Book Review - The World Atlas of Trees and Forests - Princeton University Press

 

     This is a mammoth tome, ambitious in scope and wonderfully informative in all that it delivers. A case could be made that there is no more critical time in the history of humans on Earth to ponder the importance of trees and their effect on climate, species diversity and extinction, and the very continuance of life as we have come to know it.

     The book is beautifully illustrated on every page and one appreciates the impact of digital photography in enhancing a text of this nature.

     We are marched through the various forest types found on earth - boreal, tropical rain forests, mangroves, temperate forests, savannahs and dry forests - and so on, with keys to the similarities and differences of each type as they exist in various parts of the world. A constant thread is that they have been modified, degraded, impaired, reduced in area or eliminated to serve short term human interest without due regard for their role in regulating weather patterns and régimes of hydrology. 

     As the impact of climate change becomes more apparent every day, and images of devastating wildfires and catastrophic floods of magnitudes never before experienced are increasingly commonplace, there is a general recognition that something needs to be done - and soon!

     Scientists have ever more sophisticated tools at their disposal and computer modeling is able to predict the outcomes of different strategies with increasing accuracy. Examining the results and initiating an appropriate response, however, often seem poles apart.

     In survey after survey taken before national elections, the environment ranks low on the issues motivating voters, and world 'leaders' seem equally unwilling to tackle the issue seriously. To quote directly from page 341 in the book, ".....we cannot walk away from trying to improve our understanding of forests as an earth system." Yet even today, in the face of massive evidence of the vital role of forests in maintaining climate equilibrium, when a man meets a tree it generally does not end well for the tree. 

     The wanton, willful and premeditated destruction of the Amazon rain forest continues, and vast swathes of rain forest in Malaysia continue to be converted to palm oil plantations, stripped of all diversity and effectively becoming green deserts.

    I urge everyone to use this book to learn what a tree is, how it functions, what its relationship with other organisms is - mycorrhizal fungi, for example, and even the complex synergy between different tree species. The canopy layer in a tropical rainforest is rich in species diversity, providing habitat for a myriad range of creatures, all of which are lost in a clearcut.

     Centuries ago, wise men were already sounding the alarm about the absolute destruction of forests. Despite increased awareness we still have not responded to the challenge in any significant way.

     In reading a book of this nature my respect and admiration for scientists is magnified a hundred fold, and despite the assertion by a former prominent politician that "scientists don't know what they are talking about", the sooner we start listening to scientists the better.

     I noticed a couple of grammatical errors that I will not dwell on, but I would be remiss not to point out an egregious blunder on page 101 where the text refers to Blue-winged Warblers but the accompanying photograph is of a Black-throated Blue Warbler. As a dedicated bibliophile it dismays me somewhat that these kinds of screwups seem to happen far too often. There may be processes that I don't understand, but I would have thought that the editorial review for as distinguished a publisher as Princeton University Press would ensure that such misplaced images are removed and corrected.

     I am left with the sense of having been privileged to read this text (I am already referring to it again and again) and it should be in every library everywhere, from hamlet to metropolis, to educate and inform an often indifferent population.

The World Atlas of Trees and Forests: Exploring Earth's Forest Ecosystems - Princeton University Press

Herman Shugart, Peter White, Sassan Saatchi, and Jérôme Chave.

Hardcover - US$55.00 - ISBN 9780691226743

400 pages - 9 x 12 inches (22.5 x 30 cm), 250+ colour illustrations

Publication: 20 September, 2022