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Abundance: Nature in Recovery
In this new collection of literary essays, Karen Lloyd explores abundance and loss in the natural world relating compelling stories of restoration, renewal and rewilding and revealing how the people working on the front line of conservation are challenging the inevitability of biodiversity loss.
How should we restore nature and species, and why does it matter? What is lost when we choose not to engage in restoration and rewilding? And which parts of ourselves might we also lose if we choose not to help restore and renew the natural world before it's too late?
In this era of urgent ecological challenge, Karen Lloyd's timely book reveals the places that people are coming together to bring species and habitats back from the edge of extinction. In contrast, elsewhere, many other species are being allowed to disappear forever. To understand why this is, Karen examines how humans have chosen to entangle themselves in nature and considers the ways we perceive the natural world, contemplating why certain aspects of nature can hold our attention when we use others merely as temporary distractions.
Touching on many current themes, Lloyd explores attitudes towards meaningful conservation as she weaves her delightful narrative through a diverse range of inspiring landscapes, including Romania's Carpathian mountains, the Hungarian Steppe, the rivers of Perthshire, the dune forests of the Netherlands, and the rice paddies of Extremadura in southern Spain.
How should we restore nature and species, and why does it matter? What is lost when we choose not to engage in restoration and rewilding? And which parts of ourselves might we also lose if we choose not to help restore and renew the natural world before it's too late?
In this era of urgent ecological challenge, Karen Lloyd's timely book reveals the places that people are coming together to bring species and habitats back from the edge of extinction. In contrast, elsewhere, many other species are being allowed to disappear forever. To understand why this is, Karen examines how humans have chosen to entangle themselves in nature and considers the ways we perceive the natural world, contemplating why certain aspects of nature can hold our attention when we use others merely as temporary distractions.
Touching on many current themes, Lloyd explores attitudes towards meaningful conservation as she weaves her delightful narrative through a diverse range of inspiring landscapes, including Romania's Carpathian mountains, the Hungarian Steppe, the rivers of Perthshire, the dune forests of the Netherlands, and the rice paddies of Extremadura in southern Spain.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published November 2, 2021
6 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
About the author
Karen Lloyd
18 books9 followersKaren is a writer of creative non-fiction and poetry based in Kendal, Cumbria. Her first book, ‘The Gathering Tide; A Journey Around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay’ contains writing on land, landscape and memory. It won Eric Robson’s Striding Edge Productions Prize for Place and was runner up at The Lakeland Book of the Year Awards 2016. ‘The Blackbird Diaries’ is published on 17th November 2017. It is an account of closely observing the wildlife in her South Lakeland garden and further afield, including Scotland’s Solway coast and the islands of Mull and Staffa.
Karen graduated with distinction from the M.Litt at Stirling University. She writes for The Guardian Country Diary, BBC Countryfile Magazine, The Royal Geographic Society website, Discovering Britain and a number of other journals. She is a member of Kendal’s Brewery Poets.
Karen graduated with distinction from the M.Litt at Stirling University. She writes for The Guardian Country Diary, BBC Countryfile Magazine, The Royal Geographic Society website, Discovering Britain and a number of other journals. She is a member of Kendal’s Brewery Poets.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 19, 2021
Summary: A collection of essays describing both the loss of and recovery of abundance in the natural world, where people have caused harm and brought renewal.
Karen Lloyd is a border stalker. In this collection of essays, she describes her journeys throughout the UK and Europe at the border of where human activity is intersecting in the natural world–both for ill and for good. She describes her project using the ornithologist’s term of “getting your eye in”:
“When I turn on the news or read a newspaper, I am assailed by all the losses in the natural world. The natural world is being flushed out. In the natural world, there are no rites of passage to cope with this. Sometimes, frequently in fact–I am overwhelmed by all the losses and the reporting of all the losses, and what I want to do is get my eye in, in a different way. I want to use my binocular vision to look at and think about abundance and what that might mean. I want to take my binoculars into the field and see if it is still possible to see abundance–or something like it” (p. 14).
