Grass: In Search of Human Habitat

Foreword

Foreword Grass: In Search of Human Habitat is the eleventh volume in the University of California Press’s series Organisms and Environments, whose unifying themes are the diversity of plants and animals, the ways they interact with each other and their surroundings, and the implications of those relationships for science and society. We seek books that promote unusual, even unexpected connections among seemingly disparate topics, and that are distinguished by the talents and perspectives of their authors. Previous volumes have spanned topics as diverse as ethnobiology and lizard evolution, but none has so directly and synthetically addressed our relationships with nature as this one. Joe Truett’s poignant, measured prose chronicles the life and times of a class of habitats that once occupied large swaths of North America. He conjures up wall-to-wall blue skies and endless grass, describes the ix transformative effects of prairie fire and millions of large herbivores. He explores cultural and economic factors that propel wholesale conversion of grasslands for production of cereals and livestock. Grass is thus about both our past and our future. At one level it provides scholarly yet easily accessible answers to a series of related questions: What are grasses? Where are they found and why? How do other inhabitants interact with the dominant vegetation? And over the long haul—from bipedal apes on Pliocene savannas, through prehistoric origins of agriculture, to the water-sucking golf courses and manicured lawns of today’s big cities— how have we occupied, utilized, and re-created grasslands? On another level Grass unfolds as a heartfelt memoir, a deeply personal yet scholarly meditation. We get a feel for wild places and feral lifestyles through the eyes of a shy country boy roaming the East Texas “piney woods” with a .22 rifle to put squirrels on the family table. We experience the pervasive influence of family and teachers, empathize with his visceral distaste for lawn mowers. Like many a youth, Joe imagines a more exciting outside world, goes to college, and finds cherished beliefs challenged . Later, as he gains the seasoned skills of a professional ecologist, we come to appreciate profound distinctions between tall- and shortgrass prairie, see how grasslands dominate under particular climatic regimes. Along the way he writes with firsthand authority about cattle, bison, prairie dogs, rural values and myths, and the false efficiencies of certain grazing practices. He describes with fairness and bemused curiosity what some regard as the ultimate in conservation initiatives, known as “Pleistocene re-wilding.” At stake here is the heart of one of our preeminent landscapes—what we’ve lost, what’s left, and what we might still have again. Grasslands boast some of the earth’s richest soils and, not surprisingly, some of its most productive and thus most endangered habitats. By the end of the nineteenth century, invading Europeans had driven the Great Plains’ once prevalent bison to the brink of extinction and severely modified most of that region to support agriculture. Now Brazilians are rapidly clearing tropical savannas for soy and sugarcane, and with them the homeland of maned wolves, giant armadillos, and other endemic wildlife. Joe is unapologetically uncomfortable with our rapacious, shortsighted ways. He x f o r e w o r d longs for a continuous prairie from southern Canada to northern Mexico, for human lifestyles more in tune with what’s biologically reasonable. And he makes a compelling case they’d be more sustainable as well as more emotionally rewarding. Author of an award-winning earlier book on his native East Texas and a respected scientist, Joe Truett works as a restoration ecologist and endangered species manager for one of the United States’ largest private landowners. His job is to put the likes of Bolson tortoises, black-footed ferrets, and Mexican wolves back on certain New Mexico ranches. He’s got grown children too, worries about their legacy, and asks, how will it all play out? In this wonderfully readable, quietly moving volume, he preaches hopeful skepticism and open-mindedness; he inspires a willingness to learn from nature and human history. In so doing, Grass sets the stage for a new conversation about what kind of world we’ll live in and with whom we’ll share the planet. Harry W. Greene f o r e w o r d xi This page intentionally left blank ...