On March 16, 2012, Roy T. Sawyer delivered a lecture entitled "Eco-History of the Tidewater: The Long View." This lecture was session five of "From the Earth: The Environment in Virginia's Past and Future," a free day-long conference on the historical relationship between Virginia's environment and its people. The conference is made possible by a generous grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment. (Introduction by Andrew Talkov)