Perfect for fans of English Pastoral and Wilding, Hoofprints on the Land shows that herding cultures are not a thing of the past but a regenerative model for our future.
Hoofprints on the Land is a fascinating and lyrical book exploring the deep and ancient working partnerships between people and animals. UN advocate and camel conservationist Ilse Köhler-Rollefson writes a passionate rallying cry for those invisible and forgotten herding cultures that exist all over the world, and how by embracing these traditional nomadic practices, we can help restore and regenerate the Earth. Ilse has spent the last 30 years living with and studying the Raika camel herders in Rajasthan, India, and she shows how pastoralists can address many of the problems humanity faces.
Whether it be sheep, cattle, reindeer, camels, alpacas, goats, or yaks-this ancient and natural means of keeping livestock challenges the myth that animal-free agriculture is the only way forward for a healthy planet.
From the need to produce food more sustainably and equitably to the consequences of climate change, land degradation and loss of biodiversity, we can learn from pastoralists to help repair the human relationship with livestock to return to a model of intelligent cooperation rather than dominance.
As Ilse writes: "Herding is therapy, not just for the planet, but also for our souls." "Grazing done right can improve biodiversity and regenerate pastureland. You will gain many insights into how to improve land from Hoofprints on the Land."-Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation
"Ilse's deep understanding of herding cultures, and their relationship with the land and life itself, is both moving and revelatory. Pastoralism, she shows us brilliantly, is not a marginal issue but a symbiotic partnership between animals, humans and ecosystems that should be at the heart of our efforts to heal the planet. I loved this book."-Isabella Tree, author of Wilding
"Ilse Köhler-Rollefson's Hoofprints on the Land reminds us that animals are not objects to be manipulated in factory farms. They are not a "technology" to be pushed to obsolescence and extinction in the new rush for making fake milk, fake cheese and fake meat. Ilse shows how animals are sentient beings, subjects not objects, members of our families. Animals should never have been put in factory farms. Factory farms violate the rights of animals and contribute to pollution, including climate change. Ilse shows that free-range animals and animals in pastoral cultures are a solution to climate change that factory farming has contributed to. She shows us how the highest love for animals is respecting them as family, living with them in a loving, caring relationship, as she does in the desert of Rajasthan."-Vandana Shiva, author of Terra Viva
"I never knew how fascinating a book about herding and grazing could be, never understood how vital is the part that pastoralists play concerning the health of the planet and its grazing animals. But I have drunk the delicious camel milk in Ilse Köhler-Rollefson's dairy, and am a convert to everything she espouses. This book is remarkable: scholarly, accessible and hugely important."-Joanna Lumley
"A beautiful, deeply thoughtful and intelligent book that completely reframes the fraught discussion around the role of animals in our food system. Every reader will not only learn a great deal but will also see the world in a new and better light."-Nicolette Hahn Niman, author of Defending Beef
"Entirely timely, unique and massively thought provoking. It raises a whole host of intriguing issues which often, in my view, although identified as pertinent to the Southern Hemisphere, have clear and painful parallels in the north. I am not sure that many involved with limited appreciations of how livestock farming works will realise these synergies. But they should be illuminated and understood. Ilse's depth of
