A Review of Doug Tallamy’s Newest Book
by Brian Allen
May 2020
Spring is here and the birds are back. To me, this is the most exciting time of the year, and needed especially now as we all get through this pandemic together. How timely then the arrival of Doug Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope, a guidebook for helping us enthusiastically improve our yards—and through that, our nation and world—to keep and make springtime better.
Unfortunately we are a minority, those of us—including most members of Saving Birds Thru Habitat—who have enough care in our hearts to make significant efforts to conserve our world, to protect our environment, and to save our birds. I imagine many of you are like me, carrying around a touch of frustration that we are not doing enough. Our efforts seem diminished by the crushing news of climate change, crashing bird populations, and indifferent politicians.
Doug Tallamy’s first books, including Bringing Nature Home, changed many of our lives. His illustrations of the important pyramid of life connecting native plants to healthy ecosystems and bird populations were a revelation and a significant change in perspective. They have given us what we need—a positive and encouraging outlook.
Nature’s Best Hope is a guide for us on how, despite the overwhelming difficulties and challenges facing us, we can make a difference from our homes throughout the entire world. As in his previous books, Tallamy presents new ideas and novel approaches for solving ecological problems. He points out that there are currently over twenty million acres of lawn in this country—more acreage than all the national parks combined. Although the scenery of our home and lawn probably does not rival that of the national parks, we alone can be the nature stewards of this immense area.
The Homegrown National Park concept in this book is an idea that bridges the appeal, carrying it from those of us who care through to those who are indifferent. It is a delight to read his firsthand accounts of neighbors protective and defensive of their sterile acreage of lawn who became avid birders and wildlife watchers once they converted their property into oases for butterflies and birds.
In addition to these conversations, Tallamy includes a fascinating illustration of the history and science showing the rich diversity of life—from the moth that depends on a small leaf pile to survive, to the brilliant Scarlet Tanager gleaning caterpillars from your oak tree. Having these things in your yard depends on your own landscaping decisions.
With a prescient book like this arriving during troubling times, Tallamy has given us a guide for how to love, explore, and care for our land. Even if we just have a small lot, creating our own Homegrown National Park has benefits that—along with the efforts of others—can spread across the country and create that hoped-for improvement in our world.
Brian Allen is one of Michigan’s most accomplished birders and a former member of the Saving Birds Thru Habitat Board of Directors.