New Photo Book an Homage to Last U.S. Wildlands

D.L. Parsell
for National Geographic News

October 29, 2002

National Geographic photographer Annie Griffiths Belt and prize-winning
author Barbara Kingsolver have collaborated on a new book that looks at
natural areas in the United States that have managed—almost
miraculously—to escape the crushing impacts of modern society.

Kingsolver, in the text, calls these scattered remnants of wilderness "a swan song for a continent that once roared with wild grandeur."

Belt produced many of the artistically stunning photos in the book using an approach that evokes the timeless appeal of wilderness areas. The book is organized by habitats: wetlands, woodlands, coasts, and so on. Woven into the text are the stories of five pioneering naturalists and conservationists—William Bartram, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Edward Abbey—who, Kingsolver said, "have seen through the centuries what most people don't yet get."

The book's title, Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands, reflects the authors' concern that unless people agree soon to halt the loss of the last great wild lands, generations to come could face a future devoid of the beauty, diversity, and spiritual solace that natural places provide. As Abbey once observed: "Even if I don't get to Alaska, I need to know it's there."

To help ensure that places like those in the book continue to be "there," Belt and Kingsolver have tied the book to conservation efforts. (See related sidebar for details on the Last Stand Fund.)

National Geographic News interviewed the two women about the project.

Was this project a collaboration from the beginning, or did that come later? What did you hope to accomplish by doing the book?

AGB: In my 25 years as a photographer, working in every region of the United States, I have often been struck by how little virgin land is left. I wanted to show what the land had looked like before it was inhabited. I wanted to create the images in a special style I had used to photograph natural history and which seemed to be effective. When I came up with the idea and got support from an Expeditions Council grant [from National Geographic], it allowed me to take a chance on a project that was very unusual—and something I wouldn't have tried early in my career.

Occasionally you have a vision for a project and you exceed what you set out to do. When I became interested in expanding the project to make a plan for conservation within our own country, I went to Barbara for advice. We had worked together on a National Geographic project years ago and I knew about her interest in conservation.

BK: Annie really started with the ideas behind this book years ago. She spent a long time giving birth to it and brought me in at the midwife stage. We talked a lot about how to organize the book. The day it began to percolate with me was when Annie came to my house and laid photos out on a table. I was overwhelmed with a sense of both timelessness and urgency. I was very much inspired by Annie's photos—it inspired me to look at these places as habitat types and include narratives for each.

How did you select the places featured in the book? Did you travel together?

AGB: I started with a lot of brainstorming, talking to people at The Nature Conservancy, America's Rivers, and other organizations. I had also traveled to a lot of places. I knew the book couldn't be comprehensive; it had to be representational. I spent about 10 weeks in the field, and the whole project took about a year. Combined with [the new photographs] was work I had already done, from color transparencies. The oldest shot in the book was actually taken 26 years ago.…But you really don't start out with a grand plan.

BK: Sometimes I work years on a book before I understand what's happening. A lot of what happens shaping a book goes on at the subconscious level.

Why, Annie, did you use this particular approach—hand-colored infrared black-and-white photos?

AGB: I was after a painterly, timeless look at these places. I had used the technique for a National Geographic story about [18th-century naturalist William] Bartram, and I thought it was the way to approach these photos. Infrared film is very powerful at mid-day. When shooting in a situation where there's a lot of infrared light, you get a lot of exposure and overexposure, lots of softness. If you're exposing correctly, the processing produces black-and-white images with a soft, romantic glow. And it becomes a canvas for colors.

I had never had an art class, but I knew the softest and easiest way to begin was with colored pencil. I never left that—I feared I wouldn't have control with oils and watercolors. It's very much an interpretive process, just putting the color down and trying to get the "feel."

You say in the book, Barbara, that "our task is to convince ourselves that wildness deserves to persist, not because of what it can give us but simply because of what it is." What is it?

BK: The whole book is an answer to that. That is the most difficult part of the task. We are a very efficient profit-centered society, with a history of looking at the world in terms of what it gives us. We've behaved for 200 years as if the resource base is unlimited.

Wood is an example. We have acted as if wood is a renewable resource, but it is not—not at the rate we're cutting down trees. And biodiversity: It's a resource we haven't yet learned to appreciate. We're still looking at it as something we can use up endlessly. When we try to convince ourselves we should save some place, we still look at it in terms of what it can give us, such as new medicines. There are symptoms of adolescence in our society. We haven't learned that biodiversity deserves to exist simply because of what it is. We're not a species with a God-given right to endure.

The other part of the story is that we are still profoundly ignorant about inner connections. The ozone is going away, oceans are starting to die, the climate has started to change. We are belatedly discovering that our lives depend on millions of kinds of life we don't even know about. For example, our food sources depend on millions of organisms we never see.

You note, Barbara, that your European ancestors arrived 200 years ago "with no spiritual capacity to see nature as anything other than raw material for human increase." That sounds a lot like attitudes today. How can we expect to change that if we haven't learned anything for 200 years?

BK: Our ancestors arrived at what appeared to be unlimited opportunities. There was a Judeo-Christian mandate that all of this was put here to use. It's very hard to change the stories that influence and drive a culture. It takes 200 years. The process is accelerated when more and more people see the end of the paradigm. Now, we are running out of chances.

This is an important moment in our history. We are smart enough to realize there are plenty of jobs in finding new ways to recycle things, new energy sources, and sustainable use of resources. If we're smart, we can do that before everything is gone. If not—if the tractor keeps rolling—then it will all be gone. Then we'll have to change.

I have a lot of hope. I think our kids will save us. Policy changes happen from the ground up…[and] 80 percent of Americans declare in poll after poll that the environment is an important priority. I have no doubt that things will change.

AGB: Americans as a rule do care about the environment. Most try to do their part on a daily basis, like dutifully hauling recyclables to the curb.

BK: And they want to do more. Education is a big part of this. That's what we hope to accomplish with this book. We wanted to do something both beautiful and useful, and we have very high hopes of what we want this book to do. By visiting these places, seeing this book, [we hope] people will be as moved as we've been in experiencing those places that are the most treasured places we have.

Tell me more about the conservation fund you helped establish in conjunction with the book.

AGB: When we set up the Last Stand Fund [which gives donors a print image from the book for contributions of at least U.S. $50], we were very careful to set a donation ceiling that was democratic. The fund will be managed by National Geographic's Development Office. Barbara and I will work with them to decide where the funds should go. But 100 percent will go to land conservation.

What inspired your interest in conservation?

BK: I was lucky enough to grow up in a place [Kentucky] where the woods were my school and church.

AGB: Growing up in the suburbs [of Minnesota]…I escaped to vacant lots, and I realized how it inspires the soul. Then, at the first newspaper where I worked, there were a lot of people who had an incredible love of the prairie. At National Geographic [retired director of photography] Bob Gilka put me to work in my own backyard; many of my early assignments for the magazine were on natural subjects. [Conservation] was a road I had not planned to travel. But as time went on, I became alarmed at how little of this land is left. I saw it in the prairie first, then realized it was a problem throughout the country.

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