Good Dirt: Confessions of a Conservationist - Paperback

by David E. Morine (Author), Paul Flint (Author)

The best-selling conservation classic, completely expanded, revised, and updated

David Morine was a briefcase conservationist specializing in human nature. During his fifteen years in charge of land acquisition for The Nature Conservancy, Morine helped protect more than three million acres of wilderness, finding plenty to laugh about and learn from along the way. Here are the stories behind the deals and the people who made them-an enlightening, entertaining, occasionally unsettling look at the dirty job of keeping America clean.

Back Jacket

David Morine was a briefcase conservationist specializing in human nature. During his eighteen years in charge of land acquisition for The Nature Conservancy, he directed the successful completion of more than 5,000 land conservation projects that resulted in the protection of more than three million acres of America's finest remaining forests, wetlands, deserts, islands, and rivers. Along the way he found plenty to learn and laugh about--people, nature, and, most of all, himself. Morine left the Conservancy in 1990 when he felt that it and other major conservation groups had become more focused on building big organizations than on saving land. Since that time he has kept a hand in conservation by sharing the lessons he learned at the Conservancy with local land trusts, especially those trying to protect our rivers and streams. With his usual humor, Morine shares many of these lessons in this new edition and gives conservationists, and anyone looking for an entertaining read, an enlightening inside look at the business of conservation.

Author Biography

Dave Morine is a native of the greater Boston area. From 1972 to 1990, he was the head of land acquisition for The Nature Conservancy, a major conservation organization. Morine left the Conservancy in 1990 and has been writing ever since.

GOOD DIRT: Confessions of a Conservationist (Globe Pequot Press, 1990; Ballantine paperback, 1993) was his first book, followed by The Class Choregus (North Atlantic Books, 1993). Next came PIT BULL: Lessons from Wall Street's Champion Trader (with Martin Schwartz and Paul Flint, Harper Business, 1998; Harper Perennial paperback, 1999), then VACATIONLAND: A Half Century Summering in Maine (DownEast Books, 2001), and most recently, SMALL CLAIMS: My Little Trials in Life (DownEast Books, June, 2003).

In addition to his books, Morine has contributed stories to Love of Labs (Voyageur Press, 1997), Love of Goldens (Voyageur Press, 1998), and Chicken Soup for the Baseball Fan's Soul (Health Communications, Inc., 2001). Articles, mostly about his work in conservation, have appeared in magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, DownEast, Field & Stream, Range, and American Forests.