These books offer prismatic portraits of endangered landscapes across our continent through the various perspectives of some of the best of each region's writers. Testimony , the first Literature for a Land Ethic title, which was compiled by Terry Tempest Williams and Stephen Trimble, was published by Milkweed in 1996. A collection of essays from several highly regarded environmental writers, Testimony , was originally created as a limited edition presented to Congress in an attempt to urge the preservation of the Utah wilderness.
Testimony gives voice to the magnificence and quiet majesty of southern Utah's wilderness lands.
I found its essays and poems useful in setting a tone for what is at stake in the battle over Utah wilderness, particularly for those who had never experienced the lands of the Basin and Range or Colorado Plateau. If writing itself can be an act of public service, then this collection is it. This document laid the groundwork for The World As Home program and became a model of environmental advocacy writing. Three years later, Milkweed published a new Literature for a Land Ethic title called The Book of the Tongass , edited by Carolyn Servid and Donald Snow. This collection of essays examines the landscape and wildlife of the Tongass National Forest in the southeast corner of Alaska.