Our Land, Ourselves: Readings On People And Place

Our Land, Ourselves is a collection of diverse readings on the many themes of people and place-themes such as the protection of wilderness and the idea of the wild, the nature of home, the purpose of work, and the meaning of community. These voices suggest a new way of viewing land conservation as the process of building values and positively shaping human lives.

This book is the product of a two-year effort by The Trust For Public Land to help the organization and the larger conservation movement to more fully understand and directly apply the core social values of land conservation. To accomplish this goal, The Trust for Public Land has assembled some of the most cogent voices of the past and present to create this unique anthology. A quick scan of the contents reveals a virtual Dream Team of agrarian philosophy:
-- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
-- Wallace Stegner, The Wilderness Letter
-- David Orr, Speed
-- Dianne Dumanowski, Rethinking Environmentalism
-- Donella H. Meadows, Lines in the Mind
-- Wendell Berry, Another Turn of the Crank
-- Terry Tempest Williams, Testimony
-- Bill McKibben, Job and the Wilderness
-- Gary Snyder, The Etiquette of Freedom
-- Michael Pollan, Second Nature
-- Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer
-- Gary Paul Nabhan, Cultures of Habitat

The result is a compact, beautifully-written collection that reflects the TPL mission to preserve the fabric of our society by conserving the land.

The statistics of land use can be grim. America is losing more than 7,000 acres daily to strip malls and sub-divisions. Most of our wetlands are already lost, and 96 percent of our virgin forest has lost forever. But as our farmsand ranches get pushed further and further into the hinterlands, there is a growing recognition that land conservation must be the bridge between home, good work, meaningful lives, and a future of hope. With a singular passion, this book articulates the importance and relevance of land and water to our lives.