Nature’s Ghosts: The must-read prize-shortlisted new book on environmental history and conservation

Finalist for the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation ‘Sophie writes fantastically, documenting the most pressing issues nature conservationists face today.’ Chris Packham

For thousands of years, humans have been the architects of the natural world. Our activities have permanently altered the environment, both for better and for worse.

In Nature’s Ghosts, award-winning journalist Sophie Yeo examines how the planet would have looked before humans erased its diversity: from landscapes shaped by megafauna to the primeval forests that emerged after the last Ice Age, and from skies teeming with Dark Age eagles to the flower-covered farms of more recent centuries.

Uncovering the stories of the people who helped shape the landscape, she seeks their traces, even where there seem to be none. And she explores ancestral knowledge that can help repair our broken relationship with the land.