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Heart of the Land: Essays on Last Great Places
In a collection of essays, thirty notable writers celebrate some of the last great wilderness areas of the world, from Louise Erdrich's study of the Tall Grass Prairies to Carl Hiaasen's journey through the Florida Keys. 12,500 first printing.
- GenresEssaysNonfiction
296 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 7, 2017
I read this book gradually, over the course of a month, which suited me well. As a collection of essays by different authors with radically different styles, it doesn't really lend itself to curling up for hours at a time. You'd have too many opinions and too many voices to digest.
So, The Nature Conservancy. Once hailed as the greatest of all conservation organizations, now the subject of much debate and the unwilling recipient of more than one vociferous discharge of bile from passionate environmentalists.
In its early days, The Nature Conservancy took a simple, direct approach to conservation: They purchased land they considered worthy of protection, and held it in trust until they could either assemble the staff necessary to run the area as a preserve open to the public, or get a commitment from the government that the land would be protected as a national, state or regional park or forest. In this capacity, they pulled off some legendary masterstrokes—possibly their most famous being the discovery of legal loophole that enabled them to buy hundreds of acres of the BOTTOM of Long Island Sound. With said acreage thus classified as private property, the Conservancy was free to sue polluters for damaging "their" land, and the result was a massive improvement in water quality and shoreline protection.
What changed everything was a combination of economics and science. The growth of the field of conservation biology led to the modern understanding of ecosystems. These discoveries gave The Nature Conservancy a dilemma: it was now clear that for protected land to really yield lasting benefits to animal and plant life, the areas conserved had to be on the scale of ecosystems—which tend to be much larger tracts of land and water than a private agency would ever have the resources to purchase. The dilemma would ultimately lead to a lot of compromises, in the form of "easements"—agreements under which private landowners (be they ranchers or timber companies) are allowed to keep their lands, as long as they agree to manage the land for conservation. In return for signing such an agreement, the landowner is paid some sort of annuity by the Conservancy. The Conservancy argues (with some validity) that without such agreements, the land would be sold to developers, carved up into subdivisions, and, for conservation purposes, ruined forever. But critics argue, with equal validity, that it is at best a dissatisfying form of conservation to pay industries and the economic elite to maintain ownership of private land. The modern Nature Conservancy is a study in the morality of compromise.
In the 1990s, however, the Conservancy made a last-ditch effort to find a way to continue their old method of conservation by acquiring land: a famous campaign known as the Last Great Places. To garner support for that campaign, the Conservancy commissioned a number of great writers to compose essays based on visits to Conservancy properties and areas the Conservancy hoped to acquire. To the agency's credit, they turned the writers loose utterly. Each writer was allowed to talk about the land and its significance however he or she saw fit. Some even openly criticized the Conservancy in their essays. All the essays were published as written, for which surely the Conservancy deserves to be lauded. The result is Heart of the Land, an overall great read for anyone who wants to feel inspired toward greater environmental activism, as well as anyone interested in the history of the environmental movement.
Indeed, Heart of the Land is very much a historical document. It is extraordinary how dated some of the essays seem, only a dozen years after they were written. There are definitely instances of outdated approaches to environmentalism: the belief of a few of the writers that the only true environmental stewards are those who hunt, fish, or even ranch, and thus "live off the land;" the environmental elitism of others, an elitism that says "only we rich white liberals should be allowed into nature's great places, because anyone else would wreck it." Most unfortunately, several such flawed essays come early in the book. But stick with it. The reader who makes it all the way through Heart of the Land is rewarded with some of the most beautiful odes to nature's beauty he or she will ever encounter.
At the very center of the book is what I would consider the greatest reward of all: Louise Erdrich's essay on the great grasslands of the American plains. I make no secret of my admiration for Erdrich, whom I firmly believe ranks among the great geniuses of the twentieth century. Nor do I apologize for it. If you read nothing else of this book, check it out from a library and read the Erdrich essay. Slow down and soak in the words slowly as the essay winds down with Erdrich's profession of faith for a new Religion of Grass. If you can read it without catching your breath, fighting back a tear, or experiencing a goosebump or two, then you have nothing to fear of global warming, because surely you are made of stone.
