HOMEbound Nature News - ISSUE 3

Happenings in the Substack Ecosphere || Pygmy Rabbit

Aug 24, 2024

Quick note: A Substack platform maintenance update (that I didn’t get the memo about) sucked away into the ether this month’s species profile of the Channel Islands Fox. I didn’t have time to rewrite it before departing for 10 days offline, so in lieu of a full profile, I’ll direct you to an update on a species I’ve written about before over at Fearless Green.

This month’s issue of the HOMEbound Nature News is brought to you by the pygmy rabbit.

Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit; U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

The Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, who I’ve written about before, here, is a separate subspecies from the pygmy rabbit that once widely roamed the western United States. Overall, the pygmy rabbits’ range has shrunk significantly due to human use of the landscape and human-caused climate change. As a result, the species is overdue for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (note the Columbia Basin subspecies is already listed for protection).

The rabbits’ stalwart advocates, the Center for Biological Diversity, have filed suit along with a coalition of other conservation groups in an attempt to force the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to act upon a listing petition and extend protections to these tiny fuzzballs. Read more about the pygmy rabbits and the legal effort to protect them here.

Happenings in the Substack Ecosphere

🌿 Announcements 🌿

Katharine Beckett Winship, who writes at Matters of Kinship, has put out an urgent call for nature lovers to send in their comments to Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, regarding the Park Service’s plan to cut down 1200 trees in a golf course project in Washington, D.C. Read more about it, and how to take action, here.

Nature with Hari Berrow has been giving over some time to explore the way we communicate environmental issues and nature with the general public. Hari has been coming at this from the perspective of celebrity and branding theory, but would like to hear your ideas about how we get people to care about the natural world.

You can read Hari’s first Stack on the subject here, and the rest are available for free on her page. So far she’s explored empathy, style and the nature of populism.

Hari is very keen to have as many voices as possible taking part in the conversation, would love it if you wanted to bring your own ideas and style to the discussion. There are already some brilliant writers set up to contribute something to the project, including the incredible Julie Gabrielli, so if you would like to contribute a piece for Hari to publish on her page, or post something on your own blog as part of ‘Where the Eyes go, the Car Goes’, please get in touch with her at anberrow@gmail.com.

Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, who writes at Speaking for the Trees, No Matter Where They’re From, has a new podcast of the same name. It’s available on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or pretty much anywhere else podcasts can be found.

Chris Clarke’s podcast, 90 Miles from Needles, is always informative and wise, and can be found in all the usual places. Thanks to Chris, who writes at Letters from the Desert, for quoting yours truly in episode S3E20.

Ray Zimmerman, who writes at Crane’s Eye View, shares the Coosa Chiefdom Day at Audubon Acres in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, area. Saturday, August 24, 2024, from 9:30am - 2:30pm.

Jan Elisabeth, who writes at Alchemical Wonderings, is launching a self-taught year long herbal course: Rest Heal Create Nurture – a year of herbal restoration.

This is an empowering, supportive course with practical recipes supported by accessible information, videos, audio, creative prompts and more. Arranged seasonally, the content can be followed at your own pace and all downloads are yours to keep, so you can revisit the content at any time. There is also a private forum on Mighty Networks, providing a place to discuss herbs with others doing the course, and to ask me questions. Find out more here!

Iain Robinson, who writes at This Party’s Over, is sharing extracts from a work-in-progress on an urgent wildlife survey effort to support opposition to a new road in Norfolk, UK, which would destroy a swath of old woods. Read more here.

🪺 Welcoming New Substackers

Huw Richards, Welsh gardener and permaculturist of deserved YouTube renown, is here on Substack with what promises to be an outstanding gardening journal. Huw’s food gardens are indescribably appealing and inspiring; I’ve been a video fan for years and love his books. I am so happy he’s joined us here! Give his journal a look.

Speaking of rainy-country gardeners, Kate Bradbury (whose recent book One Garden Against the World is a plaintive and beautiful account of a not-so-wet summer in her English wildlife garden) has also joined us here on Substack at her publication of the same name. Many in the British Isles will already be familiar with her work from the Guardian and BBC, but I’d encourage readers worldwide to check out her work.

🌲 Books 🌲

Erik Kvam, who writes at Regenerative Decision-making, announces a newly published e-book, We Can Reverse the Planet's Eco-crises, which solves the problem of the planet's cascading ecological crises through: first, mapping the decision-making system (called "the Human Enterprise") that is creating the planet's eco-crises, and second, using that mapping to design a decision-making process (called "regenerative decision-making") for reversing the planet's eco-crises as a whole.

Ray Zimmerman (Crane’s Eye View) will be reading from his books at the Chattanooga Authors’ Fair, Saturday, September 7, 2024.

Jan Elisabeth has a new book out — set in 2065 in a forest, it’s the story of a community in a more than challenging world based around 2 herbalists and it is also the story of the forest itself — the voice of the forest is storied in the header and footer of the novel with the community’s story in the panels across the centre of each page and the herbs that appear across the text each have their own colour.

smiling at grief in a house in a forest where life grows is published by Cinnamon Press, which is running a promotion open to those who purchase the book, with a prize of 20 books! Learn more about the book and the promotion here.

New Directory Listings

Welcome to the following Substackers, added or updated since our previous issue was published. We are at just over 250 nature-based publications here—what a delight it is to be a part of this force for the Earth!

Depth of Field by Nora Jane Long (United States)
John’s Substack by John Stuckey (United States)
Observations Afoot by Sarah Savage (United States)
Letters from a Wanderer by Emese-Réka Fromm (United States)
Crafty Green Poet by Juliet Wilson (Scotland)
Our Uncertain Future by Johanna DeBiase (United States)
Healing Woman by Aoibhín Swift (Europe & UK)
Het Oerbos by Dimitri Lambermont (The Netherlands)
Daily Dose of Nature by Cheryl and Csermely Magyar (Romania)

And that’s a wrap for this month!

Please feel free to send me your news items for next month, or any corrections, at: ourhome@substack.com

I’m off to no-internet land for 10 days! I’ll see you all when I get back.

Happy turning of the seasons…
🌲🦉 Rebecca

The HOMEbound Nature News and HOME | Nature Directory are labo(u)rs of love. It is important to me that these resources remain free in perpetuity. And yet, they represent many long hours of work, so any contributions are received with great gratitude.

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