A Trillion Trees

Natural history and adventure travel collide in this powerful book about the decline and recovery of the world's forests--with a provocative argument for their survival.

In A Trillion Trees, veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce takes readers on a whirlwind journey through some of the most spectacular forests around the world. Along the way, he charts the extraordinary pace of forest destruction, and explores why some are beginning to recover.

With vivid, observant reporting, Pearce transports readers to the remote cloud forests of Ecuador, the swamps of Indonesia, the remains of a forest civilization in Nigeria, a mystifying mountain peak in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And he interviews the people who traditionally live and depend on these lands: Indigenous Amazonians, Nepalese hill dwellers, Kenyan farmers, and West African sawyers. They show him that forests are as much human landscapes as they are natural paradises. The lives of humans are now imprinted in forest ecology.

At the heart of Pearce's investigationis a provocative argument: planting more trees isn't the answer to declining forests. If given room and left to their own devices, forests and the people who live in them will fight back to restore their own domain.