By Arely Media Perez, Greenhouse Coordinator

Published by Los Angeles Audubon Society in the Western Tanager, Vol 86 No. 3 Jan-Feb. 2020

One of the many privileges Mother Nature allows us is the miracle of growing our own food. Feeling the soil through our fingertips and under fingernails as we gently place a small fruit tree or strong-scented herb into the ground, joined with friends, family, or even strangers, helps us build a community of people who care about the earth and one another. Food from the Radical Center by Gary Paul Nabhan is a fascinating book about restoring the natural world and our food systems and connecting with each other as a community. Nabhan, an agricultural ecologist and ethnobotanist, is considered the groundbreaker of the local food movement and the heirloom seed saving movement. He speaks directly to readers about how “America has never felt more divided” but despite the hostility, we still manage to have people of many cultures and diversity come together to restore the land.

I connected with this book: it brought me back to the first time I planted a Coast live oak tree at the Kenneth Hahn Recreational Area during an Earth Day event during my high school years. When I realized I was contributing to my community and the Earth by caring for the life form I had placed into the ground with my own two hands, I felt incredibly great. I was surrounded by classmates, Los Angeles Audubon staff members, and volunteers who I had never met before, as we all worked carefully to add these important life forms back into the earth. I thought to myself, and still think, that nothing could possibly be better than this. Nabhan reminds his readers about the importance of community participation and empowerment: inclusion and diversity are key components to strong communities. Sharing his stories of the many influential individuals he spent time with farming, bringing back the Bison, and restoring an abundance of water to recover fish populations, Nabhan shows us that we too can have these experiences and enjoy the “conservation you can taste”.