The final essay of the book focuses on the wooded hills of Kentucky. What a surprise, then, that the author ultimately identifies herself as a resident of Tucson, Arizona. And thus the book ends with a look at the fragile landscape of the Sonoran desert — a landscape I experienced for the first time in my life only a few months ago, and the setting of the play for which I am currently composing the soundtrack. Truly, this is what I love most about reading. Many people see reading as an escape from their everyday lives, but for me, a good book always somehow, magically, makes my daily routine all the more present and meaningful.
So, The Nature Conservancy. Once hailed as the greatest of all conservation organizations, now the subject of much debate and the unwilling recipient of more than one vociferous discharge of bile from passionate environmentalists.
In its early days, The Nature Conservancy took a simple, direct approach to conservation: They purchased land they considered worthy of protection, and held it in trust until they could either assemble the staff necessary to run the area as a preserve open to the public, or get a commitment from the government that the land would be protected as a national, state or regional park or forest. In this capacity, they pulled off some legendary masterstrokes—possibly their most famous being the discovery of legal loophole that enabled them to buy hundreds of acres of the BOTTOM of Long Island Sound. With said acreage thus classified as private property, the Conservancy was free to sue polluters for damaging "their" land, and the result was a massive improvement in water quality and shoreline protection.
What changed everything was a combination of economics and science. The growth of the field of conservation biology led to the modern understanding of ecosystems. These discoveries gave The Nature Conservancy a dilemma: it was now clear that for protected land to really yield lasting benefits to animal and plant life, the areas conserved had to be on the scale of ecosystems—which tend to be much larger tracts of land and water than a private agency would ever have the resources to purchase. The dilemma would ultimately lead to a lot of compromises, in the form of "easements"—agreements under which private landowners (be they ranchers or timber companies) are allowed to keep their lands, as long as they agree to manage the land for conservation. In return for signing such an agreement, the landowner is paid some sort of annuity by the Conservancy. The Conservancy argues (with some validity) that without such agreements, the land would be sold to developers, carved up into subdivisions, and, for conservation purposes, ruined forever. But critics argue, with equal validity, that it is at best a dissatisfying form of conservation to pay industries and the economic elite to maintain ownership of private land. The modern Nature Conservancy is a study in the morality of compromise.
In the 1990s, however, the Conservancy made a last-ditch effort to find a way to continue their old method of conservation by acquiring land: a famous campaign known as the Last Great Places. To garner support for that campaign, the Conservancy commissioned a number of great writers to compose essays based on visits to Conservancy properties and areas the Conservancy hoped to acquire. To the agency's credit, they turned the writers loose utterly. Each writer was allowed to talk about the land and its significance however he or she saw fit. Some even openly criticized the Conservancy in their essays. All the essays were published as written, for which surely the Conservancy deserves to be lauded. The result is Heart of the Land, an overall great read for anyone who wants to feel inspired toward greater environmental activism, as well as anyone interested in the history of the environmental movement.
Indeed, Heart of the Land is very much a historical document. It is extraordinary how dated some of the essays seem, only a dozen years after they were written. There are definitely instances of outdated approaches to environmentalism: the belief of a few of the writers that the only true environmental stewards are those who hunt, fish, or even ranch, and thus "live off the land;" the environmental elitism of others, an elitism that says "only we rich white liberals should be allowed into nature's great places, because anyone else would wreck it." Most unfortunately, several such flawed essays come early in the book. But stick with it. The reader who makes it all the way through Heart of the Land is rewarded with some of the most beautiful odes to nature's beauty he or she will ever encounter.
At the very center of the book is what I would consider the greatest reward of all: Louise Erdrich's essay on the great grasslands of the American plains. I make no secret of my admiration for Erdrich, whom I firmly believe ranks among the great geniuses of the twentieth century. Nor do I apologize for it. If you read nothing else of this book, check it out from a library and read the Erdrich essay. Slow down and soak in the words slowly as the essay winds down with Erdrich's profession of faith for a new Religion of Grass. If you can read it without catching your breath, fighting back a tear, or experiencing a goosebump or two, then you have nothing to fear of global warming, because surely you are made of stone.
The final essay of the book focuses on the wooded hills of Kentucky. What a surprise, then, that the author ultimately identifies herself as a resident of Tucson, Arizona. And thus the book ends with a look at the fragile landscape of the Sonoran desert — a landscape I experienced for the first time in my life only a few months ago, and the setting of the play for which I am currently composing the soundtrack. Truly, this is what I love most about reading. Many people see reading as an escape from their everyday lives, but for me, a good book always somehow, magically, makes my daily routine all the more present and meaningful.
