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North Branch Project Featured in New Book

 

In the new book, Nature’s Restoration: People and Places on the Front Lines of Conservation (Island Press, 2006), writer Peter Friederici visits several very different locales where people are reforming humans’ essential relationship with nature and contributing to the evolution of conservation in the United States.

Between the campaign to bring back the blighted American chestnut to the Appalachians and a boat ride with activists seeking to restore Glen Canyon in the desert southwest, Nature’s Restoration shines the spotlight on Chicago Wilderness, specifically on the efforts of the North Branch Restoration Project at Somme Prairie Grove. Readers will hear echoes of William Stevens’ Miracle Under the Oaks, but Friederici brings his own colorful style of storytelling, important insights, and a graceful fluidity to the material (even as he gives a misleading currency to long-resolved conflicts over restoration approaches). Friederici, who grew up on the North Shore and now lives in Arizona, has written several features for Chicago WILDERNESS magazine. Order Nature’s Restoration.

— Elizabeth Riotto