C Author

To Save the Wild Earth: Field Notes from the Environmental Frontline by Ric Careless

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"For more than 25 years Ric Careless has fought on the environmental frontline in British Columbia to save the wild earth. Tatshenshini River; Spatsizi Plateau; Nitinat Triangle; the Purcell Wilderness: these are a few of the areas Careless has helped to preserve for future generations -- almost 5.5 million acres of wilderness in all.

"Now Careless a gehind-the-scenes look at how environmental campaigns are fought and how they are won. To Save the Wild Earth is one man's firsthand experience of how countless people have come together again and again to save nature. 'Wilderness. It is a place, an experience, a tradition, a remembering, and a future,' writes Careless. With these words, he hopes to inspire people across North America to join the fight."
~~back cover

This book was an unexpected jewel, a sweetness beyond explaining. Although there is a modicum of biographical detail, the book is about the wilderness lands that had to be saved from exploitation and destruction. What most fascinated me was his practicality: Careless is no wild-eyed Earth First!er, but rather a man with a passion and dedication to save as much of the last unspoiled lands as he could for their own beauty, for their pristine remembrance of the world before man, the culture bearer, began to carve it to his own image. He learned to translate his passion into practicality -- to bring miners and loggers and developers to see the value in wilderness, and to recruit them to his cause. He formulated plans of action that drew the local populaces in, and which were fair and balanced to both sides.

It was an eye-opening story of how environmentalism can work well in this day of focus on the profit margin and the bottom line. And the descriptions of the wildernesses he traveled through, loved, and saved are lyric.

I could hardly put the book down.