Coming to Land in a Troubled World

The present rate of devastation of our natural world and of healthy lives is unprecedented, and accelerating. The work of conserving land, species, and ways of life is more urgent and vital than ever before. What does it mean to truly conserve land and community life in this era? And why is this so vitally important if we are to heal the divisions in our culture and ourselves, change our patterns of consumption, and reverse the fate of our earth?
In three powerful essays, three influential writers and thinkers--Scott Russell Sanders, Peter Forbes and Kathleen Dean Moore--explore these questions, giving us new insights about the promise of land conservation in our present world. Through its deep examination of the value of land to our culture and our souls, this book becomes a meditation on reconciliation and restoration, love and loss, wholeness and innovation, fairness and community. It gives us new approaches and new hope to work to heal the great divisions and losses we see around us each day.
The book also includes a "Land and People Index" which gives often startling statistics on the state of our world, such as the fact that America now has more malls than high schools. The index, a set of guidelines for setting one's highest values, and other tools give this reader an added dimension: as a practical and thought-provoking workbook for conservationists and social activists it offers ways to move forward with more power to effect change.

The present rate of devastation to our natural world and to healthy lives is unprecedented, and accelerating. In the context of this rapid cycle of development and destruction, the work of conserving land, species, and ways of life is more urgent and vital than ever before. But what does it mean, in these times of progress, to truly conserve land and community life? And why is this conservation so important if we are to heal the divisions in our culture and ourselves, to change our patterns of consumption, and to reverse the fate of our earth?

In three powerful essays, three influential writers and thinkers—Scott Russell Sanders, Peter Forbes and Kathleen Dean Moore—explore these questions, giving us new insights into the promise of land conservation in our present world. Edited by Helen Whybrow, Coming to Land in a Troubled World collects poignant thoughts on the work and purpose of conservation.

The essays in Coming To Land tackle esoteric and literal questions surrounding land conservation, exploring the very roots of our perception of ‘land’ itself. In the book’s first essay, Kathleen Dean Moore, points to land not only in the sense of the familiar noun, but also as the verb we use to describe the process of coming home, of ‘landing.’ Kathleen Dean Moore, along with Scott Russell Sanders and Peter Forbes, picks away at a mounting veil of denial and breaks through to the social and psychological implications of our dependence on land.

Through its deep examination of the value of land to our culture and our souls, Coming to Land In a Troubled World becomes a meditation on reconciliation and restoration, love and loss, wholeness and innovation, fairness and community. It gives us new approaches and new hope to work to heal the great divisions and losses we see around us each day.