She begins her journey with the “murmurations” of starlings over East Cumbria and their response to the attempt of a peregrine falcon to penetrate the flock Her travels take her to the Netherlands, and attempts to site some of the wolves and jackals that are gradually returning and the debate over protecting these animals in what was once a natural habitat. A trip to Extremadura in southern Spain leads to sightings of vultures, harriers, and an abundance of bird species in a national park also devoted to wool production and lumber production serving the human population while preserving the natural environment allowing vultures to soar thermals and others to thrive.
We follow her and friends attempting to save a bird with a broken leg in eastern Hungary while chronicling the loss of the slender billed curlew, last sighted there. She describes efforts in Scotland to preserve beavers, that had slowly been eradicated by farmers and hunter. She witnesses the architecture of beaver lodges and dams, and the balance struck of running “beaver deceivers” through dams to pipe excess water through to regulate pond levels without disrupting the beavers efforts.
One of the more creative chapters was “Eighty Fragments on the Pelican” a “weird and perfectly adapted species. The most riveting chapter describes her time in the Carpathian forests of Romania, forests under threat of logging and an endangered habitat for bears. She takes us on a hike following bear tracks with a guide as well as her son, learning along the way not to get between a mother bear and her cubs, a hopeless situation.
As she observes the efforts of those seeking to balance human and natural interests and preserve abundance, she identifies their work as “cathedral thinking”–an attitude of planning and working that thinks in terms of future generations, even for centuries. She tells a wonderful story of Hatidze, a sixty year old woman in a rural village in Macedonia, who keeps bees, is never stung though not wearing protective gear, taking half a comb for her family, leaving half for the bees, exemplifying an ethic of respect and reciprocity.
This is a moving collection of essays. I felt I was present with the author on her travels. I was watching out for those bears, and reveling with her as she watched the vultures ride the thermals. She captures the joy of those working on the front lines to preserve and restore abundance and the love of these creatures. LLoyd articulates something often lacking in our environmental debates–the recognition that we must love what we seek to preserve and that there is a joy to be found in natural abundance.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Karen Lloyd is a border stalker. In this collection of essays, she describes her journeys throughout the UK and Europe at the border of where human activity is intersecting in the natural world–both for ill and for good. She describes her project using the ornithologist’s term of “getting your eye in”:
“When I turn on the news or read a newspaper, I am assailed by all the losses in the natural world. The natural world is being flushed out. In the natural world, there are no rites of passage to cope with this. Sometimes, frequently in fact–I am overwhelmed by all the losses and the reporting of all the losses, and what I want to do is get my eye in, in a different way. I want to use my binocular vision to look at and think about abundance and what that might mean. I want to take my binoculars into the field and see if it is still possible to see abundance–or something like it” (p. 14).
She begins her journey with the “murmurations” of starlings over East Cumbria and their response to the attempt of a peregrine falcon to penetrate the flock Her travels take her to the Netherlands, and attempts to site some of the wolves and jackals that are gradually returning and the debate over protecting these animals in what was once a natural habitat. A trip to Extremadura in southern Spain leads to sightings of vultures, harriers, and an abundance of bird species in a national park also devoted to wool production and lumber production serving the human population while preserving the natural environment allowing vultures to soar thermals and others to thrive.
We follow her and friends attempting to save a bird with a broken leg in eastern Hungary while chronicling the loss of the slender billed curlew, last sighted there. She describes efforts in Scotland to preserve beavers, that had slowly been eradicated by farmers and hunter. She witnesses the architecture of beaver lodges and dams, and the balance struck of running “beaver deceivers” through dams to pipe excess water through to regulate pond levels without disrupting the beavers efforts.
One of the more creative chapters was “Eighty Fragments on the Pelican” a “weird and perfectly adapted species. The most riveting chapter describes her time in the Carpathian forests of Romania, forests under threat of logging and an endangered habitat for bears. She takes us on a hike following bear tracks with a guide as well as her son, learning along the way not to get between a mother bear and her cubs, a hopeless situation.
