Culture and nature, literature and landscape, sustainability and thought have merged together over many centuries. We read ancient authors and we hear how they spoke of their love and joy of their countryside. But why should the woks of the ancients and medieval, so far as it is related to nature be of interest and stimulation to our contemporaries? Music, literature and the visual arts are some of the central models of contemporary ecological thinking and are ideal ways of realising aims of liberal arts. That literature and art can express anxiety over the natural world or reflect environmental attitudes is nothing new. Literature and art actively intervene in helping to confront persuasive issues and to define the boundaries of what constitutes the environment, literally the nature itself, The history of the nature protection movement and the wider study of the relations between humanity and nature should be of interest to all who attempts to find a solution to the problems of pollution and environmental degradation. The historical past indicates useful parallels with the environmental present.