December 1, 2012
"From Thomas McGuane braving the heartstopping current of Idaho's Snake River to Louise Erdrich roaming the tallgrass prairies of her native North Dakota; from Barbara Kingsolver watching light pour through the woods of Kentucky to Carl Hiaasen in the imperiled fishing grounds of the Florida Keys -- some of our finest writers celebrate the varied geography that The Nature Conservancy, an internationaly recognized conservation organization, has desinged 'Last Great Places.'
Ranging across Texas hill country and Nevada desert, Guatemalan cloud forest and the coral reefs of Micronesia, Heart of the Land conveys the awe and tenderness these landscapes evoke in the human imagination."
~~back cover
Now doesn't that sound like a GREAT book? But it wasn't. Most of the stories were mundane -- I expected them to soar as paeans of our Last Great Places; instead most of them limped along, seemingly without inspiration. Oh some were excellent: Bill McKibbon on the Adirondack Mountains, William Warner on the Atlantic Barrier Islands, Louise Erdrich on the Northern Tallgrass PrairiePam Houston on Willapa Bay, Washington. But mostly they are pedestrian, like an essay assigned in school that you didn't know much about, weren't interested in and didn't want to write.
Ranging across Texas hill country and Nevada desert, Guatemalan cloud forest and the coral reefs of Micronesia, Heart of the Land conveys the awe and tenderness these landscapes evoke in the human imagination."
~~back cover
Now doesn't that sound like a GREAT book? But it wasn't. Most of the stories were mundane -- I expected them to soar as paeans of our Last Great Places; instead most of them limped along, seemingly without inspiration. Oh some were excellent: Bill McKibbon on the Adirondack Mountains, William Warner on the Atlantic Barrier Islands, Louise Erdrich on the Northern Tallgrass PrairiePam Houston on Willapa Bay, Washington. But mostly they are pedestrian, like an essay assigned in school that you didn't know much about, weren't interested in and didn't want to write.
June 4, 2022
Very hit and miss with the essays. The ones that are hit are great! I wish there were more of them.
December 10, 2016
Definitely coming back to spend more time with this one - too many of my favorite writers contributed essays on special places not to spend more time with this.
[5 stars minus 1 star for the occasional essay I couldn't connect with is 4 stars.]
[5 stars minus 1 star for the occasional essay I couldn't connect with is 4 stars.]
August 27, 2023
Louise Erdrich never disappoints
November 4, 2011
As with any collection of essays or short stories, the appeal of individual stories varies with their authors. However, whether or not you are a fan of any given author, there is no denying the passion each feels for the place he or she highlights.
Each author wrote on one of the Nature Conservancy's "Last Great Places," threatened lands that TNC worked and is working hard to save. The places range from Pacific island atoll to temperate rainforest, from desert mountain plateaus to the varied seashores of the Atlantic and Floridan coast. Most of the places featured are North or Central American. And all of them ended up being places that I want to visit.
Barbara Kingsolver, the final author in the collection, ended with a query that resonated with me:
"A new question in the environmentalist's canon, it seems to me, is this one: who will love the imperfect lands, the fragments of backyard desert paradise, the creek that runs between farms? In our passion to protect the last remnants of virgin wilderness, shall we surrender everything else in exchange?"
Food for thought.
Each author wrote on one of the Nature Conservancy's "Last Great Places," threatened lands that TNC worked and is working hard to save. The places range from Pacific island atoll to temperate rainforest, from desert mountain plateaus to the varied seashores of the Atlantic and Floridan coast. Most of the places featured are North or Central American. And all of them ended up being places that I want to visit.
Barbara Kingsolver, the final author in the collection, ended with a query that resonated with me:
"A new question in the environmentalist's canon, it seems to me, is this one: who will love the imperfect lands, the fragments of backyard desert paradise, the creek that runs between farms? In our passion to protect the last remnants of virgin wilderness, shall we surrender everything else in exchange?"
Food for thought.
February 23, 2016
The writing here is worthy of the subject matter. Harder for me, as reader, was coming across a line like this from Peter Matthiessen's "Great River": In the exhilaration of renewal, even the corporations could celebrate, for there are profits to be made in whole new industries of returning the world to harmony and balance. Twenty-plus years later there is little evidence to support the notion that corporations are celebrating the profits to be made from renewal.
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