As she observes the efforts of those seeking to balance human and natural interests and preserve abundance, she identifies their work as “cathedral thinking”–an attitude of planning and working that thinks in terms of future generations, even for centuries. She tells a wonderful story of Hatidze, a sixty year old woman in a rural village in Macedonia, who keeps bees, is never stung though not wearing protective gear, taking half a comb for her family, leaving half for the bees, exemplifying an ethic of respect and reciprocity.
This is a moving collection of essays. I felt I was present with the author on her travels. I was watching out for those bears, and reveling with her as she watched the vultures ride the thermals. She captures the joy of those working on the front lines to preserve and restore abundance and the love of these creatures. LLoyd articulates something often lacking in our environmental debates–the recognition that we must love what we seek to preserve and that there is a joy to be found in natural abundance.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
July 16, 2022
I don't want to read a personal memoir. I was unaware it was. The book promises to be about restoration in the natural world. I am prepared to read a little of the author's life and background, but there is too much.
I had hoped to read about nature, and the processes involved in preserving and re-establishing. Too little of what I read was such writing.
I had hoped to read about nature, and the processes involved in preserving and re-establishing. Too little of what I read was such writing.
June 18, 2021
'Abundance' reminds me most of Helen MacDonald's 'Vesper Flights' - both are a series of essays centring on our relations with the natural world, particularly with birds.
Lloyd writes beautifully (although my only criticism would be that some sentences are more convoluted than they need to be). Her subject matter exemplifies what I think will be increasingly common over the next few years - feeling the effects of climate breakdown firsthand. The author lives in Cumbria, and writes at length about the flooding that has plagued her home in recent years. She also speaks of the same fears that so many of my younger generation do, namely that the future facing her children (or the unborn children of my peers) is one of horror.
I'm rather jealous of Lloyd as her travels for this book have taken her to some wonderful, wildlife-abundant places in Europe, including Greece and Romania where pelicans still fly and bears still raise their cubs. While there are still plenty of threats in those places too, they remind us that the British way of doing things (i.e. casually destroying everything in the name of some temporary "progress") is not the only one.
This is nature/travel writing to savour.
(With thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)
Lloyd writes beautifully (although my only criticism would be that some sentences are more convoluted than they need to be). Her subject matter exemplifies what I think will be increasingly common over the next few years - feeling the effects of climate breakdown firsthand. The author lives in Cumbria, and writes at length about the flooding that has plagued her home in recent years. She also speaks of the same fears that so many of my younger generation do, namely that the future facing her children (or the unborn children of my peers) is one of horror.
I'm rather jealous of Lloyd as her travels for this book have taken her to some wonderful, wildlife-abundant places in Europe, including Greece and Romania where pelicans still fly and bears still raise their cubs. While there are still plenty of threats in those places too, they remind us that the British way of doing things (i.e. casually destroying everything in the name of some temporary "progress") is not the only one.
This is nature/travel writing to savour.
(With thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)
October 9, 2022
I've felt my interest in nature and the impact of us yucky humans on it grow (surely most of us have now, given the very apparent impact of our bad choices), so the hopeful title of this book grabbed my attention.
Lloyd recounts her various visits to areas in Europe and across the UK to projects where attempts are being made to restore the environment and it's wildlife, including wolves and vipers. I wasn't sure what her background was, I think she is a writer with simply an interest in this field, but felt that she was able to talk about the topic knowledgably enough for a lay person like me!
I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this to begin with. I'm a bit more into the aesthetics of nature rather than the factual side (something I'm sure is part of the problem humans have with caring for it properly), and I just couldn't share the reverence Lloyd had for vultures. I also felt that there was an element of things sounding overwritten. But I grew more into the rhythm of her writing, and found further sections were more interesting to me. And what I got from this book was really what I was looking for - hope. That there are people/organisations out there trying and doing things that are having a real impact, and that what has been done to nature can in fact be undone, the order can be restored, and a future is possible. Although I get the sense from this book that these attempts are very small scale and it will take a hell of a lot more to make true impact, which I don't know if the world the way it is would be capable of, I'm happy to cling to that hope.
