Conservationist Manifesto

Scott Russell Sanders, Distinguished Professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington, is the author of 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including Writing from the Center (IUP, 1995), Hunting for Hope, and A Private History of Awe. Sanders is winner of the Lannan Literary Award, John Burroughs Essay Award for Natural History, AWP Award in Creative Nonfiction, and the 2009 Mark Twain Award. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

• PrefacePart One: Caring for EarthBuilding ArksCommon WealthA Few Earthy WordsTwo StonesThe Warehouse and the WildernessPart Two: Caring for Our Home GroundThe Geography of SomewhereHometownOn Loan from the Sundance SeaBig Trees, Still Water, Tall GrassLimberlostPart Three: Caring for Generations to ComeWilderness as a Sabbath for the LandSimplicity and SanityStillnessA Conservationist ManifestoFor the ChildrenWords of ThanksFurther ReadingNotes

In this beautifully poetic set of meditations on conservation, Sanders issues a clarion call for reversing society's present path of ecological devastation and offers reflections on ways that individuals and society might provide better stewardship of the earth now and for future generations to come. . . . [His] eloquent book is a must-read for anyone committed to taking care of the natural world and passing it along to future generations.(ForeWord) Insightful essays . . . original and intriguing. . . . Sanders offers a 40-point Conservationist Manifesto, which, in its thoroughness, thoughtfulness and inclusion of environmental justice issues would serve the environmentalist community well.(Publishers Weekly) [Sanders] writes beautiful prose and never fails to stir our souls and imaginations. . . . In this awesome new book . . . Sanders outlines the practical, ecological, and ethical grounds for a conservation ethic.(Spirituality & Practice) This is a beautiful, right-minded, and reinforcing book for all who would be conservationists. . . . Scott Sanders gives us one of the most graceful tellings of our plight, with many examples of people protecting or restoring what counts. . . . We've never been more keenly in need of his loving manual for conserving what he calls 'the basic grammar of life.'(Orion Magazine) Sanders' style is full of the imagery and poetic prose of Aldo Leopold, the philosophic wanderings of Henry David Thoreau, and includes Wendell Berry's vital sense of place. A Conservationist Manifesto is sure to find its way on those treasured lists of must reads. (Indiana Living Green) A Conservationist Manifesto is a rich book and like a rich wine or rich dessert, it is meant to be savored. Sanders sees beyond the mass destruction of consumerism and prophetically calls us to the redemptive work of conserving creation and connecting deeply with our neighbors and the places in which we live. (Englewood Review of Books) In a world that focuses relentlessly on consumer culture, it's refreshing to read Scott Russell Sanders's plea for 'a new vision of the good life' in A Conservationist Manifesto.(Audubon) As an antidote to the destructive culture of consumption dominating American life today, this book calls for a culture of conservation that allows us to savor and preserve the world instead of devouring it. . . . [Its] main message is that conservation is not simply a personal virtue but a public one. (Abstracts of Public Administration, Development, and Environment) There are others writing about sustaining the planet and ourselves who should be read. . . . But there is something more to A Conservanist Manifesto. Sanders wirtes on a literary level that places him with Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Wallace Stegner, Annie Dillard, and Wendell Berry—to name a few. (The Bloomsbury Review)