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How the path from climate change to a habitable future winds through the world's forests
In recent years, planting a tree has become a catchall to represent "doing something good for the planet". Many companies commit to planting a tree with every purchase. But who plants those trees and where? Will they flourish and offer the benefits that people expect? Can all the individual efforts around the world help remedy the ever-looming climate crisis?
In Treekeepers, Lauren E. Oakes takes us on a poetic and practical journey from the Scottish Highlands to the Panamanian jungle to meet the scientists, innovators, and local citizens who each offer part of the answer. Their work isn't just about planting lots of trees, but also about understanding what it takes to grow or regrow a forest and to protect what remains. Throughout, Oakes shows the complex roles of forests in the fight against climate change, and of the people who are giving trees a chance with hope for our mutual survival.
Timely, meticulously reported, and ultimately optimistic, Treekeepers teaches us how to live with a sense of urgency in our warming world, to find beauty in the present for ourselves and our children, and to take action big or small.
Lauren E. Oakes is a conservation scientist and science writer. She has held various appointments at Stanford University over many years, as a researcher, a lecturer, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Earth System Science. Author of In Search of the Canary Tree, she lives in Bozeman, Montana.
"Oakes dives into the world of forest restoration, carbon offsets, and ecosystem services, exploring how local communities can participate in and benefit from forest restoration initiatives [...] [Oakes] covers a lot of ground and does a lot of digging"
– Science Magazine
"This well-organized, well-researched, encouraging narrative looks at the work of reforestation on both the global and the local scale."
– Library Journal
"Treekeepers is an ambitious memoir of Oakes's boots-on-the-ground research under old-growth canopy and a rigorous exploration of forests and climate change [...] a hopeful profile of the people working to restore, retain and nurture strong forests."
– Scientific American
"[...] a comprehensive study of this crucial topic. [Oakes] presents both the rewards and challenges of maintaining healthy forests as a climate change solution, contributing significantly to the ongoing dialogue on environmental conservation and climate action [...] an earnest and in-depth exploration of innovative strategies to increase forest cover and the potential impact on our changing climate. [Treekeepers] serves as an important resource for those seeking to understand the complexities of forest conservation in the face of global environmental challenges."
– Kirkus Reviews
"thoroughly reported [...] A skillful combination of personal storytelling and scientific research, accompanied by the voices and stories of those helping to reverse deforestation and sustain forests into the future, this thoughtful text conveys the potential, and limits, of tree planting to sequester carbon in the environment."
– Booklist
"The author blends first-person reporting and ecology to winning effect [...] Readers will come away with a comprehensive understanding of what trees can and can't do for the environment."
– Publishers Weekly
"Can trees really save us? Oakes digs deep into the complexities of planting forests to soak up carbon. The result is a frank, probing, but ultimately hopeful book."
– Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction
"Ecologist Oakes has spent years exploring the potentials and pitfalls of the modern tree-planting movement. The result is Treekeepers, a deft and compelling story about the complex realities of growing and maintaining healthy forests, told with just the right blend of hope and warning."
– Thor Hanson, author of Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid
"Forests – especially mature ones, with big trees – are clearly crucial to our future. Here's an in-depth exploration of exactly why, and it's filled not just with numbers but with stories!"
– Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
"Lauren E. Oakes offers an in-depth portrait of tree planting around the world – its merits and limitations, too. Treekeepers brings forests, biodiversity, climate solutions, and global communities into one critical conversation about survival and our collective future."
– Ernest Moniz, 13th United States secretary of energy
"Oakes knows forests, and in Treekeepers, she introduces us to the vibrant global community working to restore forests of all kinds – and ensure our collective survival. An insightful, beautifully reported, and much-needed guide to the hope beyond the tree-planting hype."
– Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
"Planting trees, protecting, and restoring forests is definitely one of the ways to combat climate change. But only planting the right trees in the right places at the right time, and only restoring forests in the right way. Lauren Oakes travelled widely to gather her facts for this important and beautifully written book."
– Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, UN messenger of peace, and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute
"While we know nature alone can't solve our climate crisis, we also know it can't be solved without nature. That includes efforts like 1t.org to conserve, restore, and grow a trillion trees. In Treekeepers, Oakes shows the incredible power of our forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere. It's a call to action for everyone to work together to heal our planet for future generations."
– Marc Benioff, chair & CEO, Salesforce