This book has definitely inspired me to be more conscious about the things I can control when it comes to my impact on wildlife, and has sparked a deeper interest for me.
I received a Netgalley of this title from Bloomsbury in return for a review. All opinions are my own.
Lloyd recounts her various visits to areas in Europe and across the UK to projects where attempts are being made to restore the environment and it's wildlife, including wolves and vipers. I wasn't sure what her background was, I think she is a writer with simply an interest in this field, but felt that she was able to talk about the topic knowledgably enough for a lay person like me!
I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this to begin with. I'm a bit more into the aesthetics of nature rather than the factual side (something I'm sure is part of the problem humans have with caring for it properly), and I just couldn't share the reverence Lloyd had for vultures. I also felt that there was an element of things sounding overwritten. But I grew more into the rhythm of her writing, and found further sections were more interesting to me. And what I got from this book was really what I was looking for - hope. That there are people/organisations out there trying and doing things that are having a real impact, and that what has been done to nature can in fact be undone, the order can be restored, and a future is possible. Although I get the sense from this book that these attempts are very small scale and it will take a hell of a lot more to make true impact, which I don't know if the world the way it is would be capable of, I'm happy to cling to that hope.
This book has definitely inspired me to be more conscious about the things I can control when it comes to my impact on wildlife, and has sparked a deeper interest for me.
I received a Netgalley of this title from Bloomsbury in return for a review. All opinions are my own.
November 9, 2021
This is a very thought provoking book. It’s not a narrative but rather a collection of essays dealing with the changes that climate change has wrought. Ms. Lloyd writes in a clear and beautiful way about topics that are sad and scary to contemplate.
She has experienced the changes that are occurring in her home in Cumbria; when the waters rise they flood in places they hadn’t in the past. I’ve seen this happen on the island off of New Jersey where I grew up. The coastal flooding it experiences is more common and more extreme.
Of greater concern is the extinction of flora and fauna for once something is gone it can not come back. And we are losing both animals and plants.
These essays will make you think about the present and the future of this world we inhabit. It’s a book to keep close to read to keep your eyes looking forward and on the right track with our climate future.
4,5
She has experienced the changes that are occurring in her home in Cumbria; when the waters rise they flood in places they hadn’t in the past. I’ve seen this happen on the island off of New Jersey where I grew up. The coastal flooding it experiences is more common and more extreme.
Of greater concern is the extinction of flora and fauna for once something is gone it can not come back. And we are losing both animals and plants.
These essays will make you think about the present and the future of this world we inhabit. It’s a book to keep close to read to keep your eyes looking forward and on the right track with our climate future.
4,5
October 24, 2022
Really beautiful and thoughtful. I appreciate her ability to talk about her personal experiences in a way that makes them immediately relatable and at the same time extends them to the larger whole.
October 3, 2022
The less said about this the better. I hoped for some nice tale about nature but it's just self-indulgent woo.
November 23, 2021
I cannot praise this book enough, it was a thoughtful, and considered collection of essays on the environment; but in many ways, it was much more than that. This is a book that made me stop and think about what we have lost in the last 50 years from the natural world.
The narrative conjurors up recollections of flora and fauna that once abundant are now scarce or lost. It was one of those books that makes you stop and read chapters again because punctuated through this chronicle that looks at the serious issues concerning the wellbeing of the planet and humanity, there are these wonderful pearls of hope, that make you smile and in turn give you a modicum of optimism that in the end humans just might do the right thing.
This was a great book I loved from beginning to end, well done Karen Lloyd.
The narrative conjurors up recollections of flora and fauna that once abundant are now scarce or lost. It was one of those books that makes you stop and read chapters again because punctuated through this chronicle that looks at the serious issues concerning the wellbeing of the planet and humanity, there are these wonderful pearls of hope, that make you smile and in turn give you a modicum of optimism that in the end humans just might do the right thing.
This was a great book I loved from beginning to end, well done Karen Lloyd.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews