“The prairie landscape,” Trevor Herriot says, “has become one of the most altered on the planet.”
Herriot is a Canadian writer, naturalist and activist whose new book, Towards a Prairie Atonement, laments how early settlers mistreated not only Indigenous peoples but also the land. He spoke in Ottawa last month at an event hosted by the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC) and Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ). His thinking and writing have been influenced by faith, he said, and in particular by Catholic social teaching. He is usually reluctant to talk publicly or to write about faith as that is often unwelcome in media, academic and environmental circles. Therefore he expressed gratitude for being able to have such a conversation at the Ottawa event.