Voices of the Land - Hardcover

The eighteen writers in Voices of the Land are our neighbors. They are cooks, farmers, realtors, writers and architects. In essence, they are writing us letters about what it means to know a place; what it means to be stewards of the land. Through frank words and stunning photographs, these voices inspire us to think more deeply about how our actions affect the health and quality of our home ground.

A forest ecologist considers the role of his chainsaw in his backyard while a realtor wonders about the value of a hilltop site she is about to sell. Why clear a forest’s understory when it provides important habitat for birds and mammals? Why build on an exposed ridge when the house will be blown by cold winter winds? By questioning conventional approaches, they challenge presumptions about ‘developing’ land.

With a foreword by Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire, Second Nature) and photographs by Charles Lindsay (Menawai Shaman, Upstream: Fly Fishing in the American Midwest), Voices of the Land is a stunning tribute to land conservation efforts and a wonderful introduction to the process of connecting to a place.

Voices of the Land was commissioned by the Dutchess Land Conservancy and royalties from the book will support land conservation efforts.

"These photographs," says photographer Charles Lindsay, "are from two years of periodic wandering through forests, fields and wetlands to observe and photograph on behalf of this community. I returned to my favorite locations throughout the seasons to witness their changes and to reflect and work in different light. Moving slowly through a landscape, I’m drawn in visually but also by its smells and sounds: locust trees flowering, toads and screech owls calling in the fog, wind cracking branches, the smell of mint where deer have trampled it down by my pond. These are photographs from the extended place that I call home."