Literature

Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman: Conservation Heroes of the American Heartland

Tuesday, June 6          
8:00 PM

Miriam Horn tracked down five champions of an under-the-radar conservation movement, culling from their experiences both a book and a film. A veteran of the Environmental Defense Fund, Horn’s book Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman: Conservation Heroes of the American Heartland, couldn’t be more timely given the current anti-environmental campaign instigated by the Trump Administration. These apolitical figures are driven by the simplest and purist of motivations: love of the land.
   Horn uses a trip down the legendary Mississippi to tell the tales of Montana Rancher Dusty Crary; the fifth-generation family farm of Justin Knopf; Merritt Lane’s Canal Barge Company, founded by his grandfather in 1933; and Sandy Nguyen, a champion for Louisiana’s local seafood industry, working to save the wetlands that sustain the crab, shrimp and oysters they harvest. Then there is fisherman Wayne Werner, an advocate for effective fishing regulations and legislation. This band of self-motivating super heroes are working to save our natural resources, at a time when that is more vital than ever before.
  Horn’s book, published in 2016, became the basis for a film by the same title, narrated by Tom Brokaw, which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and will be shown this August on the Discovery Channel.