Charles Seabrook's The World of the
Salt Marsh certainly qualifies as one of those books that every
Georgian should read because: a.) it's a thorough account of the
threatened ecosystem which includes 100 miles of Georgia coastline,
b.) it includes many portraits of Georgia men and women whose
economic and spiritual livelihood depend on a healthy salt marsh
environment and c.) as one might expect of all things “good for
you,” it requires a certain amount of suffering. In this case, the
reading of the book is a painful indictment on human shortsightedness.
Because marshes are pungent (“the
smell of the South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen and spilled
wine, all perfumed with seawater,” Seabrook quoting Pat Conroy”),
muddy and mosquito friendly, one usually doesn't think of salt
marshes as a national treasure. But Seabrook said during his panel
discussion with Janisse Ray at the 2012 Decatur Book festival, that
he wanted to make “the salt marsh sexy ” – a bold
self-directive.
Seabook's book is as a wealth of
information about all things salt marsh. He explains in great detail
the transitional zones of the marsh that are defined on how long
they remain under sea water, depending on the flow of the tides.
Then there is the wildlife that inhabit the marshlands: the
endangered diamondback terrapin, the declining population of oysters
and periwinkle snail, the latter which climbs the spartina grasses to
eat fungi off the upper leaves. Much of Seabrook's knowledge comes
first hand as he grew up in John's Island, just twenty minutes from
Charleston, South Carolina.
Seabrook mixes in stories of those who
live there such as his fisherman friend, 82 year old Edgar “Sonny”
Timmons and Cornelia Walker Bailey who has taken it upon herself to
actively preserve the Gullah-Geechee culture on Sapelo Island.
Leveraging his years as a journalist
for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Seabrook provides an
ongoing history of the litigation between developers and
industrialists who destroy these critical natural habitats and the
environmental scientists and activists who want to preserve it. (I
especially liked the chapter on the history of the University of
Georgia Marine Institute.) All in all, Seabrook has created quite a
gumbo of writing: history, biology, ecology and ethnography served a
soup stock of personal experience and memoir. He's not above taking
shots at developers, golfers, Yankees, and owners of strip malls that
have contributed to declining habitat. It sometimes can make for
disjointed reading and having a few detailed maps in the book would
have been appreciated as well.
I am not sure that Seabrook
accomplishes his goal of making salt marshes sexy, but any Georgian
(or Southerner) who reads this book won't be able to get the beauty
of salt marsh and the importance of preserving it out of his or her
mind.
Notes: Book, book cover art, and author photo provided courtesy of The University of Georgia Press. James Holland was the photographer of the Seabook photo.
