, and found longleaf pines over 200 years old and massive bald cypress 200 to 600 years old.
The property stretches along miles of the wild, alluvial Altamaha River--refugium for migratory songbirds, endangered swallow-tailed kites, and freshwater mussels found nowhere else in the world.
This anthology, edited by Ray, contains testimonies of people who over the years have known the Moody Forest. These testimonies were originally compiled in an effort to save the forest. Ray invited anyone with any knowledge of, history with, or affection for Moody Swamp to write an essay about it, in order to enter into the public record a testimony of love and a plea for protection.
We don’t have to sit back and watch the things we love get obliterated in front of our eyes. We can defend what is precious to us. And we can win.
Moody Forest proves that.
Thanks to all who worked for its protection, all who have visited and enjoyed it, and all who still work to restore and defend it.
137 pages, Paperback
Published August 12, 2023
About the author
Janisse Ray
44 books279 followersis an award-winning and beloved American writer. Her work encourages wild, place-centric, sustainable lives and often calls attention to heart-breaking degradations of the natural world.
She writes the popular Substack TRACKLESS WILD, tracklesswild.substack.com.
Her newsletter for writers is SPIRAL-BOUND, janisseray.substack.com.
She is a sought-after and highly praised teacher of writing. She leads both in-person and online writing workshops, including a summer memoir course online, WRITE YOUR OWN STORY.
You can find more information about workshops and courses at her website.
https://janisseray.com/product-catego...
Check out her book CRAFT & CURRENT: A MANUAL FOR MAGICAL WRITING.
Janisse has won an American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Southern Bookseller Award, Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, Nautilus Award, and Eisenberg Award, among many others.
Her collection of essays, WILD SPECTACLE, won the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence.
Her books have been translated into Turkish, French, and Italian.
Janisse's first book, ECOLOGY OF A CRACKER CHILDHOOD, recounts her experiences growing up in a junkyard, the daughter of a poor, white, fundamentalist Christian family. The book interweaves family history and memoir with natural history—specifically, descriptions of the ecology of the vanishing longleaf pine forests that once blanketed the Southern coastal plains.
ECOLOGY was followed by many other books, mostly creative nonfiction--often nature writing-- as well as poetry and fiction.
She earned an MFA from the University of Montana, has received two honorary doctorates, and was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. She has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Georgia Writer's Association.
She lives on an organic farm inland from Savannah, Georgia, where she enjoys wildflowers, dark chocolate, and the blues.
She writes the popular Substack TRACKLESS WILD, tracklesswild.substack.com.
Her newsletter for writers is SPIRAL-BOUND, janisseray.substack.com.
She is a sought-after and highly praised teacher of writing. She leads both in-person and online writing workshops, including a summer memoir course online, WRITE YOUR OWN STORY.
You can find more information about workshops and courses at her website.
https://janisseray.com/product-catego...
Check out her book CRAFT & CURRENT: A MANUAL FOR MAGICAL WRITING.
Janisse has won an American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Southern Bookseller Award, Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, Nautilus Award, and Eisenberg Award, among many others.
Her collection of essays, WILD SPECTACLE, won the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence.
Her books have been translated into Turkish, French, and Italian.
Janisse's first book, ECOLOGY OF A CRACKER CHILDHOOD, recounts her experiences growing up in a junkyard, the daughter of a poor, white, fundamentalist Christian family. The book interweaves family history and memoir with natural history—specifically, descriptions of the ecology of the vanishing longleaf pine forests that once blanketed the Southern coastal plains.
ECOLOGY was followed by many other books, mostly creative nonfiction--often nature writing-- as well as poetry and fiction.
She earned an MFA from the University of Montana, has received two honorary doctorates, and was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. She has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Georgia Writer's Association.
She lives on an organic farm inland from Savannah, Georgia, where she enjoys wildflowers, dark chocolate, and the blues.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 11, 2025
This is a compilation of stories written by people who were invested in saving the Moody Forest/Swamp, a vast swathe of longleaf pine that covers thousands of acres in Georgia. Despite once covering the south, longleaf pine has all but disappeared and with it the unique flora and fauna that need it to survive. The Nature Conservancy being able to buy Moody Swamp and save it from logging is a huge environmental win.
Janisse Ray is an environmentalist, a naturalist, and a deeply wonderful human being. She's optimistic and kind and she cares about the world around her, including the people in it. In another of her books, she remarks (to paraphrase) that while it would be easier to leave the south with its sometimes bigoted and small-minded ways to live somewhere that more closely aligns with her values, the south is her home and she can't abandon it. She has to stay and fight for it, and she consistently finds more allies in that fight than someone who believes in the stereotypes of the south might expect.
Janisse Ray is an environmentalist, a naturalist, and a deeply wonderful human being. She's optimistic and kind and she cares about the world around her, including the people in it. In another of her books, she remarks (to paraphrase) that while it would be easier to leave the south with its sometimes bigoted and small-minded ways to live somewhere that more closely aligns with her values, the south is her home and she can't abandon it. She has to stay and fight for it, and she consistently finds more allies in that fight than someone who believes in the stereotypes of the south might expect.
Displaying 1 of 1 review