If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
At the start of Treekeepers, Lauren E. Oakes recalls the feverish response to a 2019 study published in Science that claimed Earth could sustain 1.2 trillion new trees. Oakes—an ecologist and journalist—had spent more than a decade studying old-growth forests, and as she watched scientists debate the importance of tree planting in mitigating climate change, she found herself wanting to answer that question. 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. Most of all, it’s a hopeful profile of the people working to restore, retain and nurture strong forests.
It’s Time to Stand Up for Science
If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.
I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.
If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
