This Land

How Cowboys, Capitalism and Corruption are Ruining the American West

De: Christopher Ketcham

Narrado por: Christopher Ketcham

A hard-hitting look at the battle now raging over the fate of the public lands in the American West--and a plea for the protection of these last wild places

The public lands of the western United States comprise some 450 million acres of grassland, steppe land, canyons, forests, and mountains. It's an American commons, and it is under assault as never before.

Journalist Christopher Ketcham has been documenting the confluence of commercial exploitation and governmental misconduct in this region for over a decade. His revelatory book takes the reader on a journey across these last wild places, to see how capitalism is killing our great commons. Ketcham begins in Utah, revealing the environmental destruction caused by unregulated public lands livestock grazing, and exposing rampant malfeasance in the federal land management agencies, who have been compromised by the profit-driven livestock and energy interests they are supposed to regulate. He then turns to the broad effects of those corrupt politics on wildlife. He tracks the Department of Interior's failure to implement and enforce the Endangered Species Act--including its stark betrayal of protections for the grizzly bear and the sage grouse--and investigates the destructive behavior of U.S. Wildlife Services in their shocking mass slaughter of animals that threaten the livestock industry. Along the way, Ketcham talks with ecologists, biologists, botanists, former government employees, whistleblowers, grassroots environmentalists and other citizens who are fighting to protect the public domain for future generations.

This Land is a colorful muckraking journey--part Edward Abbey, part Upton Sinclair--exposing the rot in American politics that is rapidly leading to the sell-out of our national heritage. The book ends with Ketcham's vision of ecological restoration for the American West: freeing the trampled, denuded ecosystems from the effects of grazing, enforcing the laws already in place to defend biodiversity, allowing the native species of the West to recover under a fully implemented Endangered Species Act, and establishing vast stretches of public land where there will be no development at all, not even for recreation.

Cover Photo courtesy of TWIG Media/Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

History and more

If you have, or will spend any time in the west you need to listen to this book. Incredible, lyrical and in many ways depressing.

Probably the best book I have listened to

This book is excellent, both in its content and its narration. I highly recommend it for anyone who cares about our public lands. It is well organized and gives the reader a good understanding of the dysfunctional dynamics brought about by our exploitative economic system. Anyone who cares deeply about the plight of wild animals would benefit from listening. Especially meaningful for those of us who live in the western United States but relevant to all. Very well narrated by the author.

An absolute must read

As someone who has walked from Mexico to Oregon I can personally attest to the destruction cows have reeked on the landscape and natural water sources, how clear cutting has scared the mountainsides with large geometric patterns of barren stumps and dirt. Listen to Ketcham. He tells the truth. Get this book.

Important read and very well written.

Written in such a way that these important issues stay engaging throughout. highly recommend this text for any citizen of the US, and anyone who claim to love nature, the environment, or the law.

One of the best books I have read in years

This book is beautifully written and the production, read by the author, carries with it a depth of feeling and emotion that align with the gravity of the book and the prose with which it was written. This book should be required reading and is one of the most important books I have read about the environment, the West and protecting public lands. I can’t recommend it